Lindsey Longway's blog

During week nine it hit me that I really wasn’t finished with my project at all. That was a scary realization, but it motivated me to start wrapping it up. I went through all the meta-data I have so far and started trying to fill the gaps. I’ve also written the first draft of my paper. As for daily activities, my week was filled with working on drifters. So far we’ve gotten the pipes, cut them, ground PVC circles to put inside and water-proof them, and we’ve glued water-proof lids onto one end of the pipes. Hopefully their underwater sails will arrive soon!

Week eight was a long week. We began with a day focused on Pt. Adams, where we began the fabrication for the surface level at the station. I also worked on the part of my meta-data project that outlines the maintenance process at Pt. Adams. On Tuesday we went to CBNC3 to see if the seabed CT could be coerced into communicating, apparently though, it didn’t feel like it. So after that we went back out to Pt. Adams to work on installing the surface station. Wednesday was spent working with the radio link system as there was a mutiny among the SWAP Nodes.

It seems impossible that it is already Friday. This week has flashed past in a blur of boats and special projects. We began on Monday with a dive at Saturn03 to retrieve an outdated cage of instruments. It was the first surface supplied air dive that I’ve been privy to this summer and it was pretty cool. We could talk to Michael from the surface since his helmet had a microphone in it. Once we retrieved the instruments we had to go back to the shop and prepare all the things we were going to need to do the Oceanography camp on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Last week was busy as always, which is one reason I'm updating this on Monday and not last Friday. Anyway, week six was taken up by my project, the midterm presentation and all the other work that goes on around here. We worked with the glider a lot, trying to get her ready for going out this week. And we're also beginning to work on several drifters which will be placed into the plume so it can be mapped. On Thursday I found out that Greta and I would be in charge of working with the Oceanography camp kids when they come out tomorrow.

I can't believe that it's been five weeks and my internship here is already half over! I feel like I'm just starting to get into the swing of things.

     This week has gone by surprisingly fast. We’ve been doing a whole bunch of dives at the stations. All of them this week were to retrieve the seabed CT from a station and replace it with one that was clean and in good working order. We didn’t dive on Monday, but we did go to Pt. Adams (SATURN 03) to clean the pump and thermistor and replace the antenna. On Tuesday we had an early dive at the Sand Island Light station.

Another busy week has passed us by in Astoria. We’ve been updating, cleaning, and fixing stations out on the river every day. On Monday we headed out to Desdemona Sands Light to replace the solar controller and battery. Then on Tuesday we headed out on an early dive at Jetty A where we replaced the old seabed CT with a new one. (I think the old one looked pretty cool with all its barnacles.) Wednesday saw us back at Desdemona trying to figure out why the radio wasn’t reporting. We also had to go back to Jetty A to finish setting up the CT. We were supposed to dive out at Pt.

Things have definitely started picking up this week here in Astoria. Everyone started breathing again after the site visit on Monday and the real work of the summer seems to have begun. There are several things I’m working on currently, besides my daily duties of helping out with station upkeep. In addition to gathering metadata on the stations I have been told to start learning about CMOP’s database and how to update it. This means learning about network interactions and the computer language PHP.

     It’s been a brilliantly exciting week out here in Astoria. On Tuesday I was overwhelmed with acronyms and uses for the field instruments (CTD: Conductivity, Temperature, Depth. CT: Conductivity, Temperature. ADCP: Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler. etc.) and then taken out to set up a station underneath the Astoria-Megler Bridge. I have to say, I felt pretty cool setting up scientific instruments with all the cars rushing by above me. Wednesday started at 5:00am because we had to meet the boat and take the glider out to its first data collection point.