Escape from Munising and Homeward Bound

I decided to make the most of Munising. I took young Russ over to the Painted Rocks Golf Course nearby and we rented clubs and a cart for 9 holes and it only cost us 25 dollars apiece, amazing rates for a very well maintained and beautiful track. Broke 50 (49), found 9 balls for Russ (who shot 77), had great fun, relaxed and took a mental vacation. Yep, I golfed for a mental vacation, you did read that correctly. Later in the week, in between a couple of bikerides (some for sightseeing, some for PizzaHut runs), the Captain, Maxwell and I bowled 4 games. Prior to bowling I had to explain what candlepin bowling was and why it was awesome. Apparently, candlepin bowling is a very unique thing. I proceed to not bowl terrible well, hitting 134 for my best game, and did not get the high score during any game, but had plenty of fun nevertheless.

To Cummings Engines: How are you still in business? First, 3 of your turbos blow. The most recent 2 stranding us in Munising. Then we ask for parts and techs. They arrive...3 days later than originally promised, and when they DO arrive you forget half of the parts that were ordered. Then just when everything is fixed, 30 minutes offshore a piston ring cracks!!

This recent engine trouble resulted in a couple of things: limping home to Milwaukee, bypassing the Chicago trip completely (weather may have been an issue anyway) on one engine (again). Once in Milwaukee, after a couple of days disassembling the instruments and putting things away for the winter months, we were finally laid off until winter work called.

As it is, I am leaving the Lake Guardian for a couple months tomorrow!

The summer season has been a trying one, but a successful one in my opinion!

Last survey and the longest way around

I'll skip through the survey and get to the interesting stuff. The survey was a carbon copy of summer survey, just more detailed for Lake Superior specifically. Nothing to report there.

Our good weather karma caught up to us with 10 stations (out of 50+) to go. So we wandered into Houghton, MI again for 3 days. Keweenaw Brewing Company (and their $2.50 pints) saw us coming as soon as the bad weather forecast was posting, I am pretty sure. Many a dollar was spent there during our three day stay, to be sure, but the Captain, Johna and I also made sure to do SOMETHING else. This 'something' was a 23 mile bikeride up the Keweenaw Waterway to the northern end to see the waves crash upon the Keweenaw Peninsula. The bike ride was rewarding, the waves were not. Still, though the Upper Peninsula is beautiful country and the fall air felt good inside the lungs, for sure. After a false start, we finally finished up the last survey of the year; a great feeling. We then kicked the science team off the boat in Duluth and turned out to sea once more, with Milwaukee on our minds...

...but it was not to be. Not only did we spend our whether karma, but we must have incurred some sort of karma deficit in Houghton, as during my watch, bad things happened. Port engine overheated. Then starboard. Black smoke pouring out of both stacks. We used all the power we could muster to cruise 3.5 kts into Munising, MI. Diagnosis, both turbo's toasted (including the one that was replaced a month ago) and bearings are stuck and all SORTS OF BAD. Looking like at least 5 days in Munising.

Munising, MI you say? You ask where it is and what's it's story? Well, let me tell you.

Munising, MI is on the UP, it is surrounded by beautiful woods and hills and the leaves are turning. It is also  very near the Painted Rock National Lakeshore (which people love up here, and its kinda cool, but not THAT cool, pretty bland actually, but I digress) which is the key for it being an eco-tourism town. There are plenty of boat charters for fishing and sightseeing. The Park Service is here, the park is nearby(ish). Here we are, September 19th and nearly all tourist businesses are folded up for the winter. There is also a coal plant here with two huge coal mounds near where we are docked that semi-obstructs the town's view of the water. There is a Pizza Hut and a Hardees. There are supposed to be many waterfalls nearby. According to Wiki, it is a town of 5 sq mi and 2500 people. That's what Wiki says. I say I walked the entire town today and it is 8x7 streets. 2500 people? Maybe...but they stay inside and ...do whatever they do all day. This town could be awesome! Just plop in a couple restaurants, a couple science labs and bang, you've got an awesome, eco-touristy town. What I see is a sad sack village with nothing to do and I can't imagine the people that go to high school here. What do they DO!? There's no sports fields or parks to play around or anything!

Munising, MI, I cannot wait to leave. I'd rather be in Milwaukee (never expected to say that).

A Labor Day in Duluth

Labor Day was celebrated in Duluth by breaking from my routine of just wasting hours biking to Park Point and back and decided to join Max in his plans. He had befriended a local bartender and tattoo artist (and canvas) in the area and we went with them to Jay Cook state park for a hike along the St. Louis River, which took us over some ancient weathered landscape. Then we reached a sticking point. We knew we wanted to grill food, but we had no grill for this purpose, until our new friends volunteered to invest in a $40 dollar propane camping grill. back on track, Max and I provided the grilling labor. Hamburgers, bison burgers, cheddar brats, cheddar and jalepeno brats, chips and potato salad, sun, calm breeze, it was an excellent setting. We then proceeded to hike around some more and did some stone hopping across some rougher terrain to the site of a beautiful falls. The water in this area is very red due to red clay and iron oxide deposits in the region and it looks much dirtier than it actually is.

After leaving the park, 3 of us went to enjoy a beer, where I ran into the family of a former teammate at the University of Maine. they recognized my Maine Swimming t-shirt and proceeded to introduce themselves and then take pictures with me. It was quite the 'small world' moment.

We then rejoined our 4th member and went out to yet another park, this on the northern lakeshore, where we burned up some firewood and chatted around the fire and we capped the great day by trying to stay warm, with temperatures diving into the low 40's that night. It was a fully packed day and a great way to celebrate Labor Day (even if I did have to work during the pre-lunch hours).

Just a finishing touch, before leaving on the Duluth Lower Food Web survey, I bought 1/2 lb of Smoked Salmon, and it is so amazing, the candy of the sea, no doubt.

The Conclusion of Summer Survey, T-R-I-A-X-U-S spells trouble

Arriving in Sault Ste. Marie for a while we waited for the science teams to arrive provided me time to finally walk around this town. Which was 50% under construction, regarding the roads, anyway. A couple of us crew members decided to try out the new brewery in town. They only had 2 beers on tap (4 brewing, though) but both were given positive reviews by us. The setting was very interesting...large booths with little conversational privacy, with families gathering to consume adult beverages while their children played with toys and they all ate tv dinners they brought from home. We then went to this fine dining place and had some very excellent meals (which was an apparent rarity in the town) and even two bottles of red wine. I had not previously enjoyed wine in quite a while, but one of these bottles I didn't mind at all.

After we stepped outside of the restaurant, we decided to play the miniature golf course next door. I led things off with one of my 3 holes-in-one and proceeded to coast to a first place finish. This clearly means that I need to hit up an actually golf course very soon. It has been too long. My confidence is far too high.

The next day was a perfect day, with sun all around. This was a perfect opportunity to swim. So many of us took the plunge into the St. Mary's River. It was advertised as very cold...these were blatant lies. The water was a nice 72 deg F...and the air was 75 deg F...awesome conditions for a relaxing swim. 1 hour later, up the lock we go, Superior at long last.

Lake Superior, I called it 'The Vacation Lake', due to the 2-3+ hour transits in between stations compared to that of Erie, which was more like 20-40+ minutes between. The pace is much more relaxed, though Superior did take a while to get through, as a whole. The northern shore of Superior has a very similar landscape to that of coastal Maine, without the tidal effect. It's nice to be visually reminded of home every once in a while, even if it does make me more anxious to return.

Eventually, we made it to Duluth. We unloaded all of the samples we had gathered along with most of the science team and recharged our batteries before we were to embark on a circumnavigation of the US side of Superior with the Triaxus debau-machine.

I decided to ride out to the end of Park Point on my bike with perpetually flat tyres. 30 minutes to the nice park area. Nice open area for activities, nice playground for the kids, nice sandy beaches with cool sand dunes and dune trails to walk... and maybe 10 people were there total. Sad. It took 40 minutes to ride back against a stiff breeze. It felt good to exercise, something that often gets lost in between watches on the boat. I plan on returning in the future, without a doubt. I also tried to bike up Duluth's massively steep hill and regretted it. I mean, seriously, how can these people possible travel in the winter? Accidents just must be assumed. I would build a cage around my entire vehicle just to live here in the winter. Everything is on a hill. I was tired and I gained absolutely nothing from it. No finding cooler places in town (just the ghettos) and nothing but pain and then wearing on my already feeble brakes heading home.

In seemingly no time, it was Triaxus time, yet again. There was nothing much to this. Just steer the boat along the coast, about 3/10 mile offshore, and take it out for a checkup about every 6hrs. Until the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula heading west, near Bete Grise Harbor (ok ok ok, we also may gave acquired a fishing net too...but that is a minor one and the pump not working that one time, mysteriously). My shift has 1 hour left. All of the sudden the Triaxus decided to do its best impression of Shamu, it (without any human intervention or program change) flew towards the surface and breached unexpectedly. I kept it from hitting the bottom (in 20m water), as goal #1 always is) and we retrieved it for inspection. Nothing out of the ordinary was found, nor WAS there anything out of the ordinary. It was all very confusing. Unfortunately, this was a bad omen. A really bad one. For after we retrieved it next, the moisture alarm sounded (very bad) and once that was supposedly fixed, the battery would not receive power. The Triaxus survey was...NOT COMPLETED...we put it on IR for the year. Not even the Danish engineers could put Humpty Dumpty back together again (but our head Marine Tech since HAS, hat tip to Johna). What does this mean? Another day in Duluth (almost a week total) before our next survey. Lake Superior again, lots of stations. Looming large. Yikes.

Just before this event happened, I saw my second display of the Northern Lights; this time, a more brilliant, longer lasting display of dancing greens on the horizon...but still nothing over my head. Something to shoot for, Mother Nature.

Duluth has a restaurant with 3 dollar pizzas during happy hour. These pizzas are also delicious. The restaurant chain? Old Chicago.

Back at the boat, we are working on getting the 3 decks painted in between what has been and will be some nasty weather here in Duluth. Speaking of which, Autumn has definitely arrived. Low 60 F high temperatures and dry Canadian air. It feels good. No more oppressive humidity. Though it may be chillier on the lake, that is fine with me.

The Welland Experience, Port of Rochester, Fated for Failure

After a rough ride in Erie, we took the Welland Canal through to Ontario. For those who do not know, the Welland Canal is a series of eight locks that allow ships to move 100m up and down the Niagara Escarpment and to bypass Niagara falls without having to navigate shallow, uncertain rivers from Ontario to Huron. The Welland Canal broke ground in 1824 and was initially completed in 1829. The current version of the Canal was started in 1913 and finished in 1939. It is allegedly due for a replacement/facelift in the year 2030, so there is that to look forward to, I suppose. The canal is quite something to pass through, but it sure it an antique. Crumbling rebar concrete is all around you, and the gates to each lock are somewhat shaky. Still, though, the feat of engineering cannot be discounted. I worked the sternline downbound for the entire 8 hours it took us to pass through, and I apparently did a decent enough job.

I then fell asleep, which is regrettable, because I missed the station that took us right outside Toronto at night and we were not to pass by it on the way back west, much to my chagrin, but I did enjoy my rest.

Lake Ontario surprised me with its depth. I had expected it to be much like Lake Erie, which has an average station depth of 30m, but instead, Ontario showed an average station depth of around 150m, much like Huron and Michigan. Lake Ontario also played tricks on my mind (I think). I swear that every so often, when I stepped outside, I smelled the ocean. Or some sort of brackish water mass. I swear it. Either my sense of smell is fine tuned for this particle or my mind is trying to get back to the biggest of lakes. I cannot decide which is actually the case.

In Ontario, we stopped in the Port of Rochester, NY for a day and a half for some R & R. I found it to be a cross between a retirement community (most street walkers looked like Florida winterers) and a tourist destination (beachgoers, bar patrons). Speaking of beachgoers, that was our crew of younger sailors. We went to the beach. The most regulated beach I had ever seen in my life. A lifeguard chair for every 20m of beach. A designated swimming zone (by the way, us 6 ft and up folks could WALK out to the edge of this zone, the beach gradient was so gradual and if we overshot the line by 2 feet, we'd be squawked at by a lifeguard). Want to bring a toy to the beach? Don't bother, they're not allowed. All this fuss over what? The beach was right beside a rivermouth. This means nutrient loading of the water and the result of that is algae. Lots of algae. Rancid clumps on the beach and 2-4 inches underneath your feet within the swimming area. When a lightning storm drew near (but not overhead) the lifeguards started buzzing like bees, forcing people off the sand and out of the water as if an alien invasion were imminent, coupled with repetitive, obnoxious announcements over the loudspeaker every 5 minutes, which inevitably drew mockery from us, much to the delight of obviously annoyed beach patrons. Overall, I was disappointed.

I saw a grown man ride a carousel. Oh wait, that was Russ. Never seen someone so old so hellbent on riding one. Lightning shut it down (why?) so he had to convince them to let him sit on it while not in motion (this is different that turning it on during a storm how?) so he could get a photo snapped.

After Rochester, we started our journey back west. I slept through the upbound transit through the Welland and was only on watch for one of the 3 stations designated for this graduate student. Her survey plan, which included the deployment of sediment traps in the Spring, was awfully faulty. The traps has no real marker to retrieve them by and predictably we went 0/3 on recovery. She wanted to do a net trawl, but the net for so poorly designed it shredded immediately. Wasting our time, is all we have done for her.

After a quick science team trade off in Detroit, we are headed for Ste. St. Marie and beyond into the last lake of summer survey: Superior.

Michigan, Back Alley dental deals, Huron, the city formerly known as Detroit and pea soup on Erie

This summer survey is surely moving fast!

We flew around Michigan in 4 days before stopping for the night in St. Ignace, a tourist town on the northern side of the Mackinac Bridge. It was here were two very strange things happened. Number one: I walked into a bar and they had the largest TV dedicated to NESN. What? All the others were broadcasting Det v KC, naturally. The second oddity came when Russell, the ordinary seaman, decided that enough was enough with a toothache. He called every dentist in the area before one offered to pull it (that was Russell's wish anyway) for $75 at 9.30pm. Russell showed up at the bar 1 hour later with a bloody mouth full of gauze, a drink order and one less tooth. Bridgework is undoubtedly on the horizon. He's signing Captain up to remove the stitches in the coming days. Should provide mid-cruise entertainment, at the least.

Huron flew by just as fast and we stopped in Detroit for a full night this time. Max's friends came down and took us out to the Greek part of the city...where I saw...less people than I would have thought. Apparently, Mondays are 'stay home days' for (most) bums looking for handouts and citizens of Detroit alike...if a Tiger game were occurring, the city would 'have really been alive' said Detroit residents...I'm not so sure. I agree with Captain, take a look at Detroit/Hiroshima in 1945 and then now and try to guess which one got nuked. Most would guess Detroit.

Once we entered Erie, it was mandated by higher powers (who have indeed, just stepped onboard the ship during our stay in Detroit in a science crew turnover), that we do a nice and nerve wracking Triaxus (remember this character) through a very large algal bloom in the west basin of Erie at 3 m deep in 8m deep water. The water was thick as pea soup (or a 'shot of wheat grass' as the term was by others on the boat) with the plankton. Very cool stuff to be in the middle of, to be sure.

A Summer of Survey begins

Not much has happened in recent days. A quick synopsis:

The COSEE survey finished up nicely, Duluth is still a great town (temperature was much more cooperative), 3 hours before we made it back to Milwaukee our Turbocharger blew up.

What? Turbo...did what?

Yep, blew up. The shaft fracture and ripped the unit in half, rendering our portside engine dead.

Then there was the fireball that blew the stack cover off...think: car backfiring.

We spent 4 days in Milwaukee prepping for the big shebang -- the summer survey....and waiting for our new turbo to arrive (it did, and it's working...for now)

The summer survey is a 4 week excursion through every basin of each of the 5 Great Lakes (Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario and Superior in order). I will be lucky to feel land for this time.

The first shift has been a spectacular display of midwest lightning storms. Thunder in the distance soon became a full on storm cell. I felt like the boat was on the inside of one of those static electricity balls looking out. Bolts of lightning were hitting the water in all 360 degrees. The thunder was rapid and deafening at times. At one point, we broke into a clearing, with the sunset on our starboard and the everlasting lightning show on our left. Once the sun did set, we were overtaken by another cell and the night sky looked like a sheet with many fluorescent lightbulbs struggling to stay on. Rapidly flashing bright, then off, then dim, then bright in a random pattern. Very cool stuff.

Skylights

Today at 2am I saw the Northern Lights for the first time. It started as a hazy ambient light on the horizon and grew to a foggy grey arc in the distance. Then it distorted along the top and before I knew it, a greyish-green stripe appeared in the middle of this pseudo-fog bank. Very cool. I can now half cross it off the life checklist...I'm holding out for a full blown dancing display.

COSEE Part One

COSEE: A 8 day cruise packed full of scientist agendas, working like crazy around the clock. Oh, and high school teachers get to learn how science is done on the Great Lakes. My shift is 8pm to 8am (special thanks to Max for taking this trip off to move).

Prior to this cruise though, I manage to drop a 100+ lb stainless steel filtering apparatus on my shin/foot resulting in significant bruising and minor bleeding. Lesson learned, take the time to disassemble, rather than the time it takes to kill one's self.

After a couple days of teachers and scientists coming aboard with their luggage and equipment respectively, I was itching to leave port. After too many days, there is very little to do. Things are clean. Broken things are fixed. Time is spent idle and uncomfortable. Finally, after some teacher field trips and orientations were finished, we were set to depart.

Immediately, one of their 'test instruments' a 'Manta trawl' was an initial failure. Obviously so. The design gave to no chance to skim the surface for plastics. Dive. Dive. Dive. We were the first to try this method of sampling on the Great Lakes (and it eventually worked, with some design improvements) so that was pretty neat.

The first night out of Duluth, we were doing sampling just off the coast of the city. It looked great from the water. The boat's safety officer (kind of an odd fellow) spent the first 23 years of his life in Duluth and yet could not tell Duluth from 'Port Black', a false name given in response to "what city is that?" by the ordinary seaman, Russ. High comedy.

At this moment, I am in Houghton, Michigan. Look it up. Pretty remote place. We decided to duck in here, because there was a weather event that started during the night. Russ and I dominated it, thought. 6 ft seas, 30kt winds and we were loving it. Eventually, the Captain and the science team decided it would be best to stop sampling until the event passed. So here we are, Houghton, Michigan. Yet another location protected from the intense heat wave hitting the rest of the country at 56 deg F.

Superior sailing

My first trip to Lake Superior was courtesy of Clarkson University faculty and student (from Uganda, working on his pH.D), who were investigating the relationship between atmospheric pollutants (pharmaceuticals/personal hygiene products) and the Great Lakes. We set up high volume air filters and ran lakewater through 3 different pumps (surface, midlevel, mercury filtered) for these people at two 24 hr stations (Keweenaw Point and the Apostle Islands). Everything went as planned. No excitement at all.

We dropped the science team off in Superior, WI instead of the original plan of Duluth, MN due to a Maritime Festival with an abundance of tall ships in port. This meant that for most of the crew, travel was restricted to Superior, a poorer suburb of Duluth about 15 min by car outside the city.

However, I was very lucky. My awesome girlfriend decided to come visit in Duluth and booked a hotel and rental car!

This made for a much richer experience for me, not just sleeping in a bed I could actually sprawl out in. We both toured the city by foot, checked out the local eateries before taking a scenic drive about an hour north to see the sights. Unfortunately, due to the economic strain, Minnesota decided to shut down their government during her stay. We were unable to see Split Rock Lighthouse (settled for a very very foggy picnic) but we were able to enjoy the lovely Gooseberry Falls and the Two Harbors Light. Definitely a nice trip. The roads reminded me of the drive to Quebec from Skowhegan, ME, very rural, with the presence of urban sprawl.

It should be noted that the average heat index was in the mid-90's with a humidity of around 80% minimum during my time here. Very sticky. Next time I stop in Duluth, it has work to do.

The Saga Continues...

The problem child was at it again (the Triaxus, Max, not you)...Max, the MT whose shift I relieve, knocked on my door after 4 hours of restless sleep. It was only 9.30pm, my shift starts at 11.45pm, what was going on THIS time?

Apparently the Triaxus had managed to fly into a piece of debris or something, causing a significant tension spike on the smartcable. The plan was to bring it on deck for a quick inspection and then release it if nothing was damaged too badly (all of the data recording instruments continued to work flawlessly). We were all ready to execute this plan until we both realized that the smart cable was not working anymore, stranding the Triaxus behind us. We tried switching the winch controls to remote and then local locations, turning the winch off for a 10 count, but none of this was working. Soon enough, the whole boat was awake. The Captain looked at the inside wiring, but everything checked out. Eventually, we turned the winch off for a longer period of time, say 2 minutes, and somehow this worked. With the winch operational again, we brought the Triaxus on deck to find that one of the 4 pontoons had taken a direct hit to the front, crumpling the cone shape flat, as you might see a defective milk jug base. Embedded in the wound was a few chips of old looking wood. A tree? A mast? Any guess is as good as the other. I told Captain I would make him a T-Shirt stating "Nearshore Towing Rules!"; he had previously stated that he hates nearshore towing, because its a suicide mission. Not exactly what he envisioned when he requested the Triaxus to match the people at UMinnesota (who do deep water measurements, as the Captain wanted). Apparently this damage was quite minor compared to other incidents in the past and the Triaxus was redeployed and was not troublesome during my shift, at least.

Side note: The Triaxus is made of carbon fiber, and there is a local RaceCar body repair guy in Milwaukee who is on speed-dial for these occasions. The last bill was for only $3,500, a small sum in my estimation, especially seeing this most recent 'ding' and it being called a scratch in comparison.

Adrenaline shift

Today's 6am-noon shift was one to put into the books.

I woke up at 5.15am and soon thereafter the MT I was relieving knocked at my door, telling me we were 'on station' and needed my assistance. So I hurriedly ran down to the wetlab and got everything ready. Skipping breakfast. Not good. Still in the am fog (in my head, not outside), we deployed the Rosette, flawlessly and then moved to the Triaxus. This is where things got interesting. I was in charge of the Triaxus once it entered the water, and I acted within protocol to a 'T' from my end. Unfortunately, the inexperienced mate, in charge of the boat during my watch, had come up to towing speed faster than I could safely pay out cable to the Triaxus and the result was a machine that was 90 deg off center, trying to right itself, while skiing behind the boat at 6 kts. The result of this was an intense amount of chirping in my ear questioning my actions. I was just happy I could see the Triaxus, I told the mate to slow the boat down until the Triaxus submerged, when it did, everything ran smoothly (almost). There were some glitches in the software that were not interfering...yet. At this point, I was wide awake, and ready for breakfast.

The next fun time came exactly 6 hrs later, when I was being relieved. Tell me if this sounds familiar: Rosette went spectacularly, Triaxus in the water, everything going well. Yes? Well as soon at the MT that was relieving me went to change into comfortable footwear and fetch some iced coffee, the software froze in front of me. This is kinda awful. And it froze at the bottom of an undulation. About 2 m from the bottom. No communication. I started running through failsafe options. Click. Nope. Click. Nope. Pay in cable? Nope, not that. I look up and there is the Triaxus, at the surface, correctly oriented. Apparently, if communication is broken this is what it does. I tell the Captain to slow down while I sprint out and reel the sucker in. Looks ok? Maybe? The other MT returns and reboots the software, we re-pay out the cable and start the program...it seems as though I was able to avoid being fired TWICE in one day. It could possibly be a miracle, if there ever was one. I hate this machine. Stop towing it nearshore, EPA, it is not reliable.

The jobkiller encounter

Its name? Triaxus. A million dollar piece of data collecting machinery that gets towed behind the ship at 6kts moving up and down and up and down and up and down...a line on a computer screen...but I cannot fall asleep, because if it breaks from the program for one second....its claimed 3 jobs already...almost one job that wasn't even involved. Thankfully, watches were not staggered for us MT's and 3 heads are better than one rookie's guess and the result was the first successful Triaxus survey in a year! We are legends. I get to do it SOLO for the first time next week...should be interesting. No pressure.

Back here in Milwaukee...

My first paycheck went through! How exciting! I can take a deep breathe of increased financial stability...

...but I can't breathe TOO deeply. Today, with high winds from the south, the coal field/hill/mountain next door lost some of its product and as a result, it rained coal all day today. Hair, skin, eyes, throat. To recap: winds from east = sewage, south = coal rain.

We also filled the boat up with fuel for the first time since I arrived 3 weeks ago...at about 2/3 empty...the bill was $100K...our trip to Lake Erie and back accounted for $31K of that total. I'll just put that on my Mastercard....

First science mission

The fruit of 2.5 days travel has just passed by in the last 14 hours. I was on shift for 5 of them. Out of the 10 stations we collected data at, I operated the equipment for 4 of them. I did not break anything, nor did I get yelled at, we'll call this a great success.

Time to go home (another 2.5 days travel)....

All this time and money...and for what? Apparently these Dissolved Oxygen surveys have been conducted since 1982 by the EPA because it was discovered that Lake Erie becomes anoxic during late August (ppm<2 vs 9ppm during this survey). According to the EPA scientists on board, this happens like clockwork every year and he wonders why time and money are wasted on this when they could be focused on other, newer points of interest (nearshore activity). I ask the same question, why not run this survey every 5 years from a ship based in Lake Erie to see if the pattern ever deviates from what we have mapped out at the present time? Seems like a reasonable proposal, so it will probably never happen.

Detroit is a much nicer city than you might have been led to believe (or at least I was...)...from the water anyway...I got to see the Joe Louis Arena and GM place, the two things that stuck out for me anyway...Windsor, Ontario just across the river still looks like a better place to be...must be tough to live in Detroit, just for that one reason alone.

Mayday...?

Yesterday..?...we left Milwaukee for Lake Erie, where we will collect samples for a dissolved oxygen survey. It is about a 2 day steam to Erie and here in the middle of day 2, at 7.30am we overheard a mayday call on the radio.

Spellbound, a 41 foot sailboat(!), was hailing the nearest Coast Guard station (Ste. St. Marie) and trying to give their coordinates for rescue. The radio operator aboard the Spellbound, however, could not use the radio properly it seemed and for the next 20 minutes, the Coast Guard kept asking for them. Finally, a younger voice aboard the Spellbound arrived and in 5 minutes, we had the coordinates, off someone's cellphone. They were only 6 nm away, the Captain was awoken and he gave the order to break course and see if we could help. As we made our way over there we heard information given to the Coast Guard. Things like: we're taking on water, the engines are out (reason for distress), we have no sails, we're hypothermic, send a helicopter, and had been adrift for ~14 hours. Upon arrival we learned more, like: not taking on water (unless raining --- weirrrrdddd), sails were present, just lost rigging during the bad storms that had been taking place the last...week, and they were up and walking around (not hypothermic at all, just 'cold and wet'---there was no foul weather gear in sight...it had been raining for a week, I repeat, a week). The Captain, a navy veteran, did not seem overly impressed by this mayday call and proceeded to interrogate the Spellbound's 2 man crew (what looked like a grandfather and grandson) about the situation. The words, not really in distress were frequently said during this discussion. We had plenty of time, too, as the Coast Guard was not to arrive for about an hour. By the time they arrived, half the crew had woken to see want the increase and decrease in speed during their sleep meant and it had become a circus. This was made official when the rescue Helo came and started circling awaiting instruction. I thought, "Just go back to base now - save your fuel." They waited 10 more minutes for the boat to arrive. They assessed the situation much the same as we did and told us we were free to go, to stop babysitting these people. We finally left them, with Captain cursing them under his breath, exclaiming he'd put them in jail for a false mayday call...I shared his sympathies. What a complete waste of time...there were still sails (that were not shredded) and at least half of the jib/jenny sheet to get to shore with, they just gave up hope. Quit. It is assumed that the Coast Guard left them to float around some more, having them call a private tow service (since the Coast Guard does not tow) to get them to land.

All I can think is: "These people don't deserve a boat" and "what a misappropriation of government funds for these sods."

In other news, the Mackinac Bridge is quite something to see...even if it was shrouded in dense fog. A feat of engineering to be sure.

Milwaukee, at first glance

Let me just give you an idea of what I have experienced of Milwaukee so far.

When I am working on the Lake Guardian in port, this is what I see. A research facilty/warehouse, a liquid pavement lot, a human waste to fertilizer lot (when the wind is jusssst right, this is miserable), a coal plant, and the world's largest 4 faced clock. There are many smells that sting the nostrils, to be sure.

I haven't yet been able to explore much, but I can say this, I am deeply entrenched within the latino ghetto. Most of the signs are not in English, and its not a great part of town, either. To the north, there is more of an inner city feel, more bars, shops, tall buildings. More to the north, more of a college town feel, college bars (I outgrew those in a hurry: give me space, let me sit down, don't make me wait in line etc etc etc)

Today I went south. From what I saw, I liked it. Reminded me of smalltown, Maine a bit. Just had that feel of old shops and buildings along a main drag, with residential streets on either side. More exploration is definitely needed. I barely have a clue where anything is.

First Cruise - Purdue University SCAMP and AUV Survey

After a week of reading instrument/software/hardware manuals and practicing operating the various winches/instruments that I will eventually use on the Lake Guardian, my first test was an easy one. A group of 7 recently graduated/Ph.D/Masters civil engineers from Purdue made their way aboard for a couple of days in the exact middle of Lake Michigan.

My first shift was uneventful. Due to weather, the captain had called off all activities from 12am-6am at least (the duration of my watch)...the challenge was staying awake. The second shift (6pm-12am)...their SCAMP instrument managed to get caught on the underside of the boat...then it started to pour...aside from listening to the BRUINS WIN THE STANLEY CUP...the rest of the shift was just as slow as the first. When I had awoken, the sun was out, the SCAMP was freed, and come 12pm, I was called into action. My role was to drive the Rescue boat (Vega) with 3 scientists aboard (along with the SCAMP and AUV) towards their selected GPS coordinates as they took their measurements. Thanks to 30 minutes of smallboat training two days prior, I handled this like a champ, and everything went smoothly, even when the fog was so dense I had a 10m sight radius.

Along with the smallboat chauffeuring, I was given duties practicing preparing and deploying the SeaBird, a contraption with multiple instruments used for taking chemical/physical properties and samples of the water column. This involves steady use of the winch and knowledge of the computer software that records the data taken by the SeaBird.

After the fun in the Vega was over, we steamed back to Milwaukee, where we will be until the Lake Erie dissolved oxygen survey starting on the 21st of June.

The arrival

It was a Wednesday. It was a HOT Wednesday. I left Indianapolis airport, said goodbye to my lovely girlfriend, put on my working boots, so to speak and hopped on a plane, a very small plane. As I boarded, I thought they'd made a mistake. "There is no way there is a seat 15B on this plane," I thought, as I walked down the aisle. Sure enough, 15B put me as far back as possible, the only row behind the wing. I wasn't alone though, a nice lady from the backcountry of Wisconsin proved more than capable of making the hour flight seem like 15 minutes. When I landed in Milwaukee, there was no relief from the heat, with temps reaching 90 F on the water, the R/V Lake Guardian, my new home fro the next 4 months.

I am not the only one joining the crew mid-season, and this is a relief. 1/3 of the crew (and 2/3 of marine technicians - my position) are new to the boat and just getting settled in, easing the pressure that I had been feeling to perform up to snuff early. The crew is pretty dynamic with the mates and deckhands from the midwestern US and the engineers from the Gulf, trying to pay the bills as the Gulf recovers from the BP oil spill. The marine techs come from Colorado, Michigan (by way of Cape Cod). Apparently we are the only position not represented by a union. I'm too naive to care. I am desperately needing money and experience, and for the next four months, that is exactly what I expect to receive.