Overview and First Few Days

This blog has two purposes, informing family, friends, and anyone else that might be interested in what I, along with many others from ,WHOI – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts, Scripps Institute - University of California at San Diego, Indiana State University, crew of the research vessel Atlantis, and the Alvin research group, will doing off the coast of Costa Rica. I will try and post as many pictures as possible. Some of you may have read the article in the Tribune Star about a local school teacher, Brian Wrightsman, here is a link to his blog http://blogs.indstate.edu/~wpmu/brian . I am very thankful for Brian, because I wouldn't have many pictures to choose from without him. And the main one……….to get my mom her long awaited new Mac computer from her loving husband…..Hi dad ;)

I will try and keep this blog updated everyday or so, work schedule permitting.

A little about what will be happening over the next three weeks and how I got to be here.

I was asked to accompany Dr. Tony Rathburn, Dept. of Geology at ISU and two graduate students of his, Jason Waggoner, and Brian Wrightsman, to operate a Multi-corer sediment machine, that takes ocean floor samples, aboard the research vessel Atlantis. [My very beautiful and loving wife Sommer, allowed me to take time away from her, Bella, Magnolia, and Hazel to come, and for that I could of not asked for more. I love You] Tony is trying to "show me the light" (Oceanography), as he so gracefully puts it, over dendrochronology....so far, he's doing a pretty nice job.

Atlantis, is owned by the United States Navy, but is operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts. It operates a one man submersible submarine called "Alvin" (famous for finding and exploring the Titanic in 1986), and one un-manned submersible sub called "Jason". For way more info, visit http://www.atlanis.whoi.edu/ , there are many more pictures on this site of the ships and subs in action.

(R/V Atlantis at night, off the port of Punteranus, Costa Rica; Alvin in its garage, being worked on by two techs)

(And me....pondering the fact that more people have been to space, than have been under 2000m of water)

The first few days of our trip were spent in the town of Puntarenus, Costa Rica. We had alittle time to site see and visit the rain forest. We did some zip-lines that hung approximately 400 feet over the forest floor.....pretty rad!!!

(Tony and I stoked about getting ready to get on a zip line in the rainforest)

http://www.turibari.com/

Driving in Costa Rica is one of the most dangerous things I have ever experienced. There are no shoulders to pass, winding roads that are more times than not, marked with lane dividers....so every few minutes I'm holding onto my rosery beads. [I know your praying for me Nelly....thanks.]

2-20-09
Yesterday, we finished putting together the rest of our lab. Everything has to be tied down while we’re aboard for obvious reasons, which makes for a clustered and ratty looking setup. There is a lot that goes into setting up an oceanography lab.....lots of labeling.....but this is home for the next few weeks. For those of you that are familiar with google earth, as of a few weeks ago, you can now go under the ocean floor and............track where Alvin is currently diving!!! The WHOI site posted above has pretty neat links of what will be brought from the dives too.

We also started and have almost completed our multi-corer machine (completed since). It is a device that is lowered to the bottom of the ocean, and enables sea floor sediments to be taken. This devive has eight cylinders that penetrate the ocean floor, and has a firing mechanism that releases pins to trap the sediments.

Current temperatures here are in the high 80’s,
Which means that I am burnt, just like Sommer said would happen if I didn’t pay attention....as usual. My "Grizzely Adams" had to come off because of the heat and a chance of putting on ECB (Emergency Breathing Appratuses) in Alvin. Not to mention, the Jesus comments......

(Jason is in the blue shirt and Brian in red)