another long weekend

The antifouling device showed up from Seabird, but much later than we expected. So, Honey Badger will not get a TBT facelift until Monday. Brad will do it on the boat, so we don't have to bring it (her? him?  ships are her, but AUVs?  No nautical lore to guide me here) back to the dock.  I requested a more adventurous track than just a box so we could look for gradients and test both the instruments and the website.  The delay is not a big deal, although everybody would have liked to send Honey Badger over the horizon today.  I'm not leaving until Tuesday, so we will have some final pictures of the glider to post. 

Here is the official farewell picture for Honey Badger. Many thanks to everybody here for helping out with this and not looking too annoyed when I got in the way.

And here's Honey Badger being loaded and a farewell to land for a long time:

Test deployment successful

Honey Badger spent a long memorial day weekend in the water off the Big Island.  We've got our data streams up and running, and the website can present graphs of data and position. We are very happy!  There are still a few things left to do. The towfish was not a happy camper and was quite negatively  buoyant.  Brad and I spent much of the day getting it reballasted and figuring out ways to rapidly vent trapped air.  The problem with the phyto-flash was fixed by the Keith in Sunnyvale (thanks!) and is working.  Brad is prepping Honey Badger for the long haul, touching up paint, and the like.  We had one 11th hour crisis when Brad asked "when was the anti-fouling device on the CTD replaced?"  My blank stare pretty much said it all.  We don't know.  So, after a hurried phone call to the vendor (Seabird Electronics), I got another set ordered and FEDEXed overnight to us for delivery on Friday.  Brad will swap them out on the boat in the test area.   Meanwhile, Honey Badger goes into the sea again tomorrow for the final ballast check of the towfish. We will let it tow 24 hours, test the remaining instrument's performance (the phyto-flash) and on Friday, Brad will install the new anti-fouling device at sea.  Then, Honey Badger is good to go!

We have not decided whether to hold station in the test area for the weekend, or just send Honey Badger off over the horizon.  A lot will depend on the ballasting situation.  Stay tuned.

Here's a youtube video of Honey Badger being unloaded from the support vessel:
http://youtu.be/bH5WhSC7py8

Brad checking the tow cable.

Derek touching up the paint on the towfish.  

Testing is underway

Honey Badger is out in the ops area, doing squares.  The instruments are generally performing well.  One of the fluorometers has a funky temperature sensor, but that's not a big deal since we will not be using those data anyway (the CTD is designed for this and the primary temperature source).  We will have to fix the phyto-flash when it gets back in.  We launched knowing it was not sending good data, but did not have the fix in hand before the weekend was upon us. So, rather than waste the time, we decided to set Honey Badger loose for the long weekend and implement the fix on Tuesday when we recover.

Here's an overview of what Honey Badger is doing at the moment.  It's just running a box in the test area off of the Big Island.

A close up shows the detail. It's reporting a CTD data set every 10 minutes and that is what these points are linking to. It is moving at an average speed of about 1 knot, so the points are not far apart.  Besides, it has been going over the sam box for about 2 days now, so the data is pretty dense!

Many thanks to Bob  Simons at NOAA for getting our data stream in order.  Cara and I are very grateful for his efforts as well as to Lynn Dewitt for putting together the website.  This is going to be so much fun!

Test launch

Honey Badger went into the ocean today at 14:37 Hawaii Standard Time (00:37 GMT).  All seems to be well although it is heavily laden and a bit low in the water.  Data is now flowing into the ERDDAP server, but we need to make sure all of it is there.  There are lots of details to work out but we are finally in the water!  Congrats to the entire team at LRI for making this happen.

Here's a track to date, posted at 17:02 HST. 

in Hawaii! First day of equipment checks

May 20, 2015

First full day of work here.  I (Tracy) stopped by yesterday and dropped off sampling bottles for them.  While they were out collecting water for me to filter as a Phyto-flash blank, Brad and Chuck  started on calibrating the C3s and I downloaded new software for the LISST-Holo.

There are some issues. We aren't seeing the C3s data uploads for some reason and the LISST-Holo is giving me errors linked to intermittent power failures. This is very odd since we have no evidence of power flickers in the building, but I guess it does not take much. I've moved the system to a different circuit panel altogether for the last run of the evening.

Some pictures of the day:

Honey Badger on display. The tank in the back is where the buoyancy testing for the tow fish was taking place
 

Brad doing a  buoyancy check on the towfish

 Chuck in the innards of the SV2 working on the C3 fluorometers

 Brad taking the LISST-Holo out of the towfish for the software upgrade

Field deployment is about to begin

I'm heading out to Hawaii on Monday to conduct a short field test and then the deployment for the summer's mission.  I  have to calibrate the pigment sensors and do a filtered water blank of the Phyto-flash. This is an important correction for this instrument and it has to be done at the last minute. 

After we launch on Friday, Honey Badger will have a 3 day weekend in the test area off of Kawaihae Harbor (northwest corner of the Big Island).  We will recover it, download the holographic data, and then the LRI team will conduct the final nuts and bolts prep for a multiple month mission.  

Right now, the area looks pretty empty: 

However, the bloom season doesn't really start until July, so we have plenty of time to get up to  30° N and wait.  The feature in the upper left of the image is the transition zone chlorophyll front. It will migrate north as the waters warm and will not be a factor in our sampling.  

More from Hawaii!

-Tracy