What's Happening Today - Nov. 7

Last night was a bit bouncy. As Atlantis steamed south we encountered the stormy seas that blow out of the Gulf of Tehuantepec, which is near the border between Mexico and Guatemala. This gulf is notorious for channeling storms out to sea in the eastern Pacific in this region. As we steamed across this area the seas and wind built, and the weather today was mostly overcast and cloudy with rain this evening.

As I write this, at about 8:30pm, Tom Crook is directing the survey of the southern two transponders. We're right on schedule and hope to finish up with transponder deployments in the wee hours of tomorrow morning and be ready to dunk the DSL-120A sonar fish before breakfast.

Today was spent getting the DSL-120A sonar ready, taking care of organizing the sonar data processing - which Margo Edwards and her HMRG group will take the lead on, and planning the survey lines and picking the start and end points of each of the four lines we plan to run first. Each line should take just under a day to collect, so- by Sunday - we hope to have completed the first survey and be ready to send ABE to the seafloor for a test run.

Big news today was two birthdays. Gary Austin, one of the DSL team members responsible for the sonar fish, and Jenni Morgan, a graduate student at Leeds University in the UK. Happy Birthday to both of you.

Best Regards,

Dan Fornari

Manny Lopes, one of the Ordinary Seaman on Atlantis, getting ready to wash down the decks.

Paul Johnson, from the Hawaii Mapping Research Group, working on getting ready to process sonar data in the Computer Lab.

Rod Catanach, a member of WHOI's ABE group working on the ABE vehicle.

Members of the Deep Submergence Operations Group (DSOG) getting ready to deploy transponders this evening. The transponders are the yellow balls in back of the guys. From left: Bruce Strickrott, Gavin Eppard, Pete Collins, and Pat Hickey, the Expedition Leader.

Jenni Morgan and Gary Austin celebrated their birthday today. Happy Birthday!