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We left Victoria Harbor yesterday around 9 a.m. with the help of a pilot. The first 8 hours of the transit were very pleasant as we traveled through the Straits of Juan de Fuca, though there was a beating coming. We had the beautiful coastlines of Canada and the US on either side of us, … Continued
Today is the official start to our #Subseafloor Life cruise, but instead of heading out to Axial Seamount, we are sitting on anchor in Victoria Harbor. The weather report at Axial Seamount is not good. There are 5- to 6-meter swells and 25+ knot winds, and those conditions are predicted to last until Tuesday night. … Continued
The expedition ended with a marathon dive through a portion of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and the successful completion of a long day’s hunt. The target was Tully Canyon, on the U.S. side of the borderline, and it’s considered an important pathway for lower oxygen water offshore to make its way inshore. As … Continued
The most notable event today wasn’t a dive, but rather a hastily arranged rendezvous with the Coast Guard. Last Monday there was a terrible helicopter crash in the Arctic Circle. While returning to the Amundsen, a Canadian icebreaker and research ship, the helicopter went down, killing three people—the ship’s captain, the pilot, and a scientist. There … Continued
It was strange. All of a sudden, working across the canyon at 800 meters, a cloud of sediment had engulfed the ROPOS ROV. You couldn’t see much of anything. But the cloud didn’t seem to be flowing down the canyon, as you would expect if sediment on a slope had given way somewhere. Instead, the … Continued
It’s not fish we’re looking for, but tonight we found them anyway. As soon as we saw the bottom at about 300 meters, there were halibut, a sea skate, and a dogfish. Then, before long, we saw the first of 3 giant Pacific octopi, curled up on the side of a rock and apparently unbothered … Continued
Today, on the expedition’s deepest dive at 2,000 meters, ROPOS ventured through an area quite different from others we’ve explored. Toward the end, the team collected a coveted sample of what may be a new species of sea anemone, and that would prove a stark reminder of why it’s important to see an animal in … Continued
Kim Juniper spotted something strange out of the corner of his eye on the ROV monitor yesterday—even though he was distracted at the time by a phone call. The chance discovery would prove one of the more interesting targets of today’s explorations, and may even have yielded a new species. But that was just one … Continued
Today was a mix of mechanical achievements and pure exploration—in one case unplanned—that led to the discovery of two surprisingly large deep coral habitats. After the launch and long drive to the bottom, the day’s first task was to attach another oxygen sensor, this one at the NEPTUNE observatory’s only instrument package along the deepest … Continued
