Wally I Takes the Plunge

May 31st @ 8:30 am – Houston… Wally has landed. On a research ship like this, where the focus is primarily on the seafloor, it doesn’t matter whether it is night or day, the activities run 24 hours a day. ROPOS, with Wally strapped to its underside, began its descent early this morning, around 2 am, and reached the gas hydrate fields along at Barkley a few moments ago.

Where I usually sit in the main lab, Wally was only a metre away, so although parting is such sweet sorrow, I can’t wait to see him in action on the seafloor, especially since the drivers will be sitting in Bremen, Germany and operating Wally through the Internet. He’ll be down there ‘sniffing’ around the gas hydrates, surveying the seafloor and managing experiments for about a year, before once again coming up for cleaning and servicing, when his twin (who we will pull off the bottom in few hours) takes his place.

Wally used to have a bumper sticker on him that read: “How’s My Driving? Call…” and there was a phone number in Germany. But on the last deployment, Wally accidently disengaged from the underside of ROPOS at the surface, and plummeted all the way down to the sea floor (rather than the slow, controlled descent that is the norm). And though he survived the plunge unscathed, he now has a new message on his backside: “Fragile! Do Not Drop” (see photo below, top right).

Blog post and photos by Scott Doehler 
Marine Educator