Day 6: Early in the morning

The entire crew was up and about at 2 am this morning. The ship slowed, and we came to a stop at our first station.The first of our task was to retrieve a tow-fish that is being used to stabilize a passive sampling device. This sampler is being towed all the way from Barbados to Senegal. The ocean segments are 700 nautical miles apart on average. After each segment, we switch out the filters and place the device back into the water.The device is a sandwich of two metal grates (which clamp together) and in-between lay a specially coated plastic film which attracts black carbon. One of the grad students here is studying the impact of black carbon (carbon which is stripped of its organic compounds) and its effects on carbon cycle.Our primary task at each station is to send the multi-corer or grabber (claw) down. We tried for our first sample of the sea floor and it took some time for the grabber to descend. We were 4600 meters above the sea floor and the trick is to send the grabber down as fast as possible without having it trigger before it reaches the ground. The grabber is designed to impact on the ground, Trigger a release and take a scoop out of the ground below. The grabber is heavy and weighs 800 lbs.It took one and a half hours to reach the bottom. We started with a slow descent and maxed out at 60 m/m (meters per minute). It took the same amount of time on the way up, and so the total time for one attempt could be as long as 4 hours. Taking samples at depths of 5000 meters is no laughing matter. On more than one occasion, we have had to re-cast because of device failure.