Readings from the Thompsons Data Acquisition System:

Latitude:47 degrees 55 minutes North
Longitude: 129 degrees 6.minutes West
Sea Temperature: 13.45 degrees C
Depth: 2201.2 meters
Air temperature: 13.467 degrees C
Humidity: 97.07%
Wind speed: 4.1 meters/second Wind direction:174.2 degrees
Barometer: 1012.65 millibars

There was a lull in the action on the ocean floor for a number of days while we waited out the weather, eager for the wind and the swells to abide. People made good use of the time. Adjustments and fine tuning of instruments and gear were the order of the day. Watches were canceled. Laundry, exercise, lectures, and reading assumed a new and higher priority in the overall scheme of things. Plans and strategies for the balance of the cruise were reviewed and revised as the hours and days went by. Ship time is a finite commodity. The Tully will leave the site on July 11 and the Thompson will be in Seattle on July 18. There are no allowances or extensions for bad weather or rescue efforts.

Yesterday, as the conditions began to settle, two baskets of line were lowered by winch and placed with care on the bottom by winch. Last night, ROPOS went over the side and documented one structure, retrieved a recovery frame, placed it over another sulfide structure, cinched the three cables on the frame, sawed the structure, retrieved the line from the basket, attached the line to the frame, and called it a night. All week long images of last summer's NASA Pathfinder Mission to Mars have run through my mind. The alien landscape, the delicacy and difficulty of working with remote robotics, the naming of structures, the intensity of the team, the links to the formation of the Earth and the origin and distribution of life in the universe. You have to remind yourself constantly that what seem like simple phrases with everyday verbs, objects, and a prepositional phrase, often take hours, happen under extreme pressure and conditions, and represent thousands of hours of effort by dozens of people over the last two years. (I must admit that last night another image flashed through my mind. As I stood in the ROPOS control room, watching the cage being lowered over the sulfide structure -- known as Phang -- I had visions of King Kong, being captured and caged, for transport to New York.)

Today another phase of the operation swings into gear. The Tully stood off the stern of the Thomspon early this morning. There were transits back and forth between the two ships with scientists, engineers, and the camera crew making the journey on a foggy, but flat ocean. Now with a telemetry package in the water, an acoustic release will be triggered on the line basket and a float will bring the line on the recovery cage to the surface. Once the float reaches the surface and is located, the Zodiac from the Thomspon will recover the line and take it to the Tully. And Phang will start the first leg of its journey from the ocean floor to New York City.

Myles Gordon