A Research Vessel, Top to Bottom. August 15-16, 1999 @Sea correspondent/ photographer, Mark Carroll August 15, Gulf of Mexico, 120 miles west of Naples, Florida -- "It's always Monday morning, eight o'clock out here," said sub pilot Phil Santos, astutely summarizing the work environment aboard the R/V EDWIN LINK. Captain George Gunther watches over the sea from the bridge of the Research Vessel EDWIN LINK (RVEL). The ship's giant A-frame crane is reflected in the window. He was right. No one really keeps track of days at sea; weekends have no meaning, no context. However, today was a little different than the rest. The work didn't stop, it just slowed. Even the laboratories, ordinarily a constant blur of activity, slowed to a leisurely pace -- light-hearted banter taking the place of scientific conversations. Perhaps everyone knows subliminally that it is Sunday. Off-watch, Second Mate Matt Skelly relaxes for a few hours while fishing from the stern of the RVEL. I wandered onto the bridge to check out the view (easily the best on board with 20 large windows forming a semi-circle that looks out over the ocean). The weather fax was grinding out its daily report next to Captain George Gunther. "No hurricanes," he said, looking down at the curled fax. "That's always a good sign." This is the hurricane season, though. So, the crew keeps a vigilant eye on the weather. "With our marine weather fax we can track disturbances as far away as Africa," the Captain explained assuredly. "You almost have to try to get caught in a hurricane now days with all the technology and advanced warnings." I filed that reassuring thought in the back of my mind and left the bridge (before the Captain relayed some unsavory fact about hurricanes that I didn't want to know). Shortly before I had wandered onto the bridge, my digital camera had died. Falsely believing the problem was only a little humidity condensed inside the sensitive electronics, I took the camera to hottest place aboard the ship: the engine room. If the heat didn't fix it, I figured Steven Hyde, the ship's Chief Engineer, might having some MacGyver-like insight into my dilemma.

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Enveloped in deafening noise, Chief Engineer Steven Hyde moves across the ship's engine room to monitor a set of fuel gauges. Beyond the reach of potentially dangerous noise from the engine room, Hyde removes his ear protection and pronounces my broken camera incurable. I found Hyde sweating over his workbench just a few feet away from one of the vessel's two main engines. To say the room was loud would be a radical understatement. The noise is explosive. Entering without ear protection would be flat out crazy, and permanently damaging. Over the roar, I yelled to him that I had just come from the bridge, and there was no need to worry about hurricanes. Hyde couldn't quite hear my attempt at humor. He did, apparently, catch my mention of the bridge. "Captains get you there. Engineers get you home!" he joked. Hyde turned towards a set of guages, scribbled some notes in his log, then motioned for me to follow him into a tunnel that runs along the bottom of the ship. A safe distance from the roar of the engine room, Hyde ran off the engine room specs. "We've got two, 16-V149 Detroits, 940 horsepower each. Our max running speed is 11 knots. We carry 62,000 gallons of fuel and 40,000 gallons of water. There are three, 200 kilowatt generators and a 425 horsepower bow thruster. Running at full steam, it can get as hot as 140 degrees down here. And I can't do anything about your camera, it would void the warranty." August 16, 7:01am, Gulf of Mexico, 120 miles west of Naples, Florida -- Everyone seems to be looking forward to our brief shore leave in Key West. The success of the mission to date certainly warrants celebration. In the mean time, there is another 24 hours of research to do. I'm setting out to make a round of the labs, checking in on the scientists' progress as we approach the Keys. CLICK HERE to learn more about our correspondent, Mark Carroll.

© 1999, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution