Elephant seals diving for science

Scientists like to talk about "vessels of opportunity". These are basically 'cheap' ways to hitch a ride for a scientific project, i.e. you jump on some pre-existing cruise and use their ship and trajectory to perform some of your own data collections. Since you have not been involved in planning, funding, organizing and managing of that cruise, you (the hitchhiker) are normally bound to tag along and take things as they come, go where they go, and try to make some sense out of it for yourself afterwards.

This has greatly increased many projects and their range and coverage, but there is still one limiting factor: there are only so many rides (i.e. scientific vessels) available. But with the advent of smaller and smaller scientific devices and satellite transmission systems, there is an entirely new fleet of "vessels of opportunity" at the scientists' disposal: seals!



Researchers of the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU), Gatty Marine Laboratory, University of St Andrews have been quite successful with this approach in their SEaOS (Southern Elephant Seals as Oceanographic Samplers) project. It basically works like this: they attach a sensor/transmitter device (a 'tag') on a seal's head as shown above. Now, as the animals swim for thousands of km and dive down to 2,000m, their tags record details of temperature, depth and the salinity of the water, and when the seals pop up to breathe, the tags transmit their information to scientists in Scotland via satellite.



Of particular importance to the scientists are oceanic fronts, i.e. where warmer and colder waters meet and mix, much like atmospheric fronts we know from weather charts. Just like atmospheric front systems, the oceanic fronts are highly dynamic and can only be adequately understood and predicted if a sufficient amount and spatial coverage of observations is available.

The seals can help with this, since they occur in significant amounts on several of the subantarctic islands and as they have wide diving and swimming ranges, they frequently cover the oceanic front systems of Antarctica.



South Georgia's population at 400,000 is the biggest group and has been relatively stable since the end of large-scale hunting in the 1950s. But the groups centred on the islands of Macquarie and Kerguelen have not fared so well; and in the case of Macquarie may still be in decline. Why this is so may emerge from an analysis of the data gathered by the seals.

And in case you worried about the tags on the seal's heads: they fall off after about a year, when the animals moult (i.e. change fur).

on my way again...

Finally it is time to pack the bags, find the travel toothbrush and head for some underwater action again!

It is now more than half a year ago that I left my boots, flotation suit, guide jacket, spare dry suit, BCD and fins on the "Grigoriy Mikheev" while she was still cruising around the Arctic waters of Svalbard.




If all goes well, I will unpack all of it this Saturday about this time as I rendezvous with the ship in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.

So while I was busy in my little office doing little office tasks, my gear had been moved from one end of the world to the other ;-)

The idea is usually to leave enough stuff behind on the boat to be able to "travel light" next time you return and have to endure multiple airport check-ins, baggage excess arguments, taxi drivers who freeze into a solid block behind the wheel once they see you approach... but it never quite seems to work out that way.

True, I have "only" one dry suit to pack, and "only" three regulator systems (two are mandatory, one is backup for screw-ups and forgetful customers) and my clothes bag contains no working clothes, just some light "dining room wear" and underwear, but somehow the seams and zippers seem close to burst as always.

Alas, I will try to leave even more stuff behind onboard the good ship this time, as I count on needing it the next time in the Arctic again, so getting it all carted there by the company (even though I will work for 'science' this summer again and not for them) is quite convenient.

So look forward to some fresh reports on the state of the Drake Passage, the extent of sea ice along the Peninsula and the quality of the home-made vodka at Vernadsky Station as soon as I return. If some fellow customers or colleagues are willing to let me have some of their digital pics, I might also post some around here (or finally get in gear with JAlbum for my all-too-static website?) since I am again cursing my indecisiveness - and packing my rolls of film again instead.

Mac mini portable

For a while, I considered the Mac min as backpack-portable computer, but that solution would have involved separate sets of display, keyboard, and mouse both at the office and at home. This would have been cheaper than two complete systems, and you would just have connected your home peripherals into that "cookie box" to continue working on the same machine, settings, data, in the evening at home.

An added bonus for me - apart from the significantly smaller size - over a powerbook/ibook would have been the fact that you "only" had to worry about the "cookie box", i.e. the Mac mini in its case, but not any display, which typically is the first component that suffers in laptops from transport-derived wear&tear or direct damage, say from a bicycle crash. At the same time, the advantage of a full-sized desktop display and a standard keyboard were also weighing in on the decision.

On the other hand, such a 'dual-base system' would not have worked anywhere else than at work and at home.

Eventually, I settled for the more powerful iMac (and better value-for-money, compared to the Mac mini+studio display option) for the office and my good old (but heavily upgraded) wallstreet powerbook for the road and for surfing/writing/blogging at home.

But here is a concept I just found on the web, where a Mac mini had been rendered fully portable, with batteries, display, micro-keyboard and all:



More on this project, the how and why is available on PeterGreen's .mac website, here.

An excerpt:

"Why the Mac Mini Portable?

Well, in short I wanted a machine that was really dinky to just pop in my rucksack, and while the PowerBooks/iBooks are pretty small, they still take up a fair amount of space. I wanted something with a very small screen that was more or less hand-held, and mac just don't do that [yet].

I didn't need a completely fluid response of the controllers or a crystal clear screen as the MMP [MacMini Portable] would only be used in it's portable sense to quickly integrate into someone else's system, the rest of the time it'd have it's own dedicated screen, mouse & full sized keyboard being used in the traditional 'Mini' design.
Therefore, a micro-keyboard was perfectly acceptable, I was prepared to accept a naff mouse - but managed to get an old pc laptop trackpad which I actually got working very well.

So, there was nothing for it - I had to build my own!"

new rebreather coming on the market - CORA II

The producer does not even have it on their own websites yet, but the German/Austrian company Seaway Diving has been introducing an all-new product line with their CORA II rebreather. Here is a shot of this setup:



Note that the counterlungs are placed around the shoulders rather than in a container on your back or chest. This has the convenient effect ofa significantly shorter loop as well as probably eliminating "froggy cheek" issues. Looks like a smart move to me (although it reminds one of those 'toilet seat' BCD's of the olden days...)



You will quickly notice: something is missing. Right, there is no BCD, no harness, no nothing. "Bring your own" is the motto!

In a way, this makes sense: many people whose feet and hands have grown enough webbing to grab a rebreather instead of 'boring simple tanks' already have a jacket/harness/wing/stainless-D-ring-collecting contraption of some sort that fits them perfectly. Why not use that to carry the rebreather around?



This of course also significantly reduces the cost, and Seaway are able to offer this in a basic configuration for a bit more than half the price of the Dolphin, and a third of the sports-KISS, not to mention any MEGALODON price tags... (they seem to be very thorough with even that detail over there... i.e. "make it MASSIVE" ;-)

But for me, this is just fine, because I really do not like the Dolphin BCD, as one example.

At the moment, Seaway is offering an basic nitrox-SCR config, while a SCR-II config will soon be available allowing two gases, and mCCR and even eCCR are in the works.

The beauty of it all: these components (dosage, sensor heads, battery case etc.) will all be solidly attached to the "lid" of the central cylinder which holds the absorber unit, so it would ideally be fully modular. Just pop on the eCCR lid, attach your tanks, and off you go again! Nice.

If I get some time, I could try a more side-by-side comparison to the Dolphin (forget the Ray), the KISS sets, and the MEG.

Let's see.

Mac mini/SE and whisky PC case mod

In case you have not found it yourselves yet, here is a very technically sophisticated (but clumsily translated) description of a Mac mini built into a Mac SE casing, even using the pre-existing CRT monitor. Here is a shot from the site:



In a non-related but equally inventive story, a guy built a PC in a Ballantine which looks like this:



Oh, and in case you wondered: the first mod was done by a Japanese, while the second hails from Finland... ;-)

website updates coming

I finally found the time to post some new content to my website during this weekend. I realized that I could backlink several posts to pages of my site, so that the site can also serve as a more user-friendly archive of previous posts (while I still have to figure out the whole 'blog-into-categories' thing), but I also have some new stuff as well.

BTW: I have added a licence statement and a link to Creative Commons to all of my pages as well as to my blog. In case you wondered (or frowned?):

I decided to do this not so much because I am so concerned about the intellectual value of my work (...is there anybody out there actually reading this ;-? ) but because I wanted to support the CC idea.

So I figured, if "nobody" reads this, I might as well write in a license that imposes on any reader to religiously follow my beliefs; but if "some folks here and there" happen to browse over my site, skip-read the stuff on top and then stumble over 'that licence thing' and find out about the CC, so be it ;-)

P.S.: You are hereby admonished to read this blog every morning, lunch and evening and repeat the headlines of the ten most recent items while your browser reloads. By clicking 'close this window' you have automatically agreed to these terms until they are being revoked by this blog's author. AMEN.

'James Bond Island' on the Market

Okay, maybe it is not Pesce Spada Island, but at least it has a "private" coral reef...

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The longtime retreat of late James Bond author Ian Fleming, Goat Island, has just come on the market for $8 million. The 10-acre island sits in warm Caribbean waters about a mile from the shores of tiny Tobago. It comes with a two-story, West Indian-style villa done in cheerful yellow and blue. Perched next to a pocket-sized beach, it includes three bedroom suites, a large kitchen and a reception area. For guests, there are two one-bedroom guest apartments on a small hill.

A spectacular coral reef lies just off the island, and Fleming is said to have gone diving for an hour each morning when he was in residence. Included in the price is a 5,600-square-foot boat house parcel on the mainland; the island features a stone and concrete pier for landing.

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Source: Forbes.net

rebreathers using artificial gills for O2 resupply?

Once you are enthusiastic about diving, it is likely that you want to spend more and more time underwater, but as soon as you cross the border from swimming and snorkelling to scuba diving, you promptly come across the technical and physiological limitations of the available diving equipment, which usually limit the duration of your underwater experience.

For the sake of brevity, I will focus on the technical aspects and leave out the physiological, although they are also being addressed to some extent by all of the alternative ways of "underwater breathing apparatus" listed below. So what if you were able to "do it like the fishies" and truly breathe underwater? So far, it seemed technically out of reach and unefficient, so people had to resort to a number of compromises instead.

1) Conventional "open system" scuba, relying on a tank of pressured air (or blended gas like nitrox or heliox etc.), work only as long as it takes you to deplete the tank's charge, which is commonly around 200- to 300x compressed air, or bar (sometimes also measured in psi, or pound/square inch, factor 14.5). So once your tank approaches the minimum pressure needed by your breathing regulator, your air supply breaks down. Not a fun thing to experience while being underwater...

2) Surface-supplied systems rely on large gas tanks or compressors constantly connected to you and your personal breathing regulator to supply you with air, usually also with communication and sometimes even hot water which circulates through your suit, to prevent you from getting too cold. It is regularly used by commercial divers, p.e. working at underwater construction sites or out of saturation diving bells, where the limited range and mobility imposed by moving on an "umbilical" is not a big problem. However, if something (or someone) fails to work properly with your surface supply, you can be in trouble, so there is both the radius/mobility issue as well as the dependency on the smooth operation of your supply system which is completely out of your hands.

2a) One funny spin-off of this is Snuba, a combination of "snorkel" and "scuba", and the pitch is offering the advantages of snorkelling, i.e. free and easy roaming of shallow inshore waters, with scuba, which basically allows a person to stay underwater longer than anyone can hold his or her breath. However, proper SCUBA diving has some inherent risks that require adequate training, while snorkelling really just requires kicking around with or even without fins. Get rid of the tank, which follows you on the surface mounted on a float, and you can feel as free and easy as a snorkeller while taking advantage of the air supply of a compressed air tank so you do not even have to hold your breath any more. Again, once the tank is close to empty, the fun is over.

3) Rebreathers offer another extension of your stay underwater, while still relying on compressed gas. Although this gas is usually Nitrox, a "blend" with an increased oxygen percentage, they are much more efficient in exploiting that gas reservoir by recycling or "rebreathing" a large part of the inhaled and exhaled gas volume.

But since you are forced to deal with both supply of oxygen into and transport of carbon dioxide (CO2) out of your respiratory system, you also need a "scrubber" or absorber that removes the exhaled carbon dioxide from the recycling or "rebreathing" process. So even though the improved gas efficiency of a rebreather has drastically prolonged your time underwater, you still have the same old problem: sooner or later, your supply of oxygen will run out.

But what if you could refill your tank on-the-go? Israeli inventor Alon Bodner thinks he came up with a technical solution, a battery-powered artificial gill. Basically, it pumps a large amount of water through a system where dissolved oxygen "bubbles out" of the water and becomes breathable gas - just like CO2 bubbles out of a soda bottle (or beer can ;-) once you pop the cap. This could be it, the answer to all problems: unlimited gas supply! (or at least as long as the system's power supply runs...)

But wait, just before we get into details and technicalities about how exactly it is possible to gain oxygen out of sea water just like the fish, there is that nasty detail: not only your gas tank, but also your CO2 scrubber is only good for a certain time (or rather, a certain amount of gas being "scrubbed") so even if you had unlimited supplies of oxygen, you still need to dump the CO2 somehow.

Using a rebreather system without adequate removal of CO2 is bound to slowly suffocate the user, and exchanging or even "recycling" the CO2-absorbing substance while being underwater is not really practical or even possible so far.

So although it seemed like there finally was a solution to the scuba diver's dream of unlimited underwater time, it is unlikely to become available as personal diving equipment until the CO2 scrubber problem also has been addressed.

Where it still might become a practical solution is in manned subsea installations (like Cousteau's famous "underwater habitats" Conshelf I, II and III and all it followers, or possibly in submarines, where access to an ample supply of energy and frequent removal of CO2 scrubbers are not a problem.

So we dream on about genetically manipulated fish-men with gill slits and webbed feet - while webbed fingers could prove to be rather impractical in the long run... ;-)

Full-face diving masks - from Phantomas to Darth Vader

After having recently been to the BOOT 2006, a rather large water sports (and diving) trade show/shopping event here in Germany, the whole "full-face mask thing" came into mind again.

I have been using full-face masks for a couple of years now, while diving for my own pleasure as well as for scientific missions and usually in rather cold water. Most of the time I use the good old "Cressi" type (also dubbed "Phantomas" and sometimes mistaken for a fetish thing ;-) which is cheap, simple and reliable. There is only one way to make it unusable, and that is to break the front window, in which case you just pop in a spare one.



This type of mask is by now considered quite "old-school" but adequately fulfills its purpose: it keeps your face dry and holds your reg in place, which of course is a nice safety featue.

So (theoretically) you do not have to bite into the mouthpiece any more, which can be tiresome, especially in long exposures in seriously cold waters. You can even add a "diver's telephone" i.e. a surface line communication system to this mask, although this requires drilling a small hole in the silicone or rubber mask body and glueing the microphone into the mask, which will stick into your chin with its rubber cap.

But there are more advanced alternatives from professional diving equipment manufacturers like German Dräger Safety or Swedish companies Interspiro and Poseidon, all of which make pretty similar masks.

Here a few shots of my favorite type, which I started using on "open-system" ice diving missions in the Arctic recently:



The Interspiro Divator is a classic in its own right, although not going back quite as far as the 1960's Cressi model. It is one of the most common military, rescue, and scientific models currently in use. Unfortunately, it is also still the most expensive... (ca. 950€)

Full-face masks are usually produced and sold as professional (or military) diving equipment and apart from fire and police departments, only commercial or scientific divers are commonly seen to use them as standard equipment. True, there is a growing market for so-called 'tech divers' and recently this trend has also trickled into the mainstream market.

Here is the runner-up, which I am currently thinking (or rather, dreaming:) of purchasing one day for myself:



Not surprisingly, the Poseidon is more or less an exact replica of the Divator, although it has a few improved design features - and a more reasonable price...(ca. 850€)

If you are thinking of putting a rebreather mouthpiece into a full-face mask, you will probably either 'mod' an existing cressi or older Dräger masks with straps and glue and handmade parts, or you will succumb to the designers and marketing people of Dräger and shell out for their "Panorama Nova" model:



This is the newest of the three and comes with three reg/communication/bailout ports which can be conveniently opened and closed by easily handled plugs, so that you can breathe surrounding air while you are already fully sealed and dressed up, or you can even swap a rebreather loop for a reg or one reg for another. It is also the cheapest of them all (680€), except for the Cressi which will cost you only 50€ apiece (I bought 4 over the years...).

I used it successfully in recent under-ice rebreather diving missions (using Dräger's Dolphin system) both in the Arctic and Antarctic, and the most prominent "user-friendly" features are both the 'port plugs' and the quick-release feature, i.e.you can easily pull the mask away from your face even with thick gloves by grabbing the two "bars" on each side of the mask, which will open all of the four the strap buckles at once. Maybe this system could be modified for the other masks as well?

There is just one slight problem: ONLY Dräger's own second stages or especially modified Apeks regs will fit into ANY of its ports. Of yourse you can try to modify another regulator (p.e. by welding a dräger-style mouthpiece onto a Poseidon Cyclon 2. stage) but anyway you are forced use a fitting regulator. Another downside: you cannot get them as "overpressure" systems which are a switchable option for the other two systems, so you will have to go on "demand-only" instead.

BTW: there are several (in my eyes largely unsuccessful) models of full-face masks produced by sports diving equipment manufacurers like Scubapro and OceanReef, but after trying them both for s short period I returned them immediately: too expensive and neither as functional nor as robust as any of the models mentioned above, while offering poor comfort and even warped visor surfaces which scratch easily and give you 'tunnel vision' alreada at the surface.

The new HMS Daring (iPod-ready)

Tired of fuzzy radio? Want to take your iPod with you instead? Acura, Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Dodge, Ferrari, Honda, Mercedes, Suzuki, Volkswagen and even Volvo will be happy to offer complete stereo integration for you (as well as numerous other car stereo makers and adapter suppliers with more or less functional and elegant add-on solutions) to bring your tunes for the trip.

Now, there is another vehicle manufacturer joining the team: Glasgow's Clydeside shipbuilding yards.

The first model of their newest series, the Type 45 Destroyer, was just finished and costs just about £605 million. The buyer of this 150 m, 7350 ton, 14 deck leviathan, the British Defence Secretary said that "the launch was a proud day for the Royal Navy. It’s a huge boost for the Royal Navy because this is the most capable, most powerful destroyer ever built in the UK".

HMS Daring's 230-strong crew should be happy too, since the 'Hotel Facilities', as the new living quarters are known, are not organized as mess decks any more, but are now broken up into individual cabins, each with their own iPod docks, CD player, internet access, five channel recreational audio and larger berths.

Just one question: what do you need the CD player for...?

drive like a Norwegian

Came across this car review on the Times Online while checking out DVD Jon's blog.

It takes you a while to get to the "car" part in the text, which is exactly why Jon also found it noteworthy enough to blog about it. Here's a few appetizers:

"This is the weird thing about Norway. On the surface it appears to be a monochrome and rather chilly version of Britain. There’s the same northern European efficiency, the same things make us laugh, and the town centres are full of vandals who like to key your car....

...You might think everyone can talk English and of course most do — even A-ha — but there are exceptions. Last Tuesday I asked the proprietor of a remote highland cafe for the rest room and he recoiled in such horror I began to think “rest room” might be Norwegian for “Hey, troll, I’ve got a gun and if you don’t hand over all your money I’m going to shoot your husky”...

...Perhaps difficulty with communication is why the hotel room in which I stayed had a fold-out whiteboard nailed above the bed: so guests can use diagrams and cave drawings to explain to their girlfriends what they have in mind next."

Finally, there comes the "car" bit of the story (on the Mercedes M-Class):

"Obviously Mercedes wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, so plainly the people making the new one have been told to stop singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot and get on with some work, and the designers were told it was 2005, not 1956.

...As a result the new car looks great, feels well made and when you climb aboard works like any other Mercedes, not a Massey Ferguson with electric windows...

...The verdict, then, on the M-class is pretty much the same as my verdict on Norway. Efficient and good fun, but odd and too expensive."