Week One

Departing Guam Equator Crossing Boat Drill First Samples

Dr. Gerardo J. Iturrino First Report from Sea (Nov 16th. 2000): I departed Newark, New Jersey in route to Guam on November 7th, 2000 (Election Day) around 9:30 AM. A car picked me up around 6:00 AM at my house in Nyack, NY although it was supposed to pick me up at 5:30 AM. I began to get a little anxious when the car was not there on time because it is not a good way to start a trip if you miss your first plane, but at least this gave me an opportunity to spend some extra precious minutes with my wife. Luckily, after battling with traffic for a while, the driver got me to the airport on time and I made my flight. It did not hurt that my plane was delayed for an hour. I was surprised to see one of the Chief Scientists, Fernando Barriga, on the same flight as he was coming from Portugal along with one of his colleagues, Alvaro Pinto. We greeted each other and then boarded the plane for our long journey ahead. I sat down in my little confined space for the next 10 hours. A Continental Airlines DC-10 provided hours of discomfort as I made my way towards Honolulu. The food was ok and they had enough time to show us three movies ("Autumn in New York" "Shanghai Noon" and some other movie that I can't remember because I was sleeping) as well as some old episodes of Happy Days. As we approached Hawaii, I looked out the window and I could clearly see Waikiki Beach. A very inviting tropical setting at a balmy 88o F and 90% humidity. This was quite a change from New York where the temperature was a brisk 45o F when I left. I spent one-and-a-half hours at the Honolulu airport where I met with other people on their way to board the JOIDES Resolution. I knew a few of them so we greeted each other and then it was back into another DC10 for 7 more hours. This time we had two movies and the same episode of Happy Days - the one where they recreate the history of Thanksgiving. We spent five days in Guam during the portcall. These five days were filled with many logistical issues, especially trying to track equipment that was being held in Tokyo. The ship finally left port on the morning of November 14th and we have been underway for two days now. We had to leave behind the equipment that was in Tokyo and now we are making arrangements to have a small boat coming out of Papua New Guinea and meet our ship at sometime during our cruise. The night before we left port, we had a large BBQ on the dock. It was a good meal and everybody was enjoying it until out of nowhere, a torrential downpour hit the area and we were soaked immediately. After 15 minutes everything stopped but it kept starting and stopping for the next hour. It finally cleared up but everybody was wet and all the food was soaked. What a great way to start a cruise! We are currently at 3o 48.120' N latitude and 146o 54.821' E longitude so tomorrow morning, the Equator Crossing ceremony will begin. Captain Davey Jones, a Mermaid, and an ugly beast told us lowly pollywogs that we have committed numerous offenses and that we are going to have to attend King Neptune's court and defend ourselves against all the accusations. I will tell you next week if I survived. We are going through the ceremony tomorrow (6 AM) so I guess that I will be tossing some clothes out into the garbage can after all is said and done. I will tell you more about it later because I have to go to bed soon.

Tripping Pipe Movie (approx. 5.7M)

Report from the Bismarck Sea: One week at sea and counting (11/21/00) We have been at sea for a week now and many things have happened since departing Guam. First we had an Equator Crossing at 0o N latitude and 147o 59' 19 E. The pollywogs (people that had never crossed the Equator) had to endure the rigors of the rite of passage. The day before, all pollywogs were served notice that they were going to have to report to a conference room at 6 AM where they were going to stand trial for all crimes committed against King Neptune and his royal court (a scary looking mermaid, a pretty slimy baby, a royal barber, and the sheriff). Our crimes were discussed in open court and guess what, we were all guilty. We had to pay for our crimes in a smelly and slimy kind of way. It was all fun and soon after enduring the ceremony where we were tossed in a pool full of drilling mud, we became shellbacks. Now I have a card and a certificate to prove it and I know that I will never leave home without it, especially if I am ever going to be in another ship that will cross the Equator. We had our first boat drill where everybody had to go to their assigned lifeboats wearing their life jacket and a hard hat. We will have one drill a week and I can only hope that they happen while I am awake because the alarm is extremely loud and it will be a rude awakening. I have been through it before and it is no fun. We also had many meetings including operational, science, and safety meetings. The safety meeting included watching videos on the dangers of H2S exposure. The chances that we will encounter a situation where H2S will be a problem are slim, but we are all required to know what to do in the event that we drilled through a zone where large quantities of H2S are released. I also gave a presentation to the science party in which I talked about downhole measurements (placing tools in a borehole after drilling operations are over to measure the physical and chemical properties of the rocks) and the operational plans for the next 7 weeks. After the Equator crossing we continued steaming towards our first site, which it is called Snow Cap. The name comes from its appearance because it is has a bacterial white cover on its surface. We arrived at the site and immediately deployed a beacon over the side. The beacon will send a continuous signal to the ship that will allow us to navigate more accurately in this area. After the beacon was deployed, we began putting together the bottom hole assemble (a set of drill collars approximately 140 m in length that starts with the drill bit and ends with a thicker section of pipe called the drill string) and tripping pipe. When the bit was a few meters from the seafloor at 1655-m water depth, the camera was deployed. The camera is wrapped around the drill string and ends up a short distance above the bit. This camera allowed us to perform a survey to find a suitable place to begin drilling operations. After several hours of surveying (1 AM to 5 AM local time), a good place was found and we were ready to begin drilling. Unfortunately, we could not begin drilling operations until a customs agent from the Papua New Guinea government boarded the ship to give us clearance to work in their territorial waters. We waited until a helicopter carrying the agent landed on our ship at 8 AM. After all the necessary paperwork was signed, sealed and delivered, we were free to begin drilling. Drilling operations began in Hole 1188A (3° 43.6962 S Latitude and 151° 40.1964 E Longitude) and everything was quite different from what was originally expected. First, the hole was being drilled at fast rate of 22 m/hr and we were expecting a very slow penetration rate of about 2-3 m/hr. Second, the core recovery in the upper 50-m was extremely low at 1.6% recovery. Beyond 50 mbsf (meters below seafloor) the core recovery improved to an average of 13%. Third, the temperatures were expected to be around 60° C but temperatures seemed to be much lower ( ~ 4° C) as no concrete evidence of high temperatures was found by single temperature measurement made at 40 mbsf. Drilling operations continued, but the drill string was getting stuck from time to time. Eventually, the bit became wedged in the hole at 211.6 mbsf and we could not get free. Several hours passed and many attempts to get free failed. A decision to place explosives inside the pipe at approximately 50 m inside the hole was made. These explosives were supposed to sever the pipe so we could get free however, the first attempt failed. We had to try again and this time the charge was placed right at seafloor. This time it worked and we were free but we lost approximately 200 m of drill pipe on the process. Now we are in the process of recovering the rest of the pipe that was left on the string and moving to a new site called Roman Ruins. This site is expected to have high temperatures as hydrothermal fluids venting from chimneys at seafloor have been measured at 300° C. However, one thing that we have learned so far is to expect the unexpected. Since we departed Guam I have been working out problems with tools and computers. We have been working approximately 20 hrs a day troubleshooting and getting ready to deploy our tools into the boreholes. Now it seems that the hard work is paying off because we are making progress and little by little we are fixing the equipment and we are almost completely ready for anything. Now lets hope that we can drill a hole where we can deploy our tools. The weather is extremely calm and it is almost like being in a back yard pond in the middle of the summer without the benefit of going in for a swim. As I look out the window every day and see the sunrise, I look at the mountains of New Ireland and New Britain and wonder what people are doing on the land. I think of the time that I will return home and I know that I still have quite some time to go before that. Well, it is time to go now so, until next week.

Additional photos are available at http://www-odp.tamu.edu/public/life/leg193.html.

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