1. |
13/07 – Start
01:30
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Info:
Due to opening times of the area of Lisbon harbour where this ship was mooring, we had to board the ship the evening before departure and stay in our cabins for the first night. After weeks of planning and COVID-related confinements, everyone was excited to join the team and start the deployment mission.
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2. |
14/07 – First Waves
02:24
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Info:
On the 14th we left Lisbon harbour and went west through the River Tagus towards the open ocean. While the large estuary of the river is relatively smooth, the open waters allow for higher waves, which soon started to roll towards the ship from the north west.
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3. |
15/07 – Constant Motion
02:08
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Info:
People will tell you that the constant motion of waves that let the boat swing and perform rolling motions will get many inexperienced newbies seasick. It is surprising how fast this can hit you and knock you out for at least half a day. Immediately after reaching the Atlantic we entered a zone of agitated waves and that definitely left an impact on many members of the science team.
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4. |
16/07 – OBS and whale
02:12
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Info:
To reach the deployment area in the Atlantic we first had to travel west by ship for two days. Finally, on the 16th we were able to deploy the first OBS. You drop these instruments sink into the ocean, where they sink to the seafloor and start recording the movement of the ground due to (for example) earthquakes, storms, or even ships and whales passing by. For a year the instruments will sit by themselves without contact to the world. They are attached to an anchor and after a year of deployment, a second expedition will try to contact the releaser via acoustic signals to make it release the anchor and let the OBS rise back to the sea surface where it can be collected. But that is a delicate process, so a lot of testing had to be done over the previous days and we were quite excited and slightly nervous to let the first OBS go.
Oh, and also on that day we saw our first whale! So, two highlights in a day.
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5. |
17/07 – The Calm
02:00
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Info:
After the initial strong wave motion the Atlantic calmed down to basically a fully flat surface. You can see it in the way the water moves, it looks like water in a small pond. The water was so calm and undisturbed, that it resembled a mirror. A truly impressive sight. This song I actually wrote and recorded after taking the equipment out of my cabin and onto the deck, sitting right next to the water and experiencing the sunset while recording.
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6. |
18/07 – Complex Tango
02:32
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Info:
According to Élio, the chief mate, steering a ship (which by default is considered female) is a bit like a tango with a lady. She sometimes can interpret your directions in ways you did not expect and so you have to counterbalance those unexpected changes to make the dance work.
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7. |
19/07 – Disconnected
03:14
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Info:
Due to its position in the middle of the Atlantic far away from land we rely on satellite internet, which is often unstable and in one case left us for one and a half days completely without internet. But it turns out that this situation makes you actually really calm because there is nothing you could do about it anyway. So, in the end, we enjoyed our evening on deck watching the sun set and the stars starting to appear in the sky.
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8. |
20/07 – Releaser
01:36
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Info:
The OBS instruments are attached to an anchor while sitting on the seafloor for about a year. By the time of retrieval the ship will send out an acoustic signal that (hopefully) activates the releasers, which then will let go of the anchor to make the OBS rise to the surface again. Those releasers have to be tested again and again in various conditions to make absolutely sure that they are working and do not keep the instrument hostage on the seafloor. So, while testing you can constantly hear the six-digit release codes being transmitted until they are stuck in your mind. And they are (at least very slightly) similar to the one repeated in this song.
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9. |
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Info:
All the OBS instruments were named by school children from the UK, Portugal, Germany and Spain. "Sparky" is a OBS that was deployed in the middle of the night during a sea with up to 5m high waves, so we gave it the nickname "the fearless".
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10. |
22/07 – The Book
01:46
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Info:
We decided to use one of the notebooks that were given to us to write a murder mystery story. Every person writes one to two pages and then hands the book over to the next person. On the 22nd we started with that, let's see where it goes.
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11. |
23/07 – Bow
01:26
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Info:
What are the highlights after a day, where we baked a German marble cake for the ship, had an impromptu dance lesson and saw our biggest number of dolphins really close to the ship? It was actually spending time together on the bow of the ship in the evening, sitting, dancing and watching the sunset over the sea.
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12. |
24/07 – Night Operator
02:54
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Info:
The deployment times of the OBS instruments are the estimated arrival times of the ship at the planned coordinates. Due to their positions and the velocity of the ship – which can also change due to the weather – deployments can happen any time during the day, often in the middle of the night. On the 24th during the night time deployment at around 2:30am for the first time I was allowed to be the operator. This is the position that pulls the final rope to release the instrument from the hook of the crane into the ocean.
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13. |
25/07 – Poseidon's Waltz
02:41
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Info:
On the 25th we met Poseidon (that had a strange similarity with the captain in a costume...), who – after splashing us with a lot of water and a bit of flour and after letting us all kiss a fish – granted us save passage and successful OBS deployment and handed everyone a "proper" certificate. And we had a large portion of the crew watching us getting soaked.
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14. |
26/07 – Cloud Curtain
03:03
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Info:
When you have a 30 km radius to the horizon in any direction it becomes even more fascinating to observe patches of rain moving around. Due to the rain it looks like the cloud is falling into the sea in long streaks that start to resemble a hazy curtain, blurring the area under it, including the horizon.
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15. |
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Info:
After showing people on the team some of the songs I made, I was asked to provide the music to a video about an OBS deployment. The video already existed and I had to time the piece correctly so that the different sections (OBS being lifted by the crane, hitting the water and finally floating away underwater in the ocean) synced correctly. That was an entirely different challenge but a lot of fun.
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16. |
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Info:
Approaching the port of Ponta Delgada in the Azores for a 3-day half-time break, we were greeted by two large groups of dolphins that surfed on the waves generated by the ship – really an impressive thing to see. The weird spelling "dolphing" started during the expedition as a running gag after we accidentally spelled it like that on the official Twitter channel after seeing some for the first time.
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17. |
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Info:
Due the amount of annual rainfall, the island of São Miguel, the main island of the Azores, is extremely green. But quite often the volcanic mountains are covered in lots of clouds. From our mooring spot in the harbour of Ponta Delgada we could see them flow over the mountains in a dramatic way, almost like water waves over a dam.
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18. |
30/07 – Green
02:28
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Info:
While waiting for the start of the second leg of the expedition, we had one day for a tour of the island of São Miguel. One thing that is noticeable straight away is how stunningly and beautifully green everything is due to relatively wet and humid climate.
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19. |
31/07 – Into Haze
02:31
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Info:
Starting the second leg of the deployment we left the island of São Miguel again, this time going south to Madeira and the Canary Islands. It was slightly sad to leave some of the science team behind (the ones that only stayed for the first leg) and see them disappear together with the island in the distant haze. But it is also exciting to be back on the ship again and to deploy more OBS instruments.
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20. |
01/08 – Assembly
01:58
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Info:
The ship has a working room on board where the OBS instruments have to be assembled and programmed before deployment. Yesterday, we managed to get to work on seven instruments and fully assemble the majority of them (which is a very good number for one day, helped by the fact that the sea was very calm). During that time, the room (and the stern of the ship where the instruments are "parked" until deployment) felt like an assembly line from a factory. That job was incredibly fun.
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21. |
02/08 – Meteor Shower
02:40
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Info:
During the early days of August it is possible to watch the meteor showers at night. They normally have their highest intensity about two weeks into August but even in the beginning of the month it is possible to see a few. During our nighttime deployment, we spend some time observing them. The view is stunning in total darkness in the middle of the ocean.
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22. |
03/08 – Knots
03:13
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Info:
As an activity to pass time we started to learn how to tie knots, in particular the so called "monkey's fist". Soon afterwards that turned into a long session of tying knots together on deck in the sun next to the calm sea.
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23. |
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Info:
We had another good day to sit outside on deck and – more importantly – safe enough from splashes of waves, so that my electronic equipment was not in danger. Still there were some majestic looking waves and although I tried to record a calmer piece about spending time on deck in the late afternoon, it quickly turned into something sounding much grander due to the view I had as inspiration.
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24. |
05/08 – Bolo De Cenoura
02:15
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Info:
One of the great things about the kitchen on board (apart from the fact that all the food is really tasty) is the daily cake. And the best of those is the carrot cake. The science team decided to take that recipe to bake a carrot birthday cake in form of the ship's crane for the crew member that normally operates the crane to deploy the OBS instruments.
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25. |
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Info:
We have been deploying instruments regularly at nighttime. The atmosphere is quite different when you cannot see the ocean at all, it just seems like a black dark void. All OBS instruments have a flash light on them that turns on when the instruments leave the water. During the deployment there is the constant two flash rhythm of the light (imagined in this piece in sound). Since it takes about half a minute for the lights to turn off under water, you can trace the descending instrument beneath the surface in the pitch black sea.
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26. |
07/08 – Last Line
02:37
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Info:
At their deployment every OBS instrument is secured by multiple ropes while hanging on the crane hook. After reaching the ocean surface we remove one after the other until the last line sets the OBS free to descend. In addition, we are coming to the end of the mission and are left with only a handful of instruments to deploy. These are standing in a single last line in order of their deployment, quite a change from the crowded deck during the beginning.
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27. |
08/08 – Pool
02:41
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Info:
After clearing the deck of OBS instruments, we were left with a lot of empty pallets, so we decided to build a pool out of them, fill it with sea water and had a very unique pool experience on a ship under a burning sun in the middle of the Atlantic.
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28. |
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Info:
It might seem hard to pick one topic on a day where, after work, we were able to use the pool again, watch "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" in the ship cinema (a movie about a research cruise including songs by David Bowie sung in Portuguese – how fitting, this movie was basically made for this mission) and seeing the most beautiful night sky, including multiple shooting stars. But actually, the thing that stuck with me the most, was the half hour we all just sat in silence next to each other on the bow of the ship and watched the last sunset of the expedition. That moment was perfect.
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29. |
10/08 – Tejo
05:11
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Info:
The mission ended today. Shortly after lunch we saw the mountains of Sintra show up through the haze. It took another few hours to reach the entrance of the river Tagus but what an impressive sight it is. The busy hills of Lisbon, the tower of Belém and the Monument of the Discoveries and then the bridge of the 25th April (the one that looks like the Golden Gate Bridge) spanning the entire scene.
All in all, this has been an unforgettable experience. Let the music do the rest of the talking.
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DascMusic Lisbon, Portugal
Münster, Germany
Bristol, UK
Lisbon, Portugal
...let's see what happens next.
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