Media Coverage
16 June 2010 | 5 miles southwest of well head (DeepWater Horizon)
Tina Thomas
The media arrived today.
The Houston Chronicle and the Discovery Channel were here this morning. We expect BBC and Austrian TV on Thursday followed by NBC Nightly News.
24 hour special permission to go within the 5 mile perimeter expired around
1400 yesterday (Tuesday) and we left the area. The special access only allowed us on the west side of the well head. While in the perimeter we would do a CTD
cast (within 1000 meters of the well head) down to around 1400-1500 meters. The single cast took about 2 hours. While the scientists were taking the
water samples from the CTD and beginning to analyze them we ran a transect to collect surface measurements for 2 hours (within 500 meters of the well head). Then we did another CTD cast. This cycle continued for the 24 hours.
While we were within 500 meters of the well head we were close enough to
hear the sound of the flame coming off the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise.
We also passed by the drill rigs, Deployment Driller II and III. We were
close enough to Deployment Driller II to see work being done on the rig.
For part of the day yesterday (Tuesday) the fire on the drill ship over the well head was not burning. While the fire was out a few ships were spraying near the well head. Sometime in the afternoon it was relit. Today it�'s still burning as well as a fire on a drill rig near the drill ship. There�'s a lot of chatter on the VHF radios. 77 boats in a 20 mile radius were listed on the AIS (automatic identification system) yesterday. Many of the ship are towing booms. We could see 3 burn offs being done on the horizon yesterday. I heard that people saw some dolphin hanging out around our ship yesterday. All night last night we did a CTD tow-yo from north of the well head, around the west side, down to the south side. The science party was hoping to follow a feature to see where it was present and where it ended. A tow-yo entails towing the CTD by moving the ship at around 2 knots while yo-yoing the CTD up and down a certain determined range of depths.
We just finished 2 CTD casts south of the well head to depths of 1600 and
1500 meters. During the day today (Wednesday) we will continue to do CTD casts moving west along a line of stations.
There is no odor in the air today. There�'s not much of a sheen on the
water. There�'s still rust color globs of oil in the water and some of the
globs are elongated strings in the water and we are still seeing what we
believe are sea cucumbers floating near the surface. When we brought the
CTD on deck after the tow-yo, the CTD had collected about 10 to 15 sea
cucumbers.
We have lost satellite internet but are continuing to work on the problem in
hopes that we can get it reconnected before the conclusion of the cruise.
Weather: partly cloudy, 87 degrees, winds 5 knots, seas calm
NEW PHOTOS in the CH0610 photo Album.