LCIY2 ICON/CREWS Field Log

Full Validation and Clean 11/Jan/2012

2012-01-15T18:49:00.010-05:00

After many weeks of high winds we finally completed a full station cleanup of all instruments, chains, lines and pole on Wednesday 11th January 2012. Surprisingly the biofouling was not as much as we suspected, but definitely needed a clean. Could this be due to Herbivory fish?

Photos before and after cleaning

The GT was installed at 7:45 am. Cleaning commenced around 10:40, (we installed some settlement plates on the reef wall before we started cleaning), and finished around 12:05, the GT sensor was then removed around 3:30. In addition to the general cleaning of the station and instruments we replaced the copper filters on the CTD and added three anodes to three separate chains, more will need to be replaced over the coming months. The condition of the lines are in good shape, the four lines at the base did not seam as tight as normal but the station was solid and the orientation has not changed.

Installation of YSI Instrument & Download of Levelogger Data

2011-11-09T14:12:00.004-05:00

On 30th October, a YSI 6600 Instrument was installed on the side of the ICON Pylon with large SS hose clamps. Unfortunately after a while we noticed that the instrument was leaking very slowly through a screw hole. The instrument was uninstalled and taken to the surface.

Leveloggers were removed and replaced on the station and the data from all four Leveloggers was successfully downloaded and sent for analysis at the University of Miami.

Cleaning of instruments was postponed and will take place when the seas are next calm enough. The station looked to be in good order with low biofouling.

Full Validation and Clean

2011-09-09T15:26:00.003-05:00

On August 31st we completed a full validation and clean in preparation before our boats are out the water for 5 weeks. The station had low biofouling and instruments, chains, spectra lines etc were easy to clean. We set the Ground truth sensor just before 8am and started cleaning for a hour and 10 mins at 10:30. The Sensor was then removed from the system at 1:30pm. We are in prime Hurricane season now so hopefully everything will be ok.

Full Clean and Validation

2011-08-05T18:49:00.002-05:00

Today, 5 August 2011 we completed a full clean and validation of the ICON station. 3 divers cleaned and scrubbed the spectra lines, chains, pins and shackles. The instruments were also cleaned and looked in good order. There was low bio-fouling on the station compared to other months. The Ground Truth Sensor was installed at 7:50, cleaning started at 9:35 and finished around 11:30. The GT sensor was then removed at around 1:45. Orientation has not changed.

Full Clean and Validation

2011-07-12T09:19:00.003-05:00

Thursday 7th July, 4 divers and 2 snorkelers completed a thorough clean of the ICON Station. The station had moderate bio-fouling, but an increased amount of fire coral growth in multiple areas of the station. The spectra lines, chain, pins and shackles were scrubbed while the instruments and ICON pole were cleaned. The Ground Truth Sensor was installed at 8:55, cleaning started at 10:30 until 11:45, the GT sensor was then removed around 2:30. The orientation of the station is still the same as before.

Full validation and Clean

2011-06-10T18:42:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, Thursday 9th June, the ICON station received a full cleaning and validation. The Ground Truth Sensor was installed at 7:45am. Cleaning began at 9:35 by two divers. The instruments, pylon, chain/spectra lines, and attachment points were cleaned. All cables and instruments looked to be in good working order. The amount of bio-fouling was low to moderate and the cleaning lasted about 1 hour and 20 mins. At 2:30 the GT sensor was removed. There has been no change in the orientation of the station, but 2 anodes on the chains disintegrated so need replacing.

Full validation and Clean

2011-04-27T11:05:00.002-05:00

Monday 25th April, the ICON station received a full cleaning and validation. The Ground Truth Sensor was installed at 8:50am. Cleaning began at 10:35 by two divers. The instruments, pylon, chain/spectra lines, and attachment points were cleaned. All cables and instruments looked to be in good working order. The amount of bio-fouling was moderate and the cleaning lasted about 1 hour. At 2:30 the GT sensor was removed. The weather has been calm so their has been no change in the orientation of the station, but anodes on the chains and the station will need replacing soon.

Full cleaning, validation and a swap out.

2011-03-24T16:55:00.005-05:00

Today, 24 March 2011, a full cleaning and validation was completed. Rough weather has not allowed us to to get out to the station for a week. The validation CT was plugged in at 9am. Cleaning was initiated by 2 divers at 10:25 and lasted for one hour. All spectra lines, chains, and cables were inspected and confirmed to be in good working order. Copper screens were cleaned, but in good condition. There was light to moderate fouling of the pylon from algae build-up. The CT was then removed at 2:00. The pylon itself seams to be in good shape but standing with a slight tilt and twist to the north, no change though.

On Wednesday 2 March 2011, after having problems with transmitting data from the CTD to the CREWS computer at LCRC, we decided to swap out the CT cable with the CTD cable to test both the cables and instruments. The system came online before we switched these cables but were unaware.

We swapped out the CTD cable with the CT cable in the brain and then the again the instrument end. After turning the system everything again came back online, no damage had seamed to be done completing this swap out. The cables are still switched on the station. All chains and instruments were then cleaned, inspected and left to do their job.

Basic Cleaning

2011-02-15T19:30:00.002-05:00

On the 10th February the Little Cayman ICON station received its first cleaning of the year starting with the chains, lines and post. The condition was surprisingly good with a low amount biological growth for the amount of time without cleaning. The underwater equipment received a check over and wipe down but did not need scrubbing since everything was replaced a couple of weeks ago. Everything seams to be in good working order.

station communications update

2011-02-14T09:32:00.002-05:00

This is a follow-up message to my last blog post in January, which described a weeklong maintenance operation on the Little Cayman CREWS station. During that week, we attempted to repair the station's radio link (which was entirely offline) and satellite transmitter (which was performing poorly). By the end of the week we had repaired the radio link but left the satellite communications entirely offline. At that point the near-real time data feeds were suspended. There have been several developments since January.

First, some background on CREWS communications. All CREWS stations are installed with both a TX312 satellite transmitter and an RF401 radio transceiver. Each station has an assigned GOES communications window of 20 seconds once per hour at 1200 baud, during which it transmits summary data for the hour. Some transmissions may experience interference due to weather/clouds or other sources; for a typical CREWS station, up to 5% of transmissions may be lost. These data are stored to a local flash memory card and are recoverable during the next (usually annual) visit, but they are not easily recoverable in the short term.

At most CREWS stations, the radio transceiver provides access to station programming and data only during our annual maintenance trips. This is a two-way 38400 baud connection that is typically used to check station operations from a laptop computer on the boat immediately after station power-up.

However, the Little Cayman Research Centre (LCRC) can make much more extensive use of its radio link by virtue of its near proximity to the offshore station, its dedicated computer resources, and its full-time research staff. During this January visit the centre's computer was reinstalled and reconfigured to automatically poll the CREWS station for new data once every five minutes. The land-based computer therefore holds a full repository of all the station's data -- not just hourly summaries, but details of every measurement recorded by the station, whether 6-minute (CTDs, CT), 1-minute (Vaisala weather transmitter), 30-second (BIC light sensors) or 5-second (anemometer, barometer, air temperature). It must be emphasized that this data link is self-correcting -- even if the land-based computer were to go down for an hour, a month, a year, it would automatically catch up on all missing data whenever it came back online.

The situation in January was that the new satellite transmitter failed during deployment, and weather conditions had worsened to the point where it was not immediately possible to switch back to the (poorly-performing) transmitter. Therefore, we went one step further with the radio connection and implemented some scheduled tasks on the research centre's computer to send the hourly data via FTP to a NOAA server. These data are in different format than the satellite transmission and required new programming to parse and interpret, but as of Friday, February 11th the Little Cayman CREWS station is once again online in much the same way as it had been via satellite communications.

The station's most recent twelve hours of data (updated hourly) can be found at http://www.coral.noaa.gov/static/data_lciy2_Web_12.html.

A longer 3-day report (updated once daily) can be found at http://www.coral.noaa.gov/static/data_lciy2_Web_72.html.

The station's feed to NDBC is once again online and can be monitored at http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=lciy2.

The station's "ecoforecast" project page, which is again loading the near-real time data, can be found at http://ecoforecast.coral.noaa.gov/index/0/LCIY2/station-home.

The state of station communications is therefore as follows: there is a near-real time means of access to station data. This communication link depends on the continued performance of the RF401 radios (both in the pylon and on land), the continued good health of LCRC's land-based computer, the power supply to LCRC, and LCRC's network connectivity. Any one of these elements might be subject to interruption, some to frequent interruption. However, it is now the case that if any of these elements experience temporary downtime, then all missing data will become available once the connection resumes. This is in stark contrast to the GOES communications link for most CREWS stations, where dropped transmissions may wait up to a year to be recovered.

Regarding the failure of the new TX312 satellite transmitter, we started a dialogue with the support people at Campbell Scientific, wherein we described the unit's failure and shared its error codes. We have been told that there may be a failure with the transmitter's OCXO crystal oscillator. This diagnosis could only be confirmed by retrieving the transmitter and downloading its logs through a direct connection to its diagnostics serial port. If confirmed, CSI would provide us with an RMA number for returning/repairing the transmitter.

The bottom line is that it would be preferable to have both means of communication, satellite and radio, operational. However, the station survived for a year with satellite but no radio, and it could easily survive for another year with radio but no satellite.

Mike J+

a week of instrument exchanges and collaboration

2011-01-28T13:09:00.015-05:00

As always, you may click on any of the photos in this post to see larger versions.

The week of January 24th to 28th, 2011 brought together a number of people at the Little Cayman Research Centre (LCRC) for an unprecedented level of cooperation and collaboration on the maintenance of the Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) station. The station was installed in July of 2009 as part of a joint effort by the Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI), which is LCRC's parent institution, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) lab in Miami, the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML). CREWS is a project under the big umbrella of the Integrated Coral Observing Network (ICON).

From LCRC we had Robert Hedges, the research centre's new manager, Michael Rosen, a scientific diver who is also affliated with the Shoals Marine Laboratory, and Lowell Forbes, LCRC's longtime dive master and facilities engineer. Representing AOML was Mike Jankulak, CREWS field engineer and programmer and an employee of the University of Miami (UM). Also following the action remotely were researchers from UM's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), Dr. Peter Minnett, Miguel Izaguirre and Xiaofang Zhu.

Our goals, which were ambitious, were fourfold: to bring Rob H and Mike J together to go over the operation and maintenance needs of the CREWS station; to conduct the station's annual instrument replacement; to install some new sensors for Xiaofang Zhu's graduate research project; and to address some of the problems that had developed over the last year and a half. These problems included a suboptimally-installed air temperature sensor (in a spot which did not have free air flow), the failure of the research centre's land-based computer (which had been set up last year with a radio link to the offshore station), and the deterioration of the station's satellite transmitter.

The sea conditions were borderline; on Tuesday we were not able to tie up to the station at all, and our plans had to be rearranged on the fly. Wednesday was the calmest day and Thursday conditions had worsened but we were able to adjust operations to compensate (by mooring the boat to one of the support pins and only tying up to the pylon itself when absolutely necessary).

The station's regular maintenance schedule had been on hiatus since September of 2010, due to the departure of the previous LCRC manager and the resulting shortage of divers for this work. Also, no NOAA/AOML divers had visited the station since the pylon repair and straightening operations on April 8th, 2010 and July 6th, 2010. So we began with a survey of the station.

The underwater lines and chains were remarkably clean, considering their long period without maintenance. The spectra lines were somewhat "slimy" (see photo at left) but there was no significant growth (of barnacles or the like) on the spectra, chains, lashings or the pylon itself. Only the pins seemed to be in need of more aggressive cleaning (photo at right). It seems like this station is far less prone to bio-fouling compared to St. Croix or Puerto Rico.

The underwater instruments were fouled and in need of some cleaning -- notably, the copper screens were dissolving on the CTD and the sensing surface of the light sensor was clouded over (see photo). However, both instruments were removed on this trip and replaced with clean instruments. As reported in July, the station is noticeably twisted and this is most obvious when looking at the bottom lashings to the base plate. Whereas previously these lashings were found to be overtight (which may have contributed to the damage reported here in January of 2010), on this trip these lashings were extremely loose.

Two structural concerns were observed above the surface as well. First of all, the interior of the control unit or "brain" chamber was found to be noticeably damp. There was condensation on the inside surface of the station lid and enough moisture to drip off the brain's fiberglass board when it was first removed. All four conduits into the brain were found to be sealed tightly by aquaseal so it is not clear where this moisture is coming from, but it bears further monitoring. A second problem was that the bolts pinning the mast of the Biospherical "BIC" surface light sensor had both worked themselves loose enough that this mast could swing freely from side to side in its mount. The bolts were still in place, threaded into the fiberglass, and were securely tightened at the end of our operations.

We'll begin with the new LCRC/RSMAS/NOAA collaboration. Xiaofang Zhu is doing a detailed study of sea temperatures near the ocean's surface at two CREWS stations, one in Puerto Rico and this one in Little Cayman. Her team had provided four self-logging Levelogger sensors which automatically record sea temperature and pressure every six minutes.
These were installed on the pylon (on Tuesday) at depths of approximately 0.2m, 0.5m, 0.85m and 6.1m. These measurements were taken during low tide and the average instrument depths will be somewhat deeper than this. The installation was done by Mike Rosen and Mike Jankulak. On Thursday the location of the lowest sensor was fine-tuned by Mike Rosen and Lowell Forbes. Photographs and video were taken by Mike Rosen.

Next we'll talk about the instrument exchange. The replacement of the two underwater instruments was completed on Wednesday by Mike R and Lowell, and a third "groundtruth" sensor was connected and verified to be operational on Thursday. The aerial instruments and "brain" control package were removed from the station on Wednesday, replaced and reprogrammed on land, and reinstalled on Thursday.

This leads naturally into discussion of the advances made in our LCRC/NOAA collaboration. For the first time ever at a CREWS station, the "brain" installation and instrument connections were not done by NOAA/UM people but were instead conducted entirely by LCRC's new station manager, Rob Hedges (shown in photo at left). The importance of this development cannot be overstated. Previously LCRC was limited in the type of maintenance or intervention they could do, because nobody at LCRC was trained in the climbing of the pylon or even the simple act of powering the station up and down. These actions are more are now within the capabilities of the locally-based LCRC team. Whereas previously LCRC could not schedule major operations without coordinating with visiting AOML researchers (typically a once-per-year event), now they have assumed more complete control of their CREWS station.

Lastly we'll examine what was done to address the problems with the station's functions. The air temperature sensor was removed from its enclosed spot, and a new sensor was installed in the open air under a specially-made radiation shield. The radio link had originally been set up in January of 2010 but the station's computer crashed a few months later. Some efforts had been made (in May and July of 2010) to remotely guide LCRC researchers through the steps of reinstalling the software on a new computer but these were ultimately unsuccessful. In this current visit, we were able to reinstall and upgrade the software used by the radio link to make it operational. The research centre's computer is now configured to automatically pull updated data every five minutes from the offshore station.

The problem of the satellite transmissions proved more difficult to solve. Normally a CREWS station might lose up to 5% of its hourly satellite transmissions to bad weather or other signal loss. The Little Cayman station lost 25% of its transmissions in the last three months of 2010. The station inventory did not include a spare satellite transmission antenna so we retrieved the station antenna and cleaned its connector and cable plugs, and then carefully reinstalled its co-axial cable to avoid any sharp bends. We also replaced the transmitter itself with the backup transmitter stored in LCRC inventory on land. Unfortunately, the replacement transmitter (installed on Thursday) does not transmit at all. Due to the lack of a spare satellite antenna it was not possible to test the transmitter on land ahead of time, and by Thursday afternoon the sea conditions had deteriorated to the point where further access to the pylon would have to wait at least three more days (and perhaps longer).

Fortunately the repair of the radio link provides us with another way of accessing the station's data in near-real time. The LCRC computer used for the CREWS project, as mentioned, updates its local copy of the station data every five minutes. This includes much more detail than was available by satellite transmission. By satellite, we only saw the 60-minute summary data, but the radio link allows access to every instrument's individual data readings, whether 6-minute (CTDs, CT, transmitter diagnostics), 1-minute (our integrated Vaisala "WXT" weather transmitter), 30-second (our Biospherical "BIC" light sensors, datalogger diagnostics) or 5-second (the standalone air temperature sensor, barometer, anemometer and electronic compass)!

We quickly put together some scripts to upload the hourly data to a NOAA ftp site, so that they could be processed at AOML as before. Some further scripting will be required on the NOAA side next week before these data feeds resume. These feeds include the one to ICON's G2/Ecoforecasting project and the one to NOAA's National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), which is the means by which the Little Cayman data are assimilated into the global weather models used by hurricane forecasters. Furthermore, a monthly job was created to copy some of the larger (6-minute, 1-minute) data files without unduly burdening the LCRC network connection. All of these data will remain recorded on the station's new 1GB flash memory card (an upgrade from 64MB used until last week) which can continue to log data without loss until late in 2013.

One final note about data archiving: after retrieval of the station's CTD which had been deployed for 18 months, we connected directly to the unit and downloaded the locally-stored data from its flash memory. This dataset has been confirmed to be intact and is available for the asking.

It's been a hugely productive week all around. LCRC's advances in assuming control of their CREWS station maintenance and configuration, the new collaboration between LCRC and RSMAS researchers, and the greater access to station data by means of the repaired radio link are each in themselves significant milestones. Congratulations to everyone involved in this very successful operation!

(signed)
Mike Jankulak

Levelogger photos and video taken by Mike Rosen; all other photos taken by Mike Jankulak.

Full Cleaning and Validation

2010-09-03T15:21:00.002-05:00

On 1 September 2010, 2 divers validated and cleaned the ICON. Moderate amount of biofouling was noted and all insturments were cleaned and visually inspected. Everything was in visual working order. The CTD was deployed at 8:45am, the cleaning started at 10:15am, and the CTD was removed at 12:15pm.

Basic Cleaning

2010-08-16T09:17:00.002-05:00

Yesterday (15 August 2010) two divers conducted a basic cleaning for the ICON at 10:30am. There was a moderate amount of biofouling. All cables and lines were inspected and found to be in good working order. All sensitive equipment was wiped with a soft sponge.

Full Cleaning and Validation

2010-08-01T15:06:00.003-05:00

Today the ICON received a full cleaning and validation, initiated at 9:45am by connecting the in-situ sensor. Then at 11:20am, three divers cleaned the pylon, chain/sectra lines, and arm. All cables and instruments looked to be in good working order. The amount of bio-fouling was average and the cleaning lasted about 45 minutes. Then at 13:15, the sensor was removed.

To note, today was only supposed to be a basic cleaning, but the full cleaning and validation was completed.

Full cleaning and validation

2010-07-19T13:42:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, 18 July 2010, a full cleaning and validation was completed. The validation CT was plugged in at 12:45. Cleaning was initiated by 3 divers at 14:15 and lasted for 40 minutes. All spectra lines, chains, and cables were inspected and confirmed to be in good working order. Copper screens were cleaned and replaced. There was a moderate to heavy fouling of the pylon from the algae build-up. The CT was then removed at 16:15.

Straightening the pylon

2010-07-07T10:00:00.010-05:00

Yesterday a crew of 3 divers attempted to straighten the leaning pylon. Due to limited divers, the process took about 3.5 hours.
Lift bags were used and to keep it simple, only 5 of the chain/spectra lines were adjusted. The initial lean from the time of installation was to the west, and as illustrated in the picture, yesterday's maintenance lessened the tilt.
Also installed during yesterday's work was a rubber washer for one of the two bolts at the base of the pylon. As the picture suggests, the pylon is still twisted. However, we were fairly successful in lessening the pylon's tilt.

Basic Cleaning

2010-07-05T17:00:00.002-05:00

On 4 July 2010 a basic cleaning of the pylon and the instruments was completed. Chains were scrubbed and everything was observed to be in good working order.

Complete cleaning and validation

2010-06-20T08:32:00.002-05:00

The validation censor was deployed at 10:45 on Friday, June 18th. Following the protocol, it was allowed to sit and hang at the 'shallow' CTD depth, full cleaning was initiated at 12:15, and the censor was then removed at 14:30.

Equipment was cleaned properly and all cables, spectra lines, and instruments were inspected. Besides the pylon sitting slightly skewed (as it was the day of its installation), everything is in good condition.

Screen replacement

2010-05-30T18:11:00.002-05:00

The two protective copper screens on the CTD were both replaced today. About 10% of the original screen was present, with 90% of it eaten away/missing. The screens that were replaced were the original screens from initial installation of the pylon/instruments.

Cleaning and validation confusion

2010-05-29T18:28:00.003-05:00

ICON was fully cleaned May 17th. However, confusion on protocol for full cleaning/validation occured and therefore, needs to be rescheduled in order to complete the CT validation. Within the next two weeks, another full cleaning and validation will be scheduled.

ICON is also reading 'unbelievably low' salinity since May 11th and requires futher investigation.

April 8, 2010 Maintenance

2010-04-08T17:47:00.003-05:00

We replaced the broken bolt at the base of the pylon. We only had one black, rubber washer so we used 3 metal washers as stand-ins for now. We loosened the two base spectra lines that were too tight so that we could re-tie the two broken lines. All spectra lines were uniformly tightened, leaving a 2" play in each line.

The pylon is still slightly tilted as it was initially. However, all four base spectra lines are in place and secure. The outer 8 spectra and chain lines have remained untouched until we get a secondary rubber washer to replace the metal washers. We also did not have enough dive support to adjust the outer lines.

March 29,2010 complete cleaning&ctd validation

2010-03-29T16:18:00.005-05:00

COMPLETE CLEANING

all the chain,spectralines, was clean.
protective copper retaining ring,and screen, was clean.
optical sensor head, was clean.
pylon and brackets was clean.
som cables ties was used to reattach cables tha have com loose.

VALIDATION

the CTD was plugin and in the water -8:45
the in-situ sensor cleaned between 10:15 and 10:45
sensor out -12:15

february 22 2010 complete cleaning A

2010-02-24T08:24:00.006-05:00

general condition of station.

as we all know we had some damage during the last weather.
now that we have the black ruber washer, our project will be,
to do the repares on the nex weather brek.

a careful observation was done,
biological growth normal,
part of the black ruber that atach on the pylon water line is mising.
careful cleaning of all the sensor was done.
spectra lines and chian all was clean.
cleaning of pylon was also done.

AOML Team Visit and Inspection of Some Damage to the Station

2010-01-27T14:56:00.010-05:00

[n.b., you may click on any of the photos in this post to see larger versions.]

This week a team from the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) is visiting the Little Cayman ICON station, designated LCIY2, working in collaboration with the Little Cayman Research Centre (LCRC). The AOML team consists of Lecia Salerno, NOAA Corps officer and AOML's Unit Dive Supervisor, and myself, Mike Jankulak, University of Miami researcher. We are being hosted by Brenda Gadd and Lowell Forbes of LCRC.

One of the purposes of this trip is to inspect and document the damage to one of the station's lower "hounds," which was first noted by Brenda and Lowell last Tuesday. We are also collaborating this week on a cleaning operation in order to provide "official" training for LCRC, who will be responsible for station maintenance. While we are here we are also installing the hardware and software required for radio communications between the research centre on land and the offshore station. This radio link can be used to download data that are more detailed than those transmitted by satellite, to fully monitor the instantaneous instrument readings on the station, or to upload changes to the datalogger program that runs the station. This blog entry will focus on the first of these three goals -- documenting the current state of the station in word and photo.

We will start with the situation above the water (see photo at left). The pylon has a noticeable lean to the left when viewed from land, i.e. it is leaning toward the west. I am told that the pylon when installed had a slight lean to the northeast, so this may be a newer development. Our surface pictures of the station were taken from the boat, which was attached to the mooring ball and resting downcurrent of the station to the west, so unfortunately in these pictures the station is leaning toward the camera. We will try to get pictures taken from the sides later this week.

The surface pictures also show that there are tears in the rubber sheet that is wrapped around the station at the waterline. This piece of heavy, black rubber was wrapped around the underwater cables, which emerge from within the pylon above the waterline and are zip-tied along the pylon down to their connection points to the instruments. The rubber was held in place with long hose clamps also wrapped around the pylon. The rubber has torn away at the edges of the hose clamps and is now hanging in flaps. There is no noticeable sign of scuffing or scratching on the pylon that would suggest any kind of impact; it appears that the damage was done by wind and wave and the sharp edges of the metal hose clamps.

Below the surface, we will start with a view of the base plate (see photo at right). There are four "hounds" around the base that are attached by spectra lashings to the base plate pins. Each pair of opposite hounds consists of a single bar of allthread that is threaded through the pylon; on each side, from inside to out, is the following: a delrin load distribution washer, a flat washer, a convex locking washer, and a stainless steel eye nut threaded onto the end of the allthread bar. The photo shows where one of these "hounds" has broken off.

The broken hound is roughly to the south of the pylon, judging from its location under the southern-pointing underwater light sensor and its mounting platform. What has happened is that the allthread bar has broken at a point about one inch inside the pylon (see photo at left). The broken-off eye nut is still attached by its spectra lashings to its base plate pin, and is lying on the ocean floor. We have recovered the stainless steel flat washer but there is no sign of either the convex locking washer or, more seriously, the delrin load distribution washer.

Other comments about the base of the pylon: the eye nut attached to the other end of the broken allthread rod (i.e., 180 degrees opposite from the broken hound) is very loose. It easily twists from side to side in the hand (see photo at right), and the eye nut is holding tightly to the allthread itself which is also freely turning within the pylon. When looking at the broken end of the allthread inside the small hole left in the pylon where the hound broke away, you can see it moving when the eye nut is twisted on the other side. It seems possible that it will be relatively easy to twist out the entire length of the broken allthread when it comes time to replace it.

The other comment is about the remaining two lower hounds. The lashings on these hounds are extremely taut, rock solid. They do not "give" to the hand when trying to pull or push. It had been suggested to me that these lashings should be tied much more loosely than this, that they should yield by about an inch in either direction when pushed or pulled, meaning two inches of "wiggle" altogether. When the repair work is done to replace the broken hound and correct the station's lean, these lashings will need to be loosened considerably during the operation, but they should also be re-tied to be much looser than they are now.

One final comment about the base: the first photo shows clearly that the pylon is rotated slightly counterclockwise from where it would "naturally" rest, i.e., with each hound directly above the base plate pin when viewed from head on (at the side). This is probably an artifact of how the station was installed but I mention it in case it is a more recently development.

There is one final area of damage to the station support hardware. One of the pins at the periphery, which is connected by spectra and chain to the upper hounds, has suffered some cracking of its concrete bed (see photo at left). I'm not sure how these pins are "officially" numbered, but I will assign my own numbering scheme to describe its location. One of the pins has a mooring ball attached to it in addition to its spectra/chain support line. You must move clockwise from this "mooring pin" by two pins to reach the pin with the damaged concrete. That is, if you numbered the pins in a clockwise sense from #1 to #8, beginning with the "mooring pin" as pin #1, the damaged pin would be pin #3.

This puts the damaged pin to the north of the pylon, with a clear view of the CTD affixed to the north, and the southern-pointing light sensor obscured from view by the pylon. Note carefully, the lower hound broke off on the south (which might indicate stresses pushing the station to lean northward), the concrete cracked on the pin to the north (which might indicate stresses pushing the station to lean southward), and the station viewed from above the surface appears to lean primarily to the west. No formal assessment of this evidence has yet been done to hypothesize about causes of the damage, but contributing factors may include (1) prolonged heavy swells and strong winds throughout the past month, and (2) a magnitude-5.9 earthquake felt in the Cayman Islands on Tuesday, January 19th.

The broken hound was first sighted later on January 19th, and the cracked concrete, to my knowledge, was found during yesterday's dive, on January 26th. The lean to the west (to the left when viewed from shore) does not appear to be a new development, nor can it said to have worsened during the past month. [Although we are clearly paying more attention now, and we naturally assign more significance to the apparent lean than we once did.] The broken hound was last seen to be unbroken during the last cleaning operation, which would have been in early to mid December last.

I have brought some replacement parts with me on this trip to leave with LCRC. There is a new piece of allthread bar, two flat washes, two convex locking washers, two eye nuts and 41 feet of silver spectra. There are also two locking nuts which can be used to unscrew the broken allthread rod (if necesary) and to install the replacement allthread bar. Unfortunately at the time of travel we did not realize that one of the station's delrin load distribution washers had been lost, so we are still one part short of full readiness for repair.

In other news, all of the required software and hardware for the radio link has now been installed, and the LCRC computer is downloading six months' worth of data as I write this blog entry.

Many thanks to our hosts here at LCRC for their hospitality and their support of our diving operations. Thanks also to Mike Shoemaker and Jules Craynock for helping me with some of the background for this post. All photos were taken by Lecia Salerno and myself.

(signed)
Mike Jankulak

Dec 4 cleaning

2009-12-04T11:20:00.001-05:00

COMPLETE CLEANING

perform ctd validation
clean all growth from spectra lines and chains
inspect shackles
base plate and grounding plate inspection
clean spectra lines at base plate
clean body of ctd

(for Lowell Forbes and Brenda Gadd)

november 11 2009 basic cleaning

2009-11-11T14:21:00.003-05:00

general condition of station, good,
cleaning of optical sensor head
cleaning of the protective copper screen on ctd.

novenber 4,2009 ctd validation

2009-11-04T16:04:00.003-05:00

surface inspection
underwater inspection
optical sensor cleaning
c td screen cleaning

Oct 27th thorough cleaning

2009-10-29T08:38:00.003-05:00

Given the long lapse since our previous cleaning, we gave the LCIY2 a thorough cleaning:
BASIC AND COMPLETE
surface inspection - all fine
underwater inspection - all lines, chains, pins,shackles, base plate and grounding plate cleaned and inspected - all fine
optical sensor cleaned
ctd body and sensor screens cleaned
NO CTD VALIDATION performed. Will complete CTD validation week of Nov 2

data are now being shared globally

2009-07-31T16:17:00.001-05:00

The ICON team has completed work on a feed of data from the Little Cayman station to NOAA's National Data Buoy Center (NDBC). This means that the Little Cayman data will be included in the National Weather Service's (NWS) operational stream and will be made available globally for research and operations. In particular, these data will now be included in the models used by NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) in developing forecasts for hurricanes and tropical storms.

The NDBC website for the Little Cayman station can be found here:

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=lciy2

Online Data Source

2009-07-24T13:00:00.014-05:00

Near real-time data from the station can be viewed online at the ICON Web site for this station:

http://ecoforecast.coral.noaa.gov/index/0/LCIY2/station-home

Please also note that sensor information, graphs, events, ecological forecasts (models) and more can be gleaned from this site. Note also that satellite data from several sources are integrated with the in situ information for purposes of modeling and recognizing events of interest. For more information on ecological forecast constructs and this Web site, please contact Lew Gramer at AOML.

Photo by Jim Hendee

Biological Observations

2009-07-23T21:45:00.020-05:00

A qualitative biological survey was conducted in Little Cayman, Cayman Islands adjacent to the NOAA/ICON pylon and on Snapshot Reef on 22 and 23 July 2009, respectively. Only a few coral colonies exhibited paling or mild bleaching. Multiple colonies of Siderastrea siderea were mottled, displaying a blue or purple coloration (i.e., this is how this species looks when it begins to pale). It is likely that this is just a result of the normal seasonal declines in zooxanthellae densities and tissue biomass that occur in summer given that few other species or individuals exhibited noticeable paling.

Some coral colonies exhibited signs of the coral disease "white plague." Fortunately, infected colonies appeared to be few and far between. This image illustrates what appears to be recent mortality due to white plague on a colony of Montastraea annularis (all images taken by and courtesy of Dr. Jen Dupont, NOAA Knauss post-doctoral scholar). Drs. Marilyn Brandt and Carrie Manfrino have obtained a long-term dataset which shows that white plague has been the most significant cause of coral mortality in Little Cayman over the last 5-10 years. In fact, Dr. Marilyn Brandt (personal friend and colleague of mine) did a large portion of her Ph.D. work on Little Cayman, where she built an agent-based, data-driven model on the spread of disease on coral community structure. Researchers in the past have implicated coastal runoff and nutrification as the driver of the increase in coral diseases throughout the Caribbean. Marilyn's findings are extremely important in that she has shown that coral disease can be the main cause of mortality for sites without significant land-based sources of pollution. Way to go Marilyn!

There were a fair amount of clionid sponges overgrowing some dead coral skeletons. The image below illustrates clionid colonization of a Diploria labyrinthiformis skeleton. Some species of Cliona are known to actively overgrowth and kill live coral tissue, but it is not known if what was observed is a result of direct overgrowth or solely clinoid recruitment to the dead coral skeleton following mortality. Clionid sponges are of particular concern because they can be significant bioeroders as they directly dissolve coral skeletons and reef framework.

Seawater temperatures were warm when the station went online (29.9 - 30.0 degrees Celsius), but it is unknown if these are representative of the 'normal' seasonal cycle (climatology) for this site because of the lack of long-term in situ data.

Derek P. Manzello, Ph.D.

Station begins transmitting!

2009-07-22T15:05:00.004-05:00

The station began transmitting around 3:05pm today, when Mike Jankulak flipped the "on" switch and said from aloft, "We're on!"

Photo by Jennifer Dupont

Instrument Installation Video

2009-07-22T15:03:00.005-05:00

This video (utilized in a more comprehensive YouTube presentation) shows composite steps involved in installing the electronics (see Electronics Installation, previous), including scaling "the stick," stringing cables from top to bottom, installing meteorological instruments, hoisting the "brain" (data logger and electrical relays) from the boat to the top, mounting of the underwater instruments (light sensor, CTD), and testing the radio transmission from the pylon to a laptop on the boat. Mike Jankulak on the pylon, Captain Lowell Forbes assisting in lifting the brain, Derek Manzello (black dive suit), and Jim Hendee in the water.

Videography by Myfanwy "Von" Rowlands

Electronics Installation

2009-07-22T15:00:00.002-05:00

Station electronics were installed on the pylon on Tuesday, July 21st and Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009. Work was carried out by a team consisting of Drs. Jim Hendee and Derek Manzello (NOAA/AOML in Miami, FL), Dr. Jennifer Dupont (NOAA/OAR International Activities Office in Silver Spring, MD), Lowell Forbes (CCMI/Little Cayman Research Centre) and myself, Mike Jankulak (University of Miami).

Monday evening and Tuesday morning, all electronics components were assembled on the workbench as a final test of equipment, wiring and programming (see photo, left, of the "brain," or control unit, featuring the datalogger and GOES transmitter). Work at the pylon began Tuesday afternoon, with the installation of the temporary climbing rungs and safety lines. Next, the underwater cables were run from the waterline, through the internal conduits and up into the top chamber -- the cable for the underwater light sensor was run through the southernmost conduit and the other two cables (for the CTD, or conductivity-temperature-depth sensor, and the CT, or conductivity-temperature sensor) were run through the second, northernmost conduit.

The movement of heavy equipment was temporarily halted so that divers could install the underwater instruments and mounting brackets (see photo at right). During this period, the wiring of these cables to their connectors was completed at the top of the pylon, and the cable attachment point for the GOES transmitter's satellite antenna was checked for possible saltwater damage from its brief immersion during pylon installation. When the underwater work was complete, the station's two rechargeable batteries were hoisted aloft and installed in the upper chamber, bringing an end to the day's work.

Wednesday morning, work at the pylon resumed. Two of the three aerial instrument masts were installed, one holding the station's Vaisala WXT520 (Weather Transmitter, providing data for winds, air temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity and precipitation), complete with bird deterrent spikes, and the other other holding the RM Young Wind Monitor (a marine-grade anemometer) and Electronic Compass. A smaller mount holding the GOES transmitter's GPS antenna was attached off the side of one of the main masts which hold the satellite transmitter antenna and the navigation light. The third mast was temporarily mounted to measure its orientation (approximately 20 degrees north of due east) in preparation for installation of the surface light sensor.

Back on the boat, the surface light sensor was attached to its mount and the mast grounding wires were prepared for installation. The afternoon pylon work consisted of installing the standalone air temperature sensor, which is positioned behind one of the north-facing solar panels, and the surface light sensor on its aluminum mast. After all cables were run into the pylon's upper chamber and their connectors securely attached, it was time to install the "brain," or control unit. This package of electronics was carefully hoisted aloft and inserted into the upper chamber, taking care to lower it past the protruding wires and connectors still to be attached.

Once the "brain" was set in place, all of its connections were made: grounding wire, batteries (two), solar panels (five), transmitter satellite antenna, transmitter GPS antenna, air temperature sensor, wind monitor, electronic compass, Vaisala weather transmitter, surface light sensor, underwater light sensor, CTD and CT. At this point the station's power switch was placed in the ON position (see related blog post).

Boatside once more, a laptop was connected to an RF401 radio transmitter (powered off the boat's battery) to communicate with the newly-powered station and confirm that all instruments were functional. All equipment was confirmed to be operating as expected, except the satellite transmitter (which would be confirmed operational later that day, after several hours of transmissions were received) and the solar panels (whose correct operation is inferred from the daily rise in station battery voltages, which would not be confirmed until the next morning's sunlight). There remained only the "tidying" phase of the operation: divers/snorkelers retrieved the "groundtruth" CT (which is only connected to the station during maintenance and cleaning), clipped off the ends of all cable ties, and attached a rubber sheet to protect the underwater cables at the waterline. Aloft, all of the external openings to the electronics chamber were plugged with aquaseal and a dozen dessicant packs were left inside before closing it up. The last important step was the installation of the grounding wires to connect all of the station's aluminum masts to one another, to the lightning diffuser brush (the station's highest point), to the station electronics, and to a zinc plate on the outside of the pylon near the ocean floor. When all work was complete, the station's safety lines and climbing rungs were removed.

The team is extremely grateful to the staff of and visitors to the Little Cayman Research Centre for their hard work and warm welcome, including but not limited to Dr. Carrie Manfrino, Lowell Forbes, Jon Clamp and Brenda Gadd. Myfanwy Rowlands is also to be commended for her amazing photo and video footage from the operation.

Photo credits for this post: J. Dupont (underwater work) and M. Jankulak (control unit)

Up & Down

2009-07-22T11:50:00.001-05:00

After arrival at the station, Mike Jankulak navigates up and down via the aluminum rungs as adjustments are made to cabling and instrument installation.

Squid Buddies

2009-07-10T12:22:00.004-05:00

For some reason, the squid love the ICON/CREWS stations.

Photo by Myfanwy Rowlands

The "Stick" is Installed!

2009-07-08T18:10:00.001-05:00

The fifth ICON Station is vertical! On July 7-8, 2009, the CREWS/ICON pylon was erected at the pin/plate site offshore of LCRC. Led by CCMI staff member Jon Clamp, a composite dive team of Cayman Islands Department of Environment personnel and local divers secured the Pylon to the previously installed anchoring pins through the use of lift bags and manual methods. Technical advice and training on deployment procedures was provided by NOAA/AOML oceanographer Jules Craynock. Construction divers included D.O.E Keith Neale, Delwyn McLaughlin, Robert Walton, and Wade Moore of Power and Light, Little Cayman. CCMI staff member Lowell Forbes assisted Jon Clamp in the rigging and tensioning of the pylon structure. U/W photographic coverage of the operation was conducted by Myfanwy Rowlands (on a scholarship from the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society) and CCMI staff member Claire Dell. The pylon was properly secured with a blinking navigation light visible from dusk to dawn and at a distance of rougly 3 nautical miles. Planned Instrumentation installation on the pylon and final transmitting of oceanographic data will be for July 21-23, 2009.

Jules Craynock
Photos by Myfanwy Rowlands

LCYI2 Island Prep

2009-05-01T17:00:00.001-05:00

On April 27, 2009 Manuel Collazo of the University of Miami RSMAS Machine Shop and myself, Michael Shoemaker of AOML OCD, began the process of preparing the ICON station designated LCYI2 for installation near the Little Cayman Research Center. Our first step was the transportation of the Pylon from the research station down to the salt dock by flat bed trailer where it would be leaded and staged for deployment. Our next step on April 28 was the installation of the masts which support the navigation light, GOES antenna and the lightning brush. When done with the masts we then tackled the solar panel installation. On April 29 the final part of the preparation was performed which called for drilling out a section at the base of the pylon and mixing 750lbs of lead shot with epoxy resin to fill the ballast chamber at the bottom. We then patched the area with tri-axial Fiberglass cloth and compressed it with peel ply for an overnight cure. Our final day's work on April 30 consisted of removal of the peel ply and painting the section with anti-fouling paint then moving up to the top end of the pylon and applying reflective tape and designator lettering.

Photos by Claire Dell

Pins and Plate Installation April 7 - 9, 2008

2008-04-09T19:11:00.005-05:00

On Monday of this week Jules Craynock and Nancy Ash of NOAA/AOML performed the initial u/w layout of the center base plate and 8 peripheral pins offshore of Little Cayman Research Centre (LCRC). Positioned in hardpan bedrock in the fore reef zone on the shallow terrace that surrounds the island, the pylon will be deployed approximately .25 miles northeast of the LCRC. From an initial base plate position of 19º 41.934’ N, 080º 03.632’ W and a depth of 22 fsw, the peripheral pin positions were marked at a radius of 30ft. around the center base plate position for drilling the next day. Later on Monday the crew of the R/V Sea Keeper arrived at LCCI. The Sea Keeper is operated by the Cayman Islands Department of Environment as a superb, fully capable coastal service vessel. Led by Tim Austin, the crew included Keith Neale and Delwin McLauglin.

On Tuesday, joining the crew for the drilling operation was also Little Cayman Marine Officer Hank Blagen, and Carrie Manfrino and Jon Clamp of CCMI. All participants embarked with calm seas to the offshore site aboard the R/V Sea Keeper. A two- point mooring was used to place the stern of the vessel near to the intended base plate position so that the hydraulic drilling rig could be deployed. After drilling five holes for the 18” base plate pins, 8 holes were then drilled at the peripheral positions to install stainless steel T- pins. After filling the pinning holes with concrete, the base plate was leveled and pinned with stainless steel rods. The peripheral pins were also installed with a concrete fill. Seas remained calm and good conditions enabled rapid progress. Of particular note was the excellent cooperation and great working spirit to be found with our R/V Sea Keeper colleagues.

After allowing the concrete to set overnight, the site was revisited and bearing and depth measurements retaken. The successful installation site was marked with a small orange subsurface buoy.

Posted by Jules Craynock

Fantail briefing before start of operations.

Overhead view of hydraulic drilling rig aboard R/V Sea Keeper attended by Keith Neale.

NOAA Oceanographer Jules Craynock and C.I. Department of Environment Assistant Director - Research and Assessment, discussing the base plate mounting.

Deploying the drill from the R/V Sea Keeper.

Expert Driller, Delwin McLaughin boring 7/8” pilot holes for the base plate installation.

Memorandum of Understanding

2007-11-15T08:51:00.000-05:00

The Memorandum of Understanding between NOAA and the Little Cayman Research Center (Central Caribbean Marine Institute) was finally signed! Construction of the station will soon begin.

Jim

Site Established

2006-06-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

During the week of June 4 - 10, Carrie Manfrino, Jon Clamp, John Halas, Jules Craynock, and I surveyed apparently only two candidate sites that met our criteria. The proposed 20' site is at:

19^o 41.929' N

80^o 03.621' W

Or, a 22' site would be at:

19^o 41.941' N

80^o 03.625' W

A reef area, tentatively named "ICON Reef" by the CCMI staff, at ~30' to 40' deep, and about 225' oceanward (north) of the 20' site, has apparently high coral and sponge diversity, and is at:

19^o 41.972' N

80^o 03.633' W

Also, several sea turtles, groupers and snappers were spotted in the area. The site is almost directly offshore from the Little Cayman Research Center, and just inside the boundary of the Bloody Bay Marine Park area, where incidentally we witnessed some hammerhead sharks, several species of large groupers and schools of yellowtail snappers.

Jim Hendee

Grouper Spawning Aggregation

2006-06-10T12:02:00.000-05:00

The circled area shows the western side of the island where groupers aggregate for spawning in January near the full moon.

Aerial View of Little Cayman

2006-06-09T11:55:00.000-05:00

Click image to see larger view.

Little Cayman Research Center

2006-02-02T11:33:00.000-05:00

NOAA/AOML is happy to announce a cooperative effort with the Central Caribbean Marine Institute to install an Integrated Coral Observing Network (ICON) station at a site near the Little Cayman Research Center. Funds for this project are being supplied through the government of the Cayman Islands and NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program.

Dr. James C. Hendee
ICON/CREWS Program Manager