Humour : "It is curious that sailors need to make sentences*"

Radio conversation between a US navy ship and the north west of Spain, with English subtitles.

A Spanish version after Canadian and British versions : but still funny after all these years.

The story of the obstinate USA warship captain and the lighthouse attendant has been round for a long time.
According to a Snopes online article, there are naval staff who talk about seeing the joke passed around in the 1960s.
Kevin Wensing, an Atlantic Fleet spokesman in Norfolk, wrote in the article, “The first time I heard of it was – oh, let’s see, how long – about 10 years ago or so, I think. That story’s so old, it probably started out back in the galleon days, or back when there was a big lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt.”

In 1996 the US Navy contributed to a newspaper article debunking the veracity of the urban myth (US Navy denial), in response to uncritical use of the story in high profile newspapers and television talk shows.

 Wikipedia : Lighthouse and naval vessel urban legend

Silva, the Sweden-based manufacturer of marine navigational equipment, borrowed a vintage naval joke in 2004 in the television advertisement, “The Captain”.
The campaign was designed to enhance Silva’s reputation in the provision of equipment for marine and outdoor lesiure activities with provision of compasses, GPS, mobile lighting, optics, headlamps, binoculars, outdoor instruments and marine electronics.
The Silva Captain ad won a Bronze Lion at Cannes International Advertising Festival in 2004 for entertainment and leisure.
It has been suggested that the reason the ad wasn’t given higher recognition was the fact that the spot is based on a well known tall tale...

* English translation of the famous French movie dialog from Michel Audiart : 

"C'est curieux chez les marins ce besoin de faire des phrases"

Other funny sea conversation video : German Coast Guard trainee dealing with his first 'Mayday' call.

James Cameron relives voyage to Ocean's deepest spot

Into the Deep: James Cameron's Mariana Trench Dive

From OurAmazingPlanet

The first thing James Cameron saw 7 miles below the sea was man-made: tracks from a remotely operated vehicle.

"When I got to the bottom, I saw skid marks from the ROV," Cameron said yesterday (Dec. 4) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, referring to a survey by the Japanese ROV Kaiko.
Scientific results of the film director's expedition to the Mariana Trench were presented at the meeting this week, and Cameron and the researchers described the highlights to a packed crowd.

Cameron reported a new, corrected depth for his landing — 35,803 feet (10,912 meters) — which beats by five feet (1.5 m) the record set by U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in 1960 at the same spot.
However, "because the error [calculating the depth] on Don's dive is much greater, we're just going to have to call it a tie," Cameron said.

 Filmmaker and National Geographic explorer-in-residence James Cameron emerges from the Deepsea Challenger submersible after his successful solo dive to the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean.
CREDIT: Mark Thiessen/National Geographic.

Deepsea Challenger

Cameron's Deepsea Challenger expedition made dives to the New Britain Trench and the Mariana Trench in the southwestern Pacific Ocean between Jan. 31 and April 3, with one manned dive by Cameron to the Mariana's Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in any ocean.

Unusual, never-before-seen species were snared and brought back to the surface.
A bizarre microbial mat community was discovered living on altered rocks in the Sirena Deep, another deep pool 6.77 miles (10.9 kilometers) below the surface.

Changes in temperature and salinity starting at 26,200 feet (8 km) deep hint at an unknown current coming into the Challenger Deep, said Doug Bartlett, a microbiology professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

The filmmaker journeyed inside a high-tech lime-green machine — a steel sphere encased in foam — dubbed the Deepsea Challenger. The expedition traveled with two unmanned seafloor "landers" — large contraptions hoisted over the side of a ship and dropped to the seafloor. Once on the bottom, bait attached to the lander lured seafloor creatures to the craft, and a suite of instruments took samples, photographs and data. [Images: James Cameron's Historic Deep-Sea Dive]

The two contraptions working together proved to be a very good system, Cameron said. "We could rendezvous on the bottom and see the results of that bait running for six to eight hours, and that's how Doug could find a new species of giant arthropod," Cameron said.

 The Challenger Deep is the deepest canyon in the oceans.

Challenging journey

The March 26 dive proved to be a physical and mental challenge for Cameron. "I did yoga for six months so I could contort myself into the sphere," he said.

As he sank through the water, Cameron said he "burned though my whole checklist," designed to distract him during the long hours of the dive. "I still had 3,000 meters left to go with pretty much nothing left to do but sit quietly and think about the pressure building up around the hull," he said.

The sub touched down gently, and Cameron immediately took a sample of the seafloor, as planned.
This was a good contingency, because the sub's hydraulic fluid line then burst, leaving him unable to collect more samples.

To his surprise, the sub's voice communications worked perfectly.
"We actually expected they wouldn't, and I would have to default to texting," he said.
"Texting while driving is not a good thing, especially if you're using two hands to operate seven joysticks and you're 7 miles down."

Cameron first drove the sub about 200 meters, finding the seafloor elevation stayed the same.
In fact, Challenger Deep turned out to be remarkably flat, and the sub was easy to drive.
"The vehicle was quite nimble, the sub's yaw rate was very good," he said.
(Yaw describes the left-to-right rotation of a craft.)

A quick return

After about three hours, some of the submersible's batteries had low charge readings, the steering was problematic, and it was time to return to the surface.
The mission should have lasted five to six hours.
"I hate this. I hated having to go back," Cameron recalled thinking.

The trip to the top was mercifully short at 73 minutes.
The submersible covered nearly 7 miles in a little over an hour — slow in a car, but like riding a missile for a human in a metal ball.
Cameron said the surface trip is when he noticed the aches and pains from the cramped sub.
"That's when your butt is really sore, and when you notice how much it hurts."

The sub now sits in a barn in Santa Barbara, waiting for Cameron or another group with enough money to send it back to the deep ocean.
He declined to say how much it cost to build and mount the expedition.

"I would love for the sub to dive again," he said.
"I personally feel that we just barely got started before we had to turn back and there's just so much out there."

"And if not, at the very least, the technical innovations can be incorporated into other vehicle platforms," Cameron added.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's an open source situation."

Links :

• OurAmazingPlanet : Filmmaker Cameron Expedition finds weird deep-sea life
• National Geographic : Scientific Results From Challenger Deep
• GeoGarage blog : James Cameron completes first solo dive to deepest spot on Earth / James Cameron to dive very deep into Pacific Ocean Mariana Trench for 'Avatar' sequel

Vendee Globe : stressful areas

Situation 06/12/2012 12:00 PM UTC (Armel Le Cléac'h Not Localized at the 'Crozet security gate')

The orange lines represent the "northern limit of icebergs found".
The horizontal white line is Latitude 40° S.

Roaring Forties area
Welcome to the south (VG2012 news)

Alex Thomson at 25 knots onboard 'Hugo Boss'
located the most southern of the fleet

The Prince Edward Islands are two small islands in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean that are part of South Africa : the islands are named Marion Island and Prince Edward Island.

The Crozet Islands (French: Îles Crozet; or, officially, Archipel Crozet) are a sub-antarctic archipelago of 5 small islands in the southern Indian Ocean

(Île aux Cochons, Île des Pingouins, Îlots des Apôtres, Île de la Possession, Île de l'Est)

The ice is close...

"Previously we were much further south and so the high pressure areas would not have the same impact. It is difficult now, much more complicated." Mike Golding

monitoring of sea ice and icebergs (MDA / CLS)

The decision has been made for the Crozet ice gate to be moved by more than 400 miles, extending the Vendée Globe course by around 300 miles.

The reason for this move is due to the detection of an abnormal cluster of small icebergs, measuring over 20 meters in diameter.

Due to the risk of Icebergs, the Collecte Localisation satellite (CLS) constantly tracks the movement of the icebergs for the Vendée Globe and sends daily updates to the skippers.

Ice gates were brought into the race in 2000-2001 for safety reasons, whereas previously skippers played the risk of sailing further south to reduce the distance of their circumnavigation.

These gates can be moved during the race if there is reason to do so, which is the case this year.

Radarsat2 capable to detect 100m size iceberg max

Swimming robot reaches Australia after record-breaking trip

A self-controlled swimming robot has completed a journey from San Francisco to Australia.

A second robot is scheduled to make it to Australia early next year, and though one robot has to return to Hawaii for repair, another is currently en route to Japan.

Current locations of the PacX Wave Gliders (larger map / Google Earth kmz file)

From BBC

The record-breaking 9,000 nautical mile (16,668km) trip took the PacX Wave Glider just over a year to achieve.

The route across the Pacific for Papa Mau and Benjamin Wave Glider robots

Liquid Robotics, the US company behind the project, collected data about the Pacific Ocean's temperature, salinity and ecosystem (wave heights and frequency, weather, fluorescence and dissolved oxygen) from the drone.
Papa Mau also observed phytoplankton blooms around the equator in the Pacific, measuring increased concentrations of chlorophyll-A, confirming an increase in such events since the late 1960s caused by climate change.

Liquid Robotics chief scientist Luke Beatman told iTnews that approximately five million data points have been gathered by Papa Mau.
Different sets of data are collected from the Wave Gliders, Beatman said.
"We have the the environmental data that measures what's going around the Wave Glider, and the scientific data," Beatman said.
The second US-Australia Wave Glider, Benjamin, is continuing to transmit data.
The Wave Gliders communicate with the Internet using the Iridium satellite network, which allows for 2400 bits per second data speeds.
This allows the Wave Gliders to provide real-time data to researchers, a feature that Beatman said is unique and really surprised him when he started work at Liquid Robotics.
The company said its success demonstrated that such technology could "survive the high seas".

However, Beatman said the Wave Gliders also utilise Iridium's RUDICS (Router-Based Unrestricted Digital Internetworking Connectivity Solutions) that allows customers to send and receive data traffic over the Iridium network using an optimised circuit switched data channel.
Nevertheless, Beatman admits that using the Iridium service which has standard charges of US$1.20 ($1.15) per 1000 bytes is the big budget item in the Liquid Robotics PacX project.
Data gleaned by the Wave Riders is presented through a web interface, in comma separated values format for analysis by researchers.

The PacX voyage so far.

A short documentary on the occasion of Papa Mau's arrival in Australia

The robot is called Papa Mau in honour of the late Micronesian navigator Pius "Mau" Piailug, who had a reputation for finding ways to navigate the seas without using traditional equipment.

"During Papa Mau's journey, [it] weathered gale-force storms, fended off sharks, spent more than 365 days at sea, skirted around the Great Barrier Reef, and finally battled and surfed the east Australian current to reach his final destination in Hervey Bay, near Bundaberg, Queensland," the company said in a statement.

 Hervey Bay, Queensland, AUS

>>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

Some of the data it gathered about the abundance of phytoplankton - plant-like organisms that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and provide food for other sea life - could already be monitored by satellite.
However, the company suggested that its equipment offered more detail, providing a useful tool for climate model scientists.

Ongoing travels

Liquid Robotics still has a further three robots at sea.
A second is due to land in Australia early next year.
Another pair had been heading to Japan, but one of them has suffered damage and has been diverted to Hawaii for repair.

Each robot is composed of two halves: the upper part, shaped like a stunted surfboard, is attached by a cable to a lower part that sports a series of fins and a keel.

They do not use fuel but instead convert energy from the ocean's waves, turning it into forward thrust.
Solar panels installed on the upper surface of the gliders power numerous sensors that take readings every 10 minutes.

Mixing electronics and water might sound like a risky idea - but Dr Jeremy Wyatt, from the school of computer science at the University of Birmingham, said there was good reason there was so much interest in marine robotics.
"The ocean is a very big place and therefore a safe place to test autonomous robots - these Wave Gliders move slowly and have a low risk of bumping into other objects," he said.
"There are also autonomous sailing competitions in which craft plot their journey completely independently - unlike the Wave Gliders which autonomously follow a prescribed route - and there are a variety of types: robots which bob on the ocean surface, gliders and even fully autonomous submarines which plan their own routes and dive to collect data.

Eventually, Liquid Robotics hopes to have hundreds of next generation Wave Gliders with improved solar panels for more power traversing the oceans, and believes the solution is scalable.
Several uses are envisaged for teams of Wave Riders, including early detection of cataclysmic events such as tsunamis through pressure and wave height sensors.
"We are reaching a tipping point in that the technology is becoming so cheap that it's now a much cheaper to use a robot to gather data than to pay for a manned ship to be at sea for months at a time."

Links :

• CNET : Science robot ends Guinness record-breaking ocean journey
• NOAA : Integrated Wave Glider-Echosounder
• GeoGarage blog : Liquid Robotics to launch wave gliders to collect oceanographic data /  Liquid Robotics to usher era of smart oceans with autonomous robots

What Arctic warming means for one seabird

George Divoky: the bird-watcher who saw the future

For nearly 35 years George Divoky has been returning to Cooper Island, a small, low strip of desolate land close to Barrow, AK.

Initially he went there simply to study Black Guillemots, but as - over the decades - he tracked the dates of their arrival and the new chicks hatching, he realized he was documenting how climate change was affecting both an organism and an ecosystem.

As summer ice retreated, food for the chicks was harder and harder to find - and polar bears began to roam the beach.
(other video BBC)

From BBC

A small colony of black guillemots living on a gravel spit off Point Barrow is providing a unique insight into the changing Arctic environment.

>>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

The Cooper Island birds feed their young on cod that hug the underside and edges of the polar pack ice.
But their access to this prey source is being limited by the big retreat in seasonal ice cover now under way.

How the guillemots respond will turn a lens on the wider changes taking place in Arctic ecosystems, biologists say.
"Things could go either way for these birds," explains George Divoky, who has studied the guillemots since 1975.
"It's just not known at this stage whether they will be able to cope with the big change by adapting to new food sources, or if they will have lower and lower breeding success until the colony eventually disappears," he told BBC News.

Dr Divoky was speaking here at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
The bird biologist spends three months of the year on Cooper Island, which is about 40km east of the Alaskan town of Barrow.
He has tracked the roller coaster ride of the spit's black guillemots (Cepphus grylle mandti) across four decades.

It was the warming climate that first allowed the birds to make the island their home.
They nest in the cavities found in abandoned old boxes and piles of driftwood, but need 80 days clear from snow to give their chicks time to hatch and fledge.
And it was only in late 1960s and early 1970s that such summer conditions persisted to enable the guillemots to breed routinely and successfully on Cooper.
The following couple of decades then saw the colony flourish.
The Arctic pack ice was rarely more than about 25km off shore, providing the parent birds easy access to the nutritious Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) they prefer to feed their young.

In the past two decades, however, the summer marine ice-cover has retreated far from land.
This September, the lowest ice extent ever recorded in the satellite-observing era, saw the edge of the ice pack sit hundreds of km from the island.

That has severely restricted the guillemots' ability to retrieve the cod, which feed on the plankton that in turn depend for their existence on the algae that coat the underside of the ice.
The guillemots have responded by shifting to lower quality fish, such as fourhorn sculpin (Triglopsis quadricornis).
But their breeding success has suffered as a consequence.
"The sculpin is a bottom-fish. It doesn't have a very high fat content. It also has a very bony, spiny head and guillemot chicks don't even like to eat it," explained Dr Divoky.
"When the ice leaves, or the water temperature picks up to the point where the cod leave, the guillemots are going back to the same feeding spot but don't find anything. Then there's a day or two or three lag before they realise they have to switch to the sculpin. And it's in that lag that chicks die because the parents don't provide their young with the food they need."

What is more, the warmer conditions on Cooper mean sub-arctic species have begun to invade the spit and compete with the guillemots.
Horned puffins (Fratercula corniculata), for example, will try to seize guillemot nests, kicking out any eggs and nestlings that are already present.
Polar bears, too, now seek refuge on the island when the ice is at its most distant in August/September, and will eat guillemot young.

In 2011, Mr Divoky replaced all of the guillemot nest sites with plastic cases to make it difficult for the puffins and bears to disturb the colony
 But the food issue is something the biologist can do nothing about.
All he can do is document its impact.
"Guillemots are generalists and we now see the likes of capelin, sandlance, and pollock - a whole number of forage fish that are abundant in the sub-arctic - moving north into the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea.
"Guillemots, because they will be going out for the six-week period when the parents are raising young and feeding on whatever prey is there - they may be the first indicator of what's happening with these forage fish getting to the area.
"It's going to be very interesting to see what happens next. I've got all the guillemots banded - and have had since 1975 - and there could well be some sort of selection for birds that realise that the ice is not the future and turn to exploit sub-arctic prey. They would be the successful birds and one could get a sub-arctic guillemot on Cooper."