Cruise JC071 – PAP mooring recovery – evening blog

Today has been full of events. The CTD this morning, and then the recovery of the PAP mooring.

The ship manoeuvred carefully as there was still a big swell, but eventually the buoy was in position and was connected to the winch to be lifted on board. The buoy has a sensor frame suspended 30m below it on chain, this was carefully brought aboard before the long job of recovering 5 kilometres of mooring line began. In the picture you can see the recovered buoy and on the right, lashed down on the deck is the replacement buoy, 12 months at sea has added a layer of algae.

While the winding on of the mooring line was going on I stopped videoing and helped wash down some of the recovered sensors and so I missed seeing some passing pilot whales. Still there are plenty more days to spot some of the wild life out here.