Teacher Logbook:
Sunday, July 2, 2000 1800 hrs.

The good weather is holding. Cross your fingers. ROPOS spent the day positioning the remaining 5 extensometers. Piloting the machine is an arduous task and simple jobs take long periods of time. It takes over two hours to remove a single extensometer from the mooring elevator, locate the benchmark, and place the extensometer in it. The ROPOS pilot and advisors are patient and precise in their placements and measurements. Accuracy in science is essential. No details are overlooked, even for this seemingly simple task. With input from the daily science meeting, chief scientist, Bob Embley, continues adjusting the plan for our dives once we get to Axial. Everyone out here must remain flexible.

For an isolated platform, our ship has a surprising amount of things to do. When I'm not busy staying informed about ROPOS or squeezing information out of one of the scientists, I have a number of options: Lift weights in the mini weight room to work off the endless supply of food; Practice my table tennis for the upcoming tournament; Attend one of the two evening movies, or just veg out in front of one of the ROPOS cams scattered throughout the ship.

The R/V RONALD H. BROWN, I've been told, is one of the best-equipped scientific research vessels in the world. Using Global Positioning Systems and the ship's dynamic positioning system the driver can keep the ship within several meters of a particular spot. This is a considerable improvement over ships without these systems because they may drift considerable distances. That would make it impossible to use ROPOS for some of the vent studies because the sub is tethered to the ship. The research conducted during NeMO 2000 would simply not be possible without the technology available today.

Jeff