LPPR1 ICON/CREWS Field Log

Complete Cleaning in October

2011-10-03T13:58:00.001-04:00

Today (Monday, October 3rd, 2011), a complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) was done at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, by Wessley Merten. The groundtruth validation sensor was placed on at 0945 and was removed at 1324.

Basic Cleaning in August

2011-08-31T16:13:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, Tuesday August 30th, Wess Merten conducted a thorough basic cleaning and assessment of the CREWs station in La Parguera. I conducted a surface inspection, underwater inspection/cleaning, optical sensor cleaning, and a CTD sensor cleaning. I also very carefully removed some biofouling that has accumulated on some of the cables. In addition, all four brass filters were replaced on the CTD's. After more than 3 hours underwater the station looks great! A complete cleaning will be conducted next week.

Light Sensor Failure, Station Downtime

2011-07-29T12:52:00.003-04:00

The CREWS station at Media Luna reef (near La Parguera, Puerto Rico) experienced a complete power loss on July 14th and has since been recovering slowly. This is strikingly similar to an incident that took place in April of 2010, just over one year ago.

In both cases it is believed that the integrity of the deeper of the two underwater light sensors was compromised and it became flooded. This led initially to the loss of data messages from the sensor but, as the flooding became more severe, resulted in the short-circuiting of the station's entire power supply and therefore a complete loss of power. Following a remote analysis which in both cases identified the deep light sensor at the likely cause, the instrument was retrieved to the surface and removed, and its cable end securely plugged. At this point the station was operable once again but completely drained of battery reserves, and it took (is taking) several weeks for it to replenish its battery reserves by means of its solar panels. A detailed timeline of the two incidents follows:

In 2010, the instrument failed on April 14th and the station lost power just over a day later on the 15th. Unfortunately we here in Miami didn't notice the station's failure before the weekend and so we let three days go by before first contacting UPR on April 19th, a Monday. Wess made several trips to the station and took photos but he couldn't remove the failed sensor until we shipped out a dummy plug for the cable. This meant that it was over a week later that the instrument was removed (April 23rd) and another 4 days before the station started transmitting again (April 27th). The total downtime was almost 12 days. Following the resumption of station transmissions, it took about 17 more days before the station's voltages returned to normal levels.

Compare this to what happened this year: the deep light sensor failed on July 12th (Tuesday) and I noticed this by chance less than two days later on July 14th (Thursday). This means we were able to request help from UPR even before the station lost power, which it did later on the 14th. Francisco responded quickly and by the afternoon of the 15th (Friday) he reported that the instrument had been removed from the station. With so little time between station failure and repair, the station started transmitting again after only two days, for a total downtime of less than 3 days. As of this writing (12 days since transmissions resumed), station voltages have not yet returned to normal levels and it may be another week before the station can maintain steady and reliable transmissions 24 hours a day.

At right is a graph of the station's battery levels so far in 2011, with voltage plotted against day-of-year. [Please click on the image for a larger version.] Note the usual diurnal cycle of voltages, rising to almost 14 V every day in the sunlight and falling to just below 12.75 V overnight. There was an unexplained disruption of this pattern in the month leading up to the sensor's failure, which may or may not have been caused by the problems with this sensor. The graph clearly shows that the station battery levels have not yet returned to normal.

Until we can inspect the recovered light sensor, it is too soon to say whether there may be some specific and ongoing risk to this type of sensor at this particular depth at this particular station. The only other similar incident in CREWS history was judged to be the result of a failure at the connection point of the instrument cable, possibly compounded by a cable insufficiently tied down and therefore subject to a violent whipping back and forth in the ocean currents (this was at the Jamaica CREWS station, in 2008). However, the 2010 sensor failure at La Parguera was of a different nature: in that case, the failure point was a puncture of the sensing surface of the instrument, on top. If this month's failure was also due to a puncture at the top of the sensor, it may signal that our deployment strategy for these light sensors should be reviewed.

The AOML team here in Miami are extremely grateful to our UPR colleagues for their super-quick response to this incident. A reduction of downtime from 12 days in 2010 to less than 3 days this year is an amazing thing to report.

LPPR1 Seabird Electronic tempearture loggers

2011-05-17T00:05:00.003-04:00

Recently, the Coral Reef Early Warning System or CREWs station in La Parguera had two additional instruments on-board to collect data for researches at Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Known as Seabird Electronic tempeature loggers (currently in beta field trails), two of these instruments were placed just below the surface and ~18" down to monitor diurnal warming of Parguera's inshore shallow water. The following summation of their research was written by Xiaofang Zhu a graduate assistant at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science:

Coral reefs are very sensitive to thermal stresses and recent studies have suggested the daily warming phenomenon in the shallow water, along with weekly temperature averages can affect coral bleaching. This study is interested in the detailed physical processes of diurnal warming, including the timing, amplitude and vertical temperature profiles. To reach this goal, a Seabird temperature logger is added along with the existing 2 CTDs to help understand the warming phenomenon at 3 different depths, and to construct a vertical temperature profile.

Below is a graph (click for larger view) of the agreement between the existing CTD temperature sensors and the Seabird Electronics temperature loggers as plotted by Xiaofang.

Unfortunately, both Seabird instruments are not active on the station at this moment due to technical difficulties. I will keep you posted when they are back on-board the station.

Complete Cleaning in May

2011-05-03T21:56:00.000-04:00

Today (Tuesday, May3rd, 2011), a complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) was done at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, by Wessley Merten. The groundtruth validation sensor was placed on at 0900 and was removed at 1230. All surface and subsurface sensors were standing proud to the sea. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar were cleaned. The waters were really clear today which made a clean station look really great.

CREWS Basic Clean in March

2011-03-29T14:37:00.000-04:00

Today, Tuesday March 29th, Wess Merten conducted a basic cleaning and assessment of the CREWs station in La Parguera. I conducted a surface inspection, underwater inspection/cleaning, optical sensor cleaning, and a CTD sensor cleaning. I also very carefully removed some biofouling that has accumulated on some of the cables. In addition, all four brass filters were replaced after finally removing the sleeves from the CTD's. The station looks great!

Complete Cleaning in March

2011-03-01T22:54:00.000-04:00

Ah, it was great to get back in the water after a month on the sidelines. Today (Tuesday, March 1st, 2011), a complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) was done at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, by Wessley Merten. The groundtruth validation sensor was placed on at 12:05 and was removed at 16:15. All surface and subsurface sensors were standing proud to the sea. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar were cleaned which left the station looking great. The only hang up was that I was still physically unable to unscrew three of the four "screen holders" on the CTD's to replace the copper screens (any suggestions on how to get them loose?).

Complete Cleaning in January

2011-01-20T12:46:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, was done Thursday , January 20th, 2011 by Wessley Merten. The groundtruth validation sensor was placed at 1:30 and was removed at 17:00. All surface and subsurface sensors were standing proud to the sea. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar were cleaned which left the station looking great. The only hang up was that I was physically unable to unscrew three of the four "screen holders" on the CTD's. During the next basic clean I'm going to bring a tool to aid in carefully and properly unscrewing the covering to remove and replace the old screens.

Complete Cleaning in December

2010-12-14T22:28:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, was done Friday, December 10th, 2010 by Wessley Merten. The groundtruth validation sensor was placed at 12:15 and was removed at 15:30. All surface and subsurface sensors were standing proud to the sea. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar were cleaned which left the station looking great.

Maintenance Operations, November 8th - 12th

2010-11-22T16:18:00.000-04:00

In the week of November 8th - 12th, a team from the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) traveled from Miami to La Parguera, PR, to work on the CREWS station located near the Media Luna reef. The main purpose of this trip was to perform our annual swap-out of all meteorological and oceanographic instruments on the station, but we had several additional jobs to do, as will be described below. The AOML team consisted of LTjg Rachel Kotkowski (NOAA Corps) and Mike Jankulak (University of Miami). We were joined in the field by Wess Merten (University of Puerto Rico), who in our absence makes monthly trips to clean the station and connect its "groundtruth" CT. Wess has been writing detailed entries in this blog and has also been instrumental in diagnosing the station's ills from afar (one notable example of this from earlier this year is described below).

We started out (on Tuesday the 9th) with a brief survey of the station's underwater supports to make absolutely certain that it was safe to climb. We observed nothing unexpected. This first photo on the left, taken on Tuesday, shows the lower hounds, lashings and base plate attachment.

A second photo seen at the right, taken Thursday (when visibility was unusually clear for this location), shows the "trailer hitch ball" beneath the pylon, the pivot point for the entire structure. Clicking on any of these photos should lead to the (larger) original versions of each picture.

After a quick survey to document conditions and take some photos, we set to work swapping out the underwater instruments. These operations differed from routine swapouts in two ways. For one, there was no "deep" light sensor to remove since this instrument had been removed in April after its failure and flooding caused the station to go offline for about 12 days. You can follow the progress of this event in previous postings to this blog, including the station's initial power failure, the first survey of the station after going offline, the removal of the suspect instrument, and the station's subsequent recovery. So we were not required to remove a "deep" light sensor before installing the fresh instrument.

Secondly, during the course of last year's maintenance visit it became clear that the station's "shallow" light sensor was not properly supporting the instrument and holding it steady and upright. This is documented in the blog post from that visit, which also includes a photo of the offending mounting bracket. Thus we decided in this visit to replace this sensor mount with the solid-platform type mount that we use at our newer stations. The "deep" sensor's mount had undergone a similar upgrade several years previously. The new shallow light sensor and mount are shown in a picture at left.

Our first day's underwater work concluded with the replacement of both CTDs, shallow and deep. After that, I climbed the pylon to remove all aerial instruments and electronics for replacement and reprogramming on land, except for the surface light sensor, which was left in place due to lack of time. The station was therefore powered down on Tuesday, November 9th at 20:26 UTC (4:26 PM local time), and remained offline until everything was reconnected on Thursday, November 11th, at 15:51 UTC (11:51 AM local time).

Wednesday's work began with the removal of the surface light sensor; at this station, this is the most stubborn of the three instrument masts and the one which requires the most effort to remove. Another very important goal of this trip was to replace the station's navigational light. The nav light is a crucial safety feature of the station, because it warns mariners to keep their distance when conditions are dark, and its flash pattern is listed on navigational charts. We had been hearing many second-hand reports that the nav light was no longer flashing. Wess attempted to verify these reports first-hand by visiting the station at sundown but he in fact was able to document that the nav light was still working at least partially. [My best guess at this point in time is that the light was slowing failing, either because its batteries could no longer hold a full charge or because its solar panels were blocked or failing, and that it probably wasn't powerful enough to continue flashing throughout an entire night. In fact, when we arrived in La Parguera on Monday night we could not find the familiar flashing beacon when we looked for it from the hotel's seafront, and the light post-removal did not continue to flash steadily for a full day on the workbench as it should have.] In any case, the nav light had been targeted for replacement on this trip simply because of its age (over five years since deployment of this pylon), and on this Wednesday morning I removed the light at the top of the pylon and installed its replacement. The final picture in this blog entry will show the new nav light, which I was able to observe flashing from the hotel seafront on Wednesday night, Thursday night, and very early Friday morning, so we are confident that the replacement light is fully functional.

Once Wednesday's aerial work was complete, we turned our attention to one more side-project for this trip: the installation of two standalone temperature loggers (see picture at right). This equipment was provided to us by UM/RSMAS student Xiaofang Zhu, who is particularly interested in shallow-water temperatures at both the La Parguera and Little Cayman CREWS stations. Xiaofang plans to use the data from these two temperature loggers, supplemented by data from our two CTDs on the station. She had given us a list of considerations for positioning the instruments on the pylon, which would naturally have to be adapted in the field to conditions as we found them, such as the depth of the Shallow CTD and the positions of the upper "hounds" (which are the four attachment points for the eight chains-and-spectra which support the pylon). We were able to place the two temperature loggers, one above the other, between the Shallow CTD and the water's surface. However, there remains some question about whether the Shallow CTD is correctly reporting its instrument depth (since it seems like it was much shallower than expected). The upper tip of the upper temperature logger was observed to be breaking the surface on Thursday morning, on a very calm day when the tide was coming in (and only a few hours before high tide), so there is some concern that the instrument's lower end (where the temperature sensor is in fact located) might also be above the water's surface at low tide. Still, Xiaofang has decided for the present to leave the instruments as they are, and she plans to work with Wess to collect more objective measurements of instrument depth and distances between instruments. Her software, cables and tools have been left in Wess' care and he may be able to work with Xiaofang to download her data after a month or two.

This concluded our work for Wednesday, and the rest of the day was spent in the lab, replacing the aerial instruments on their masts, reprogramming the data logger and other electronics, and running the new program on the workbench with all available instruments connected.

Thursday morning was the calmest day yet, and visibility was extremely good for this location, which generally has very murky conditions. We were surprised and pleased to find that we could see the ocean bottom from the boat. Rachel took the opportunity to snorkel around the area and take some pictures of nearby corals (see photo at left). Many of her photos showed the telltale signs of a bad bleaching season in the area, which Wess tells us was unusually bad this year although not as bad as 2005.

Thursday's work was all about reinstalling everything that had been removed on Tuesday and Wednesday: the surface light sensor, the integrated "weather transmitter," the anemometer and electronic compass, and the control package of electronics which we call the "brain." This was accomplished in about two hours, and then the station was powered on and a radio link was used to verify from the boat that all instruments were correctly reporting. After that, it was just a matter of tying down all loose cables (both above and below the surface) and plugging up the external openings of the "brain" chamber's conduits. A photo at the right shows the deep CTD and light sensor (note the similar platform-type mount for the light sensor, which is now several years old) after their cables had been tied down.

A final photo (at left) will serve to illustrate two points. One, note the newly-replaced navigational light (centrally located, just above the bird). This new light has its solar panels on top, and since it is located directly beneath the (square, white) satellite transmission antenna, it may not receive a lot of direct sunlight throughout the day. Still, it is believed that it will receive more than enough light to keep it fully powered, and the light is "smart" enough to adjust its intensity downward if it determines that it is too low on power to keep flashing at full intensity until morning. Also, its location beneath the satellite transmission antenna (which has a protruding cable) probably shields it from acting as a convenient bird roost or having its solar panel dirtied and blocked with bird guano.

The second thing to observe in this photo is the bird itself. Believed to be some kind of booby, this bird and others like it are an extremely common sight at this station. We have been told that up to four boobies have been observed at one time sitting on this station. One booby was sitting on the station lid when I first started climbing the pylon on Tuesday, and bravely stood its ground until I reached the top. While I was working, multiple boobies circled the station and at times seemed as though they might attempt a landing, even with me there. It is certainly true that of all of the CREWS stations, this station's instruments are most covered in guano when they are retrieved. There are a few implications of this bird activity for instrument and station operations.

Some of the station surfaces are more suited as resting spots than others. The station lid, the transmitter antenna, the Vaisala "weather transmitter" (or WXT, which provides data for winds, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and precipitation) and the surface light sensor each in their own way provides a comfortable resting spot. Let us consider each in turn.

There is no adverse effect to the use of the station lid as a bird roost, other than a mild "yuck" factor for the pylon climber. It seems possible that the presence of a bird on the satellite transmission antenna could lead to garbled or blocked transmissions, but in fact this has not been a problem at this station. This CREWS station, termed LPPR1 by AOML and known as LPRP4 by the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), has the best transmission success rate of all of our stations. With regards to the WXT, we have actually had ongoing problems with wind measurements by this instrument for many years, and I believe the main problem to be bird-related. There may also be a strong impact on the reliability of precipitation data, although the WXT's temperature, humidity and barometric pressure data are not believed to be impacted. The good news is that all of our newest WXT instruments have come with bird-deterrent spikes pre-installed, and following our work in this week this station features a WXT bird-deterrent for the first time in its history. So I am very hopeful that the WXT wind data will be more accurate in the coming year.

Let me briefly discount bird influences for the anemometer (which pivots enough in higher winds that it is probably not a good perch, although the presence of bird guano suggests it may be hosting bird visits in unusually calm circumstances) and the navigational light (which, as stated above, does not offer much headroom for these rather large birds). Then we are left with the surface light sensor. Unfortunately, this is still a concern. Last September, in advance of this visit, I contacted Biospherical, which is the manufacturer of all of our light sensors. My question was whether they sold any add-on bird deterrent mechanism for their surface light sensors (like Vaisala does for the WXTs). In fact they do not sell such a thing, so it will be left to us at AOML to come up with something on our own. Because it is certainly the case that the surface light sensor provides a welcoming perch for these birds, and it has been observed many times to be acting as a bird roost. We also see this effect in the data, when the average light levels reported by the surface sensor may fall lower than the underwater sensor light levels for a period of some hours in the middle of the day. This is probably the result of the sensor being blocked by birds, and this is a challenge that we should address in the the coming year so that we can test a new bird deterrent in next year's visit. Obviously the main challenge will be to bar the birds from landing on the flat sensor surface without in any way affecting the levels of light that reach the sensor.

In any case, this brings to a close a very long description of an extremely successful field trip. We offer our thanks to everyone concerned (UPR, UM, NOAA) for being willing to work through Thursday's government holiday. And as always, our appreciation goes to Wess Merten, Francisco Pagan, Milton Carlo, and everyone else at UPR's Isla Magüeyes for taking care of the station all year and providing support with boat ops, diving support, tanks and lab space when we visit. Muchas gracias!

CREWS Station Basic Cleaning in October

2010-10-25T23:19:00.000-04:00

On Monday October 18th 2010 Wess Merten conducted a basic cleaning and assessment of the CREWs in La Parguera. I conducted a surface inspection, underwater inspection/cleaning, optical sensor cleaning, and a CTD sensor cleaning. One of the stations surface floats has disappeared sometime between this basic cleaning and te complete cleaning on October 5th. There is only one remaining.

CREWS Station Complete Cleaning in October

2010-10-06T08:40:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, was done Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 by Wessley Merten. The groundtruth validation sensor was placed at 11:53 and was removed at 15:15pm. All surface and subsurface sensors were visibly intact. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar were cleaned, but need more attention later this month. There were reports that the groundtruthing sensor was not transmitting or receiving data during the last complete clean. Therefore, prior to plugging the sensor I examined the interface and didn't see a source for a loose/bad connection. In addition, I inspected the cable that the sensor connects to and besides the significant biofouling that was removed I did not discover any damage.

The next cleaning will be performed within two weeks.

LPPR1 ICON/CREWS Navigation Light On-site Validation

2010-09-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

This evening Wess Merten and Duane Sanabria went out to visit the CREWS station to perform a basic clean and validate that the light was or was not working after the end of civil twilight (~18:51). I recorded three videos: one at 18:55, another at 17:00, and the last at 17:19. The videos can be seen in movie format in the embeded movie below. The light is working, but does it work all the time?

When I arrived to the station today there were 4 brown boobies resting amongst the sensors. This is the most birds I have seen roosting atop the station.

In unrelated but related news, I spotted a juvenile Lionfish(5cm)on the outskirt of the station's reef while cleaning the peripheral lines.

CREWS Station Complete Cleaning in September

2010-09-07T14:02:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, was done Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 by Wessley Merten and Duane Sanabria. The validation CTD was placed at 8:55am and was removed at 12:25pm. All surface and subsurface sensors were visibly intact. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar were cleaned, but need more attention later this week. Since the last cleaning significant biofouling has grown on the many of the stations surfaces.

The navigational light has been out for the past month. This is according to local fisherman who use this station as a navigational beacon at night.

The next cleaning will be performed within the next week.

CREWS Station Complete Cleaning in May

2010-09-07T13:59:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, was done May 27th, 2010 by Wessley Merten and Duane Sanabria. The validation CTD was placed at 8:45am and was removed at 12:15pm. All surface and subsurface sensors were visibly intact. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar are very clean. New screens were placed on the deep and shallow CTD's.

Station back Online

2010-05-04T15:26:00.004-04:00

The La Parguera ICON station is back online following the removal of an underwater light sensor by Wess Merton of UPR. This means that all told the station was offline for about eleven and a half days. The removal of the "deep" light sensor appears to have solved the power problems and the station has in fact recharged itself much more quickly than expected. In addition, all other instruments on the station appear to have returned to their prior states of operation. That is to say, other than the two sensors which were known to be malfunctioning (the acoustic wind sensor on the Vaisala Weather Transmitter, and the pressure sensor on the Falmouth "shallow" CTD), all station electronics appear to have survived this adventure unscathed.

As a reminder, the timeline of the station's failure and recovery is as follows:

Wednesday, April 14th: last station transmission sent at 11:22pm local time.
Monday, April 19th: remote analysis suggests that the station has lost power due to the failure of its deep light sensor. Parts required for removal of the instrument are shipped to UPR from AOML.
Friday, April 23rd: the failed light sensor is removed.
Tuesday, April 27th: first post-recovery transmission is received at 2:22pm local time.

The station's battery levels normally oscillate between about 12.7 V (nighttime lows) and 13.9 V (daytime highs). Right now (see graph at right, which shows hourly battery levels over the past month) the battery levels are still low but they are recovering a little every day and are expected to return to normal levels after a few more weeks.

CREWs Deep BIC removal on April 23rd

2010-05-02T21:10:00.002-04:00

On Friday April 23rd I went out and removed the Deep BIC as requested. Below are photos from the morning. The first is the sensor prior to removal.

In this photo the sensors cable had been removed from the spar by cutting the cable ties holding it in place. The deep CTD was wound up in the same orientation as the Deep BIC; this instruments cable was fixed back to its original position prior to the maintenance. Once the Deep BIC's cable was loose, the sensor was removed by unscrewing the two screws at the end of the mount.

Once at the surface, the sensor was gently laid on its side on a towel while I carefully removed the biofouling that had colonized the cable. Some mussels had managed to grow near the interface between the cable and the sensor possibly allowing a mode of entry for water to the sensor. After the biofouling was removed the cable was unplugged from the sensor and a female adapter plug was placed on the end of the sensors cable. This cable was wound up and placed on the spar as depicted in the photo below.

CREWs Station Surveillance

2010-04-21T13:51:00.003-04:00

Surveillance was conducted this morning (Wednesday April 21st) at 9 am to verify that all in-water and above-water sensors were present, intact, and not hanging on by a thread for some odd reason. This survey was conducted after the station went unexpectedly offline last Thursday, April 15th. I'm happy to report that everything was present and visually intact, however an internal cause (i.e. failed cable, water logged sensor) may be the culprit of the outage and would not have been apparent during the visual census. Below are photos of the station from the surveillance.

Station Offline, probable power loss

2010-04-19T12:54:00.003-04:00

[This is a slightly modified version of an email message sent out Monday morning, April 19th, 2010.]

The executive summary is this: our ICON station in Puerto Rico has gone offline as of last Thursday, April 15th at 10pm local. Judging from the data reported by the station immediately before the outage, I believe that we have a flooded instrument and a total loss of power. I do not believe that the station is continuing to store data locally. I do not believe the station will come back online on its own.

The faulty instrument is the "deep" light sensor, or BIC (see the timeline below for details on why I believe this to be the case). I would recommend that our local collaborators try to visit the station as soon as they can to verify that there hasn't been a more serious structural failure of any kind. They should also disconnect the deep BIC as follows:

Remove the sensor from its mount and retrieve it with its cable, still connected, to a boat at the surface.
Dry off the connector and disconnect the instrument. Cap the cable end with a "dummy plug." [This will require a female-style dummy plug, we may have to ship some to UPR for this purpose if they don't have any.]
As a safeguard, I would recommend coiling the instrument's cable and affixing it to the pylon above the surface of the ocean (just in case there was damage to the cable itself). There should be some long cable ties in our large red "NOAA" box.

Note that this procedure *may* allow the station to return to full power on its own, but it could take several weeks for the solar panels to recharge the batteries. In the Jamaica incident, it was about 10 days before transmissions resumed, and not all instruments came back online when the station resumed transmitting.

The following is a timeline of events before the station failure, reconstructed from the station's final data reports. All times are given are local times (Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-4, which is currently the same time as our EDT here at AOML).

Wed Apr 14, noon: Very large rain event reported, the strongest such event reported since last summer. Winds were somewhat elevated but not unusually so (gusts stayed below 15 knots).
Wed Apr 14, 7pm: By this time the Shallow CTD has reported a significant drop in salinity (the Deep CTD reports a smaller drop in salinity at about 4pm). This is probably related to the rain event, and may or may not suggest large movements of water (i.e., currents).
Wed Apr 14, 8pm: Just after sunset, the Deep BIC shows a rapid drop in power before going permanently offline. The rest of the station appears to be operating normally at this time.
Thu Apr 15, 9am: Sunrise begins to affect the station power levels, which begin to rise in their normal diurnal cycle.
Thu Apr 15, 10am: The station experiences a sudden voltage drop. Depending on which reading you look at, it seems like a drop of 1 V in magnitude.
Thu Apr 15, 10pm: Over the next 12 hours the power levels fall off steadily. When they reach about 11 V (at 10pm local), all transmissions cease and have not resumed. It appears as though at 11 V the station can no longer power the transmitter. It is likely that the datalogger continued to log data locally for several hours after this but at about 9 V all operations would cease.

See also the description of a similar event in 2008 at the Jamaica ICON station, and the follow-up message about restoration of power following the removal of the failed instrument.

Note: we are making arrangements to ship some female dummy-plugs (suitable for capping the ends of the underwater cables) to the UPR team.

regards,

Mike J+

CREW station basic cleaning in April

2010-04-13T13:43:00.001-04:00

On Tuesday morning (~1015 am), April 13th, 2010 Wess Merten and Duane J. Sanabria conducted a basic cleaning and assessment of the CREWS Parguera. We conducted a surface inspection, underwater inspection/cleaning of lines, and an optical sensor cleaning. Everything was visually intact.

CREWS Station Complete Cleaning in March

2010-04-02T20:27:00.007-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, was done Friday, March 26th, 2010 by Wessley Merten and Duane Sanabria. The validation CTD was placed at 8:45am and was removed at 12:15pm. All surface and subsurface sensors were visibly intact. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar are very clean. New screens were placed on the deep and shallow CTD's. Upon arrival to the station, a bird was perched atop one of the surface sensors that flew away shortly thereafter (see photos below).

CREWS Station Complete Cleaning in February

2010-02-28T19:25:00.001-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all sensors, chains, lines, and spar) at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, was done Friday, February 26th, 2010 by Wessley Merten and Duane Sanabria. The validation CTD was placed at 8:45am and was removed at 12:15pm. All surface and subsurface sensors were visibly intact. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar are very clean.

CREWS Station Basic Cleaning in January

2010-01-28T21:54:00.003-04:00

On Thursday morning, January 28th, 2010 Wess Merten, Duane J. Sanabria, and Derek Soto conducted a basic cleaning and assessment of the CREWS Parguera. We conducted a surface inspection, underwater inspection/cleaning, optical sensor cleaning, and a CTD sensor cleaning. Below is a photo from our dive after the cleaning.

CREWS Station Complete Cleaning in January

2010-01-15T22:04:00.003-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, replaced all brass screens, cleaned all instruments, chains, lines, and spar = tower) at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, was done Friday, January 15th, 2009 by Wessley Merten and Duane Sanabria. The validation CTD was placed at 8:45am and was removed at 12:15pm. All surface and subsurface sensors were visibly intact. All rigging, lines, baseplates, sensors, and the spar are very clean. Atop the spar, two boobies were persistent on keeping their vantage point over their fishing grounds.

CREWS Station Basic Cleaning in December

2009-12-05T20:59:00.004-04:00

On Thursday morning, December 3rd, 2009 Wess Merten and Duane J. Sanabria conducted a basic cleaning and assessment of the CREWS Parguera. We conducted a surface inspection, underwater inspection/cleaning, optical sensor cleaning, and a CTD sensor cleaning. Upon arrival a bird was perched atop the solar panels. Below is a photo from our dive.

This is a photo of Duane cleaning the lower section of the spar.

CREWS Station Complete Cleaning in November

2009-11-20T08:24:00.004-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, replaced all brass screens, cleaned all instruments, chains, lines, and tower) at the CREWS Station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico, was done Friday, November 13th, 2009 by Wessley Merten and Ori Tzadik. The validation CTD was placed at 8:45am and was removed at 12:15pm. All surface and subsurface sensors were visibly intact.

Maintenance Operations, Oct 6th - 8th

2009-10-13T12:47:00.006-04:00

Lecia Salerno (NOAA Corps) and Mike Jankulak (University of Miami) visited La Parguera this past week to work on the CREWS Station. The goals for this trip were to (1) replace all meteorological and oceanographic instruments that are connected to the station, and (2) inspect and clean the station's underwater parts: lines, chains, pins, base plate, instrument cables.

All operations were successfully concluded.

Diving operations went as follows: in Tuesday's first dive, three of the station's eight lines/chains were cleaned. In a second dive that day, the four underwater instruments (shallow/deep CTDs, shallow/deep light sensors) were retrieved to the boat and there they were replaced with newly-calibrated instruments. Also, the "groundtruth" CT sensor was attached during this dive. The remaining lines and chains were cleaned during a dive on Wednesday, and during a final dive on Thursday the cables were secured and all loose ends were clipped or tidied (and the "groundtruth" CT was retrieved).

Surface operations began Tuesday afternoon, with the installation of the climbing rungs and safety line and the removal of the three aluminum masts and their instruments (Vaisala's "weather transmitter," an anemometer and the surface light sensor). Tuesday's operations were concluded with the removal of the "brain" control package that includes the datalogger and satellite transmitter. There were no surface operations on Wednesday; rather, Wednesday afternoon was spent in the lab swapping out the instruments on the retrieved masts and connecting them to the "brain" for testing. At this time, locally-stored data were retrieved from the memory module and a new program was uploaded to the datalogger. Surface ops concluded on Thursday morning with the reinstallation of the surface masts/instruments and the "brain." The station was confirmed to be operational from the boat (via radio transmitter) before leaving.

Some specific notes about the station follow:

The deep light sensor is mounted on a sturdy platform, but the shallow light sensor still uses the older allthread-type mount. The shallow mount is very flimsy -- it had been shored up with several connected hose clamps which broke during our work, and were replaced by us later in the week. This is a concern because the instrument had a noticeable tilt, off-vertical, when we arrived. The newly-tightened hose clamps appear to have corrected this tilt for now (see photo) but I would recommend that the entire mount be replaced with something more effective.

On Thursday morning, there was a large bird (identified to us as a booby, see photo) sitting on the upmost platform of the station, which is the satellite transmission antenna, when we arrived. This bird was extremely bold and remained on the station while I climbed to the top. After securing myself by the waist to the top of the pylon, I was able to shake the bird loose. It returned once, I scared it away once more, and throughout the rest of the morning it remained in the general area. I mention this because I noticed that the PAR values reported by the surface light sensor suspiciously dropped below the light levels reported by the underwater instruments a few times in the days since our work was completed. The presence of this bird (and others) may also affected readings from the other surface instruments.

There has long been a problem with the wind data reported by our Vaisala "weather transmitters" on this station. Initial data from this newly-replaced instrument suggest that this is still a problem, although it will take a few weeks to make any definitive pronouncement on this point.

For the record, the CTDs on this station are hose-clamped directly to the pylon; there are no CTD mounts in use on this station.

This station is unique in that its internal conduits open underwater; at all other ICON stations, the cables emerge from the internal conduits just above the surface. There are two conduits, one on each side of the pylon, and each conduit has openings at three spots down the length of the (underwater) stick. However, only the uppermost conduits are used for instrument cables. The deep instrument cables emerge on one side and all other instrument cables emerge on the other side.

Due to a miscommunication, we did not have boat reservations or a boat operator waiting for us Tuesday when we arrived, so we are particularly grateful to Yvonne, who was pressed into service for us when she arrived at the lab Tuesday morning and stayed out with us until mid-afternoon. A student strike all but closed down the lab on Wednesday and Thursday but every effort was made, by both the students and the administration, to ensure that our operations were not impacted. We are grateful to John Kubaryk for meeting with us Wednesday and Thursday to give us access to the dive locker and SCUBA tanks. A big thanks too to Wess Merten who was allowed to cross the picket lines to be our boat operator and guide on Wednesday and Thursday. Wess will be handling the care and cleaning of the ICON station this semester and we were able to spend some time describing to him in detail the things he should look for. We are also grateful to Francisco Pagan for making Wednesday's and Thursday's boat reservations and his help in coordinating the arrival and return of our shipped instruments and tools.

(signed)
Mike Jankulak

Update July - August 2009

2009-09-22T11:51:00.001-04:00

A basic cleaning of the station was done on July 17, 2009 by Monica Rojas. Copper screens were corroded and need to be change.

A basic cleaning of the station was done on August 28, 2009 by Wesley Merten and Stephanie Williams from 13:30pm to 14:30pm. All of the screens need to be replaced. There was considerable biofouling on all stations, and the main pole towards the top was pretty encrusted with barnacles, oysters, and clams.

On Friday the 18th Katie Flynn and Wesley Merten did a complete clean of the CREW station. All lines, cables, chains, and shackles were cleaned and inspected. Things are showing signs of wear. For instance, the outer housing on the shallow radiometer is beginning to deteriorate. Also, there area few lines that travel around the circumference of the main spar that are loose. Calibration CTD was deployed from 10:07am to 1:37pm.

Cleaning June - July 2009

2009-07-13T14:09:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all instruments, chains, lines, and tower) at the CREWS Station was done June 8, 2009 by Francisco Soto and Mónica Rojas.
The validation CTD was placed at 7:55am and was removed at 11:15am.

Basic cleaning of the station was done on June 25th, July 2nd and July 9th, 2009 by Mónica Rojas.

Cleaning update June 8, 2009

2009-06-08T09:52:00.002-04:00

A basic cleaning of the station was done on May 21, 2009 and on June 3, 2009 by Francisco Soto.

Cleaning update May 18, 2009

2009-05-18T15:11:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all instruments, chains, lines, and tower) at the CREWS Station was done May 14, 2009 by Francisco Soto and Diana Beltrán.
The validation CTD was placed at 7:55am and was removed at 10:10am.

A basic cleaning was done on April 17th and April 29th, 2009 by Francisco Soto.

Cleaning update April 12, 2009

2009-04-14T13:15:00.001-04:00

A complete cleaning (CTD validation, cleaned all instruments, chains, lines, and tower) at the CREWS Station was done March 25, 2009 between 9:10 and 9:55am by Francisco Soto, Stephanie Williams and Suhey Ortiz.
The validation CTD was placed at 7:30am and was removed at 11:20am.

A basic cleaning was done on april 3, 2009 by Francisco Soto and Stephanie Williams.

Update February 2009

2009-03-03T13:05:00.002-04:00

Basic cleanings of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico were performed on February 12 and February 27, 2009 by Francisco Soto and Jorge Casillas.
Copper screens and zincs were replaced.

Update November 2008

2009-02-25T11:12:00.001-04:00

Basic cleanings of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico were performed on November 10 and November 17, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Diana Beltrán.

Cleaning Update September - October 2008

2009-02-25T11:08:00.001-04:00

- Basic cleanings of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico were performed on September 19, October 1 and October 22, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Diana Beltrán.
- A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on October 29, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Diana Beltrán. The validation CT was installed at 6:50 am and removed at 10:30am. The station was cleaned between 8:05 and 8:55 am.

Cleaning Update August - September

2008-09-16T13:45:00.000-04:00

Basic cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on August 22, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Diana Beltran from 9am - 9 30am.

A basic cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on August 28, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Diana Beltrán. The station was cleaned between 9:35 and 9:55 am.

A basic cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on September 5, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Diana Beltrán. The station was cleaned between 9:35 and 9:55 am.

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on September 12, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Diana Beltran.

The validation CT was installed at 7:50am and removed at 11:30am. The station was cleaned between 9:10 and 9:55am.

Biological survey

2008-08-03T17:12:00.008-04:00

A qualitative survey was performed at Enrique and Media Luna Reefs from 29-31 July 2008 near La Parguera, Puerto Rico. Bleaching was nearly non-existent with only a few colonies of Palythoa caribaeorum displaying visually discernible bleaching as shown in the image on the left. Several colonies of Siderastrea siderea displayed evidence of paling and discoloration from their normal brownish-gray hues to shades of dark pink and blueish brown. This is likely a result of the normal, seasonal summer declines in zooxanthellae densities within the coral host and not indicative of a bleaching event.

On the north side of Media Luna Reef (east of the ICON pylon) there were high abundances of urchins (Echinometra viridis and E. lucunter -- it is likely that both species were present, but E. viridis appeared to be more abundant). In the images above it is clear that these urchins are bioeroding some dead coral heads through their feeding activities. Urchins graze upon turf and macroalgae that grows upon reefal carbonate substrates and in doing so chew-up some of the reef. This is totally natural and erosion rates are usually less than the rates at which new carbonate is produced by corals and calcareous algae. However, population booms of urchins were observed in the eastern Pacific following the mass coral mortality that occurred as a result of bleaching due to thermal anomalies associated with the 1982-83 El Nino-Southern Oscillation. These increases in urchin abundances were shown to rapidly erode reefs in some areas of the eastern Pacific. It is believed that the large amount of bare substrate which opens up on reefs following mass coral mortality events facilitates the recruitment of urchin larvae by 1) creating more appropriate habitat space for urchin larvae to settle and 2) causing an increase in algae that grows upon this bare space and provides more food for the urchins. These population booms eventually "snuff themselves out" by overgrazing all of the algae available, making them resort to feeding on the less nutritious crustose corraline algae (CCA) and then the actual reef framework itself, which has little if any nutritional value. In the end, many of the urchins will simply starve to death, but in the process can rapidly destroy in tact reef framework structures. Fortunately, these very high urchin abundances appear restricted to very shallow water on the north side of Media Luna. Echinometra was observed around the ICON pylon and on Enrique Reef, but their abundances did not appear to be unnatural. These high (albeit localized) abundances of urchins three years after the Caribbean-wide bleaching event suggest that this phenomenon may be a characteristic of post-bleaching/mortality reef dynamics. It will be interesting to see if urchins go through boom/bust population dynamics anywhere else in the Caribbean, or if this is isolated to SW Puerto Rico.
A beautiful Porites furcata reef was observed by Dr. James Hendee and myself on the east side of Media Luna Reef proximal to the area of intense bioerosion noted above. Live coral cover was very high and mono-specific in this area. These adjacent accretional and erosional environments illustrate the highly dynamic variability of calcium carbonate production and loss that can occur on reefs over short distances.

Dr. James C. Hendee and myself observed a potential back-up site for the planned MAP-CO2 buoy just west of Media Luna Reef, but sill east of the ICON pylon. This is a mostly dead Montastraea annularis reef that occurs in the lee of Media Luna. However, there are patches of living M. annularis re-colonizing some of the dead reef surface.

Best regards,
Derek P. Manzello

Station Instrument Swap, Electronics Upgrade

2008-08-01T17:59:00.003-04:00

A team from NOAA/AOML visited the station for extensive work in the week of July 28th - August 2nd, 2008. Team members involved with the work on the ICON/CREWS station were Jules Craynock, Jim Hendee, Derek Manzello and Mike Jankulak. Boat operations and invaluable assistance were provided by Milton Carlo and Francisco Pagan of UPRM.

Regarding the instrument swap: all instruments were replaced, including the two CTDs, the two underwater BICs and the surface BIC, the "groundtruth" CT, the Wind Monitor, and the Vaisala Weather Station (WXT). The new groundtruth CT is a Falmouth NXIC model which uses the same cables and connectors used by all other underwater instruments; accordingly, the old, proprietary-design CT cable was replaced with a new, standard-issue one.

We are moving away from using the Electronic Compass with the Wind Monitor; on this trip, the new Wind Monitor was manually oriented and directly connected to the datalogger without a compass. It currently reads wind directions approximately 14 degrees off the Vaisala WXT measurements. This will be addressed in the data parsing routines and corrected during the next station instrument swap.

Regarding the electronics upgrade: on this trip nearly every component of the control unit (or "brain") was upgraded to a newer model. This includes the datalogger, memory unit, satellite transmitter, and RF radio. This also enabled us to upgrade the datalogger programming with the newer code that has been running at SRVI2 since March of 2008. This new code corrects the handling of meteorological data and reports all six 10-minute wind averages from each hour. It also stores more 10-minute data locally on the memory module.

During the rearrangement of the control unit hardware, an additional experiment was conducted to determine whether there was room (with the smaller-profile CR1000 dataloggger) for an additional SIO4 serial-ports unit. The experiment was successful, and the LPPR1 electronics now feature three SIO4s for a total station capacity of 12 serially-communicating instruments. Up to four additional serial instruments may now be added to this station provided that room can be found in the pylon conduits for additional instrument cables.

Data parsing configurations have been updated and near-realtime reports can be found on the web. The 12-hour reports, updated hourly, are the Summary Report, the Detailed Report, and the Report of 10-Minute Wind Data. Data have been downloaded from the flash memory of both retrieved CTDs and from the station's old memory module.

Cleaning update June

2008-07-01T14:23:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on June, 2, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Jorge Casillas.

The validation CT was installed at 7:50am and removed at 11:30am. The station was cleaned between 9:10 and 9:55am.

Basic cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on June 10, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Jorge Casillas from 9am - 9 30am.

A second cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on June 27, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Jorge Casillas from 9am - 9 30am.

Cleaning Update May 2008

2008-07-01T14:19:00.003-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on May 7, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Katie Flynn.

A basic cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on May 14, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Jorge Casillas.

Cleaning Update April 30th

2008-05-06T11:48:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on April 16, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 7:50am and removed at 11:30am. The station was cleaned between 9:15 and 9:55am.

Cleaning Update March 26th

2008-03-26T13:20:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on March 26, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 7:50am and removed at 11:05am. The station was cleaned between 9:15 and 9:55am.

Cleaning Update March 4th 2008

2008-03-05T10:55:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on March 4, 2007 by Francisco Soto and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 8:45am and removed at 12:15pm. The station was cleaned between 10:05 and 10:55am.

Feb.19-20, 2008 Base Repair

2008-02-25T14:33:00.002-04:00

The base was repaired with about 370 lbs. of Portland Type I concrete. After cleaning
the exposed surfaces, small batches of concrete were mixed on the surface and brought
down for application. All four corners of the base had 2-3" hollows exposing the thread
of the corner bolts under the plate. The southern edge of the plate lost about 4" of concrete
probably due to water movement from the last hurricane. Hypothesis is that sufficient
force was put on pylon and translated to base to make the base flex about 1", cracking the
concrete on all sides. All voids were packed with new concrete and an additional layer
of canvas bags full of concrete were added in a circle around the plate, with rebar rods
securing the bags to the underlying concrete. Cracking along base plate edges should
be reported as soon as possible before further erosion occurs. Concrete repair may have to
be a normal annual function for this site. Baseplate condition should be annotated for
the monthly maintenence visits.

Update February 6, 2008

2008-02-12T13:18:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on February 6, 2008 by Francisco Soto and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 8:50am and removed at 12:15am. The station was cleaned between 10:10 and 10:55 am.

The cement around the base needs to be replaced.

Cleaning update january 16, 2008

2008-01-18T08:16:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on January 16, 2008 by Joselyd Garcia and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 7:50am and removed at 12:10am. The station was cleaned between 9:05 and 10:00am.

The cement around the base plate is deteriorating and needs to be replaced!

December 17, 2007 Update

2007-12-21T13:49:00.001-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on December 17, 2007 by Dannise Ruiz and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 8:30am and removed at 12:15am. The station was cleaned between 10:10 and 10:55am.

The base looks noticeably worse than last time. The concrete is crumbling away from the metal base on all sides.

December Update

2007-12-12T09:38:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on November 29, 2007 by Alex Mercado and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 8:50am and removed at 1:15pm. The station was cleaned between 10:10 and 11:30am.

Cleaning Update November 2, 2007

2007-11-09T10:23:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on November 2, 2007 by Francisco Soto and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 7:50am and removed at 11:10am. The station was cleaned between 9:10 and 9:50am.

The shallow light sensor is not as stable as it was before it was replaced in September, but it doesn't seem to be in danger of coming loose.

CREWS validation October 12, 2007

2007-10-15T14:57:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on October 12, 2007 by Alex Mercado and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 6:50am and removed at 10:15am. The station was cleaned between 8:05 and 8:50am.

The concrete of the base plate is crumbling, but looks about the same as it did in September when Jules and Madeline were here. The CTD's that were installed at the time wobble around quite a bit, but don't seem to be in any danger of coming loose.

Field Trip Completed

2007-09-22T11:40:00.000-04:00

In the week of September 17th - 21st, 2007, a team from AOML visited the La Parguera station to swap out almost every component of the station and to check for structural damage or deterioration. The team consisted of Jules Craynock, Madeleine Adler and Mike Jankulak. Boat operations, in particular the complicated anchoring at the pylon, were carried out by UPRM's Katy Fynn.

Instruments replaced: Wind Monitor / Electronic Compass, Vaisala Weather Station, Surface BIC, Shallow BIC, Deep BIC, Shallow CTD, Deep CTD. Of these, the new Wind Monitor / Compass and the new Vaisala WXT were deployed with new cables; the other five instrument cables were not replaced.

Transmitter work: the GOES HDR transmitter failed following the passage of Hurricane Dean on August 20th. On this trip, the satellite antenna, the antenna cable and the GOES HDR transmitter itself were all replaced.

Electronics work: the station's control unit (or "brain") underwent extensive modifications in its time on land. The power/ground rack (which previously required 14 delicate screwdriver connections to be made/unmade while balancing at the top of the pylon) was replaced, and new hardware was added (and exhaustively labeled) to upgrade this station to the "weather resistant" plugs now used at our newer stations in St. Croix and Jamaica. This also required re-wiring 7 connectors (27 wires) at the top of the stick. Though time-consuming, this upgrade will make future visits significantly easier to accomplish. Also while on land, the station's logger program was updated to send more extensive instrument diagnostics and to collect data from the Vaisala WXT every 30 seconds (as is done in St. Croix and Jamaica) instead of every 6 minutes.

Miscellaneous: the experimental SAMI-pH sensor, which was not connected to the station, was removed and retrieved to land. The SAMI-pCO2 sensor, though non-functional, was left in place for want of a "dummy plug" to protect the station's exposed cable end. The "Groundtruth" CT was connected during reinstallation to ensure its re-wiring had been done correctly. The station needs CT brackets and all new hose clamps on instruments. Other underwater work and observations will likely be covered in a separate blog entry.

Status: as of Saturday, September 22nd, all station instruments appear to be operational, save the SAMI-pCO2 which failed on August 8th and still requires intervention. A temporary glitch in the logger's internal clock appears to have been fixed from land on Thursday evening. Initial problems with the Shallow CTD, the Shallow BIC and the Surface BIC (Thursday morning) appear to have been resolved. Station transmissions are once again reliable and complete. We will be watching the CTD depths and the wind speeds/directions over time to see if they appear consistent.

-- Mike Jankulak

Cleaning Updated August 31

2007-09-05T16:10:00.000-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on August 31, 2007 by Brandi Todd, Rosa Linda Gonzalez and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 7:50am and removed at 11:15am. The station was cleaned between 9:05 and 9:55am.

No particulars were observed.

Maintenance Update

2007-08-15T14:32:00.001-04:00

A complete cleaning of the CREWS station in La Parguera, Puerto Rico was performed on August 10, 2007 by Wess Merton, Stephanie Williams and Katie Flynn.

The validation CT was installed at 8:45am and removed at 12:00pm. The station was cleaned between 10:05 and 11:30am.

The optical sensors of the radiometers were cleaned, there is some calcareous algae overgrowing such sensors.

The CTDs were cleaned and three of the copper screens were replaced, the fourth remains inaccessible.

SAMI pCO2 Re-installed

2007-05-25T17:36:00.000-04:00

Milton Carlo and Jorge Corredor re-installed the SAMI pCO2 today after Chris Langdon and Joanie Kleypas re-filled the SAMI with reagents and worked on the water sampler last week. The SAMI appears to be putting out good data again.

Jim

Update on BICs, SAMI

2007-05-17T13:20:00.000-04:00

I cleaned the BICs on May 14. They were very fouled. On May 16 the SAMI was recovered, cleaned, and chemicals replaced. The battery was surprisingly still good,i.e. 13.1 volts so I did not replace it. The SAMI was reinstalled on the stick later in the day. Hopefully it is now reporting data.

Chris Langdon

Maintenance Log

2007-05-17T08:21:00.000-04:00

Just a note to let you know the students work this semester.

Here is a small table of when/what for the CREWS.

Francisco

2/1/2007, Complete, CTD validation
2/15/2007, Basic, Cleanded algal growth on chains, and mainframe
3/5/2007, Complete, CTD validation
3/13/2007, Basic, cleaned and examined all gauges, stantions, and chain links
3/27/2007, Complete, CTD validation, need screens
4/17/2007, Basic, cleaned algal growth on chains, and mainframe
5/2/2007, Complete, CTD validiation, changed 3 of 4 screens
5/15/2007, Basic, cleaned algal growth on chains, and mainframe

Samples for Ocean Acidification Studies Taken

2007-05-14T07:55:00.000-04:00

On 5/14/07  the BIC sensors were observed to be heavily fouled.  I cleaned
both.

Water samples for TA, DIC and O2 were collected on 5/14. 5/15, 5/16, 5/17 and 5/18.  These data indicate that the SAMI was reading high by 84 uatm before the change of chemicals on 5/16/07.

Jorge's SeaCat CTD was profiled at the stick on 5/15 and 5/18.

The AOML water sampler was deployed at the stck on 5/17 and 5/18 and collected twelve good samples.  Unfortunately the SAMI was not operational that the time.

Chris

Maintenance Update

2007-04-24T07:41:00.001-04:00

We have been maintaining every two weeks, ground through the CTD every other cleaning (once a month).

Francisco

Calibration

2007-02-01T09:52:00.000-04:00

Ground-truth calibration today.
[entered for Francisco by Jim.]

Basic Maintenance

2007-01-31T09:54:00.000-04:00

Basic cleaning and maintenance occurred some time in January.

[Entered for Francisco by Jim.]

notes from maintenance trip (Dec 18 - 21, 2006)

2006-12-26T11:03:00.000-04:00

Our trip lasted from Monday, December 18th through Thursday, December 21st. The team for this trip was Chris Langdon, Derek Manzello and Mike Jankulak (me). Alfonso (a student at UPR) stepped in at the last minute to pilot our boat on the 19th and 20th.

On Tuesday the 19th, we removed the electronics package (the "brain") and retrieved the SAMI pCO2 sensor. Both were brought back to the lab for work that afternoon and evening. Also, Chris reports that he cleaned the underwater light sensors.

Back at the lab, Chris downloaded the stored data from the SAMI, and it appears as though the instrument has been worked properly since its deployment in November. The "brain" had the following work done:

the RF400 was updated to the latest firmware and set to 38.4K baud (and radio communications were tested in the lab)
the barometer, whose molex plug was broken during removal, was rewired directly to the datalogger ports
the transmitter was replaced with a unit brought from Miami for this purpose
the datalogger program was updated to communicate with the SAMI at 19.2K baud (instead of 9600 baud)
all stored data was downloaded from the memory module

On Wednesday the 20th, we started by completely replacing the satellite antenna and its cable, then reinstalled the "brain" package. At the same time, Chris and Derek redeployed the SAMI and cleaned the CTDs.

In our first post-installation test the Deep BIC was offline due to its power (+12V) wire having come loose, so the station was re-opened to correct this problem. However, all other instruments (including the Groundtruth CT and the SAMI itself) were working okay. In subsequent tests, 100% of station instrumentation was found to be connected properly and reporting correctly.

Note: we observed a large bird "parked" on the surface light sensor for parts of Wednesday morning. We have one picture of this bird. There was also a lot of bird guano on the satellite antenna, which is the largest, highest and flattest part of the station.

Conclusions: the SAMI is now connected and its data is available on our web site. We conclude that there was never any cable or wiring problems with the SAMI and the reason it didn't report data after the November trip was the incorrect baud rate (the SAMI was set to 19.2K baud, the datalogger to 9600 baud). This problem was fixed by updating the datalogger baud rate to 19.2K for the SAMI since we didn't have the needed hardware to change the baud rate on the SAMI.

Also, initial performance of the replaced transmitter/cable/antenna was encouraging although since then we've seen evidence that the transmitter may still be dropping transmissions as before (see, e.g., records from the early hours of December 24th). Since the transmitter, cable and satellite antenna have all been replaced it seems possible that something external is interfering with transmissions. I'm going to ask CSI whether this could be caused by a bird perching on the antenna (!).

Also note that UPR will need us to send them more copper screens for the CTDs.

-- Mike J+

Calibration

2006-12-14T09:49:00.000-04:00

Ground-truth and cleaning.

[Entered for Francisco by Jim.]

more LPPR1 news from the field

2006-11-07T11:52:00.000-04:00

I've spoken by phone with Chris Langdon, who is working at LPPR1 this week.

The SAMI is the same unit that I tested earlier this year in my office. It was set up to output a report once per hour, approximately on the hour. He is bringing me a sample of the instrument's output so I can check it against the programming.

The SAMI is connected but not reporting to the station. It seems unlikely that this is either a programming or instrument problem. That leaves cable failure or loose connections to the brain. The next trip will probably be designed around swapping the SAMI cable and verifying that the programming is correct and complete. In the meantime, the SAMI also logs all measurements to its own flash memory.

Other news: they've replaced the mounting arm of the Deep BIC with one fashioned by Manny. They've taken the old mount and used it to mount the Shallow BIC away from the station as well. Roy and Lew have both noticed that the Shallow BIC is shaded by the chains during the day, and it is hoped that this will correct that problem.

Chris also reports that they've cleaned the BICs.

-- Mike Jankulak

SAMI pCO2 installed

2006-11-06T10:56:00.000-04:00


SAMI is installed since 10 am your time.  New bottom BIC bracket also installed.  Will talk to Roy about what to do about top BIC bracket. Let me know how how the pCO2 data look.

Chris Langdon
Research Assoc. Professor
RSMAS/MBF
Uni. of Miami
4600 Rickenbacker Cswy
Miami,FL 33149

2006-10-24T14:47:00.000-04:00

The CREWS/ICON station received a complete cleaning and ground-truthing on Wednesday Oct. 18, 2006. No bleaching was observed. Basic cleaning was done on Oct 04, 2006. Next Basic cleaning planned for Nov. 01, 2006.

Bleaching assessment

2006-09-29T08:55:00.000-04:00

Hi Jim:

I did not notice anything that could be considered “new” bleaching due to this summer’s conditions. Corals were pale to begin with before the 2006 summer warming began. But Ernesto has far more data and information than I do, so I’d like to read his opinion.

Alina
*******************************************************************
Dr. Alina M. Szmant
Coral Reef Research Group
UNCW-Center for Marine Science
5600 Marvin K. Moss Ln
Wilmington NC 28409

No Bleaching

2006-09-28T10:36:00.000-04:00

Even though it has been a pretty warm summer, according to the local students and other observations, there has been no widespread coral bleaching.

Jim Hendee

Ground-Truth

2006-09-20T17:48:00.000-04:00

Jim:

I got the volunteers rounded up and they did the ground-truthing today.

Francisco

Ground-truth

2006-08-31T14:41:00.000-04:00

I revised the logs for the cleaning and found the following:

Quick cleaning of the station was done twice in June and Twice in July. The last ground-truth logged was on May 31 (I do not remember if Mike ground-truth during his visit). The next ground-truth event will be Sept. 6 while training the new batch of volunteers.

Hope this helps;

Francisco

Maintenance Update

2006-06-02T14:53:00.000-04:00

On Thursday morning a team of six divers work for over 2 hours cleaning the station and taking most of the living growth out.

We took some pictures and I will [upload them soon]. I am planning on going out next week and also connect the small CTD.

Francisco

Science Support for La Parguera Station

2006-05-03T06:55:00.000-04:00

Report on the ICON/CREWS Science Meeting

During the week of April 24 - 27, 2006, over twenty scientists, students and colleagues met in La Parguera, Puerto Rico for a Science Meeting (aka Think Tank #4) of Integrated Coral Observing Network (ICON) colleagues to help start a Climate Change/Ocean Acidification program at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Department of Marine Science's Magueyes Island Marine Laboratory, site of the new NOAA/UPR collaborative Caribbean Coral Reef Institute (CCRI). Drs. Chris Langdon (RSMAS/UM), Joanie Kleypas (NCAR), Dwight Gledhill (NESDIS) and Matthew Huber (Purdue) gave presentations on climate change and explained how the ocean's carbonate chemistry has changed over the millenia, and how it will likely change in the future. New efforts and collaborations (Drs. Julio Morrell and Jorge Corredor--UPR) began with the Caribbean Regional Association of the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), as well as a discussion of ongoing collaborative research efforts in oceanography (Dr. Francisco Pagan--UPR), ocean optics (Drs. Roy Armstrong and Yasmin Detres--UPR), coral bleaching and disease (Drs. Ernesto Weil [UPR], Alina Szmant [UNCW], and Ruben van Hooidonk [Purdue]), hydroacoustics (Drs. Rich Appeldoorn [UPR/CCRI], Jose Rivera [NMFS] and Doran Mason [OAR: AOML & GLERL]) and other projects.

Plans were instituted to utilize existing data from, and add new instrumentation to, the Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) station at nearby Media Luna Reef. Data from the underwater ultraviolet light sensors, as well as other instruments at the Magueyes Island Laboratory, will be utilized to calculate a Saharan Dust Index in near real-time, beginning just ahead of the June influx of Saharan Dust at La Parguera. These data are expected to give new insight into the effects the dust has on coral and other marine diseases. A pCO2 sensor and water sampler will be installed during May and June to begin studies in ocean acidification; other proposals are in for purchasing another model of pCO2 sensor, and for total alkalinity and oxygen sensors. An anticipated new source of radar data from Purdue's Rosen Center for Advanced Computing will help provide new Level Two 3D representation of precipitation and wind vectors for the area, and will thus provide ICON and IOOS efforts a new data source for rain influence on runoff and bloom studies in the local embayment, as well as effects in local oceanographic processes. Plans have also been discussed for the implementation of a passive hydroacoustic sensor at the CREWS station for sensing local fish, marine mammal and diel plankton movements in the area; proposals are also in for the purchase of an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler and acoustic modems to provide circulation data for the La Parguera Marine Preserve.

Finally, award-winning book author Alanna Mitchell (Dancing at the Dead Sea: Tracking the World's Environmental Hotspots) attended the meeting and interviewed the scientists for her new book, The Deeps: The Secret Ecological Crisis of the Global Ocean.

Cheers,
Jim

shallow BIC replaced - deep BIC moved

2006-05-02T11:06:00.000-04:00

Station was shut down at 12:15 pm - "brain" removed on 4/25/2006 by field team (Louis Florit, Lew Gramer, Jeff Absten) in order to replace the non-reporting shallow BIC sensor. The corresponding cable was also replaced. The deep BIC sensor was cleaned and moved to a new bracket holding the sensor approx. 1m out from the pylon.

While the station was shut down, a cable for the SAMI pCO₂ sensor was installed, and the mounting bracket for the unit was bolted onto the pylon by divers (Jim Hendee, Jeff Absten).

"Brain" reinstalled and station turned back on 4/27/2006 at 9:20 am. All instruments reporting except for deep BIC. 10:00 am transmission interupted due to radio modem interferance. 11:00 am first confirmed transmission.

Groundtruth CTD deployed : no cleaning done to CTDs at this time.

Pylon was wiped clean. Chains and legs were not cleaned, some bivalves found growing on chain should be removed.

10-20 small squid hanging around 1m. About 5-10 Small 8" parrot fish observed around base of station. 1 small 8" grouper at baseplate.

LPPR1 CTD update

2006-04-17T11:31:00.000-04:00

Some good news: Jules and Hector have removed the plastic capillary tubes from the CTDs at La Parguera. It's too soon to draw any definite conclusions but it looks like the depth numbers are once again behaving properly. See for example at:

ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/pub/ocd/jankulak/lppr1-2006.xls

Shoe reports that the capillary tubes (which he is sending back to Falmouth) are clogged with growth. Falmouth is either going to send us some wider tubes, or perhaps tell us to deploy the instruments without the tubes from now on, I'm not sure which.

This doesn't explain 100% of the problems we've had but it's a promising sign.

regards,
Mike J+

Near-Bottom

2006-04-17T11:24:00.000-04:00

At left is a picture of the near-bottom part of "the stick" during cleaning, week of April 10, 2006. Note positioning of deep CTD and BIC light sensor. Photo by Jules Craynock.

Shallow BIC Light Sensor

2006-04-17T11:20:00.000-04:00

Above is a picture of the shallow (i.e., near-surface) Biospherical Light Sensor during cleaning, week of April 10, 2006. Photo by Jules Craynock.

Deep BIC Light Sensor

2006-04-17T11:09:00.000-04:00

At left is a picture of the deep (i.e., near-bottom) Biospherical Light Sensor during cleaning, week of April 10, 2006. Photo by Jules Craynock.

Grounding Plate

2006-04-17T11:04:00.000-04:00

At left is a picture of the grounding plate during cleaning, week of April 10, 2006. Photo by Jules Craynock.

Shallow CTD

2006-04-17T10:57:00.000-04:00

At left is a picture of the shallow (i.e., near-surface, ~1m) CTD during cleaning, week of April 10, 2006. Photo by Jules Craynock.

Deep CTD

2006-04-17T10:51:00.000-04:00

At left is a picture of the deep (i.e., near-bottom) CTD during cleaning, week of April 10, 2006. Photo by Jules Craynock.

LPPR1 ICON/CREWS Field Log: Puerto Rico CREWS Site

2006-04-17T09:01:00.000-04:00

LPPR1 ICON/CREWS Field Log: Puerto Rico CREWS Site
J. Craynock & H. Casanova - 2 dives April 11,2006
- Adjusted tension on leg 3, reduced lean.
- Some concrete erosion noted on NW side of base, additional
concrete added and NE and SE sides cconcrete completed.
-Noticeable barnacle and hardshell growth on underside of all
spectra legs observed, some removed but should be cleaned
so that braid can be visible. Lashings need cleaning also.
Much thanks to Winston Rovira for his help driving the boat
and preparing concrete!

April 12, 2006
- Reduced tension on leg 2, pylon now straight.
Lashings retied. 2 SE side base lashings snug, might
have to be loosened next visit.

April 15, 2006
- H. Casanova removed both capillary tubes from the
CT's. Sent to manufacturer on Monday, April 17.
H. was snorkeling.

Maintenance Update

2006-03-13T10:08:00.000-04:00

The LPPR1 CREWS station was cleaned and validated on March 8-2006 without problems between 9:45 am and 2:00 pm. Also, Basic cleaning was completed (but not blog until now) on Febraury 22-2006. The screens for the CTD protection are scheduled to be change on March 15-2006 (and photos will probably be taken), while the next Basic cleaning is schedule for March 22-2006.

CT Groundtruth Data from February 13th

2006-02-16T17:18:00.000-04:00

Data has been received from the "groundtruth" CT that is connected to the station during maintenance trips. As a reminder, the idea is that the CT should be connected to the station for a full hour before cleaning begins, followed by one hour of cleaning, followed by one more hour after cleaning ends. Each "hour" begins and ends at six minutes before the clock hour (i.e., at 9:54am, 10:54am, etc.).

The CT was connected to LPPR1 at about 10:30am on Monday, February 13th (local time). It was removed at about 2:30pm that afternoon. It may be surmised that the "before" hour ran from 10:54am to 11:54am, the "during" hour from 11:54am to 12:54pm, and the "after" hour from 12:54pm to 1:54pm. Data for these three hours is as follows:


   Shallow CTD          Deep CTD        Groundtruth CT
-----------------  -----------------  -----------------
 Cond  SeaT   Sal   Cond  SeaT   Sal   Cond  SeaT   Sal
55.44 26.49 35.59  55.23 26.31 35.57  55.27 26.50 35.46
55.64 26.62 35.63  55.42 26.40 35.64  55.56 26.63 35.57
55.69 26.65 35.64  55.48 26.42 35.67  55.65 26.68 35.59

2006-02-14T15:29:00.000-04:00

Validation and Complete Station Cleaning
The first validation run, couple with a complete cleaning of the sensors and structure was realized yesterday (Tuesday Febraury 13, 2006). The process started at 10:45 am (GMT-4) and completed by 2:20 pm. No problems were found. Three (3) adults Manatees were observed swiming in the surrounding area.

Basic Maintenance

2006-01-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

Basic Maintenance at the CREWS station between 11:05 and 11:15 today (January 25, 2006).

The Media Luna Reef CREWS Station

2006-01-15T14:42:00.000-04:00

Station began transmitting on January 15, 2006.

Station Transmitting!

2006-01-15T09:48:00.000-04:00

From January 10 - 15, 2006, Jeff Absten, Mike Jankulak, Jules Craynock, Hector Casanova and Jim Hendee worked at the site for the final installation of the station instrumentation.

The station began transmitting data at 2200 hrs GMT, January 14, 2006.

LPPR1 Operations Dec 5 - 8, 2005

2005-12-13T10:44:00.000-04:00

1. The pylon is now ready for electronics installation. There
remains a very slight lean to the southeast which Hector
and myself can adjust on the next trip - Jan. 9. The
NOAA emblems and web address side is pointing
due magnetic North. There is no twisting observed
on the baseplate tie downs. The light is operational and
can be seen from the town on the horizon at night.

2. Additional concrete was added to the base. We would
like to build it up a bit more on the next trip.

3. A great amount of biofouling - algae and barnacles- was
observed on the chains and stainless shackles for the upper
1/3 of the water column. This occurred in the 54 days since
deployment. We removed most of this and also cleaned each
of the legs.

4. All stored equipment, concrete, and red box had not been
tampered and our remaining hand truck was with the equipment.

--Jules Craynock

Pylon Installed

2005-10-20T05:00:00.000-04:00

The new ICON/CREWS station was installed to the bottom plate in La Parguera Marine Reserve, Puerto Rico, at 9:22am, October 18th. The USCG was informed that same day. After two intense, full days of underwater work, the station was completed near sundown on October 19th. The NOAA Working Divers completing this work were Jules Craynock (UDS), Scott Stolz, Jeff Judas and Hector Casanova. Jeff Absten and Jim Hendee assisted with the installation and organization of future maintenance and research aspects with the University of Puerto Rico Department of Marine Science staff on Magueyes Island. Dr. Roy Armstrong of UPR/DMS is the local contact.

At this time, the only operational part of the station is the navigational light (white, half-second flash every four seconds, visible for 3.2 nm). This is apparently the only navigational light between Cabo Roja and Ponce, and will serve as a good entrance channel marker to the Reserve and general embayment area. The instruments and electrical infrastructure are scheduled to be installed during the week of December 5th, 2005. Final rigging adjustments will also be attended to at that time. The sensors will include those for measuring wind speeds and gusts, barometric pressure, relative humidity, precipitation, photosynthetically available radiation (PAR, above and below water), ultraviolet radiation (UV 305, 330, 380nm, above and below water), state of tide, sea temperature, salinity, and pulse amplitude modulating (PAM) fluorometry on up to four species of coral.

Cheers, Jim Hendee

Stick is on the way!

2005-10-06T09:21:00.000-04:00

The pylon was shipped from AOML on October 5, 2005, to La Parguera for installation during the week of October 17, 2005. Electronics installation will occur at a later date, hopefully during the week of December 5, 2005.

Jim

More on LPPR1

2005-08-20T13:13:00.000-04:00

Base mounting installation for LPPR1 was conducted in the period Aug.16-19, 2005. Eight peripheral Manta mountings were deployed in the surrounding sand utilizing a hydraulic jack hammer and load locker assembly. The central stainless baseplate with ball was installed as part of an integral concrete base support, constructed u/w on existing rock substrate with poured concrete.

Jules Craynock

Puerto Rico CREWS Site

2005-06-09T15:06:00.000-04:00

The proposed site for the first CREWS station in Puerto Rico is at Media Luna Reef, latitude 17^o 52.326'N, longitude 67^o 03.128'W, in 20' of water, within the La Parguera Marine Reserve.