Time Flies...

...when you're in crisis management mode. Monday I got in the tank to clean and do a water change. You have to drain some water out then close the valves, shut off the pumps and get in the tank to clean twice a week. Monday, after doing EVERYTHING the way I always do it, I realized about halfway through the dive that the water level had gotten lower while I was in the tank. I pulled myself out of that tiny hatch so quickly and dropped my weight belts as I sprinted across the deck and down the stairs to the pump room. Sure enough, the reservoir was overflowing like crazy. I turned the pump back on to get the water out of the reservoir but at that point I had already lost a good portion of the water.

I have to make the RO water now since we are in port and I can't just pump in this nasty-ass marina water. The RO unit takes a long time to do it's job - about 30 hours to make enough for a water change. On top of that, add the fact that I'm paranoid as hell about that hose coming off again, this was not shaping up to be a great day. And I was only supposed to have 3 days left. (Turns out it's 4 since Neil's flight to Barcelona was canceled for today due to labor strikes all over Spain - awesome). So I did what I could to keep the fish alive in an isolated tank. There is 1 pump running to just circulate water but there is no heater/chiller, and no filtration. The main concerns are lack of oxygen in the water and a drop in temp - funny, the first crisis was a spike in the temp (actually, none of this has been funny).

By the time I went to bed Monday, I had nowhere near enough water to get the system going again. I placed a small powerhead pump in the top of the tank and left the top hatch open so that there would be some oxygen exchange happening. Since I had no problems during the day with the RO unit, I decided to let it run through the night but alerted some of the guys on Odyssey to just check in there every once in a while to make sure there wasn't water gushing everywhere.

A small knock on my door woke me on Monday morning. Matt was there to tell me that water was pouring out everywhere and the pump room was flooded. It was 2:00 AM. I scrambled over there but all I could really do was just vacuum up the mess. Of course, after about 10 minutes of vacuuming the vacuum overheated and I had to stop. I went back to bed.

Tuesday I sat in the small, dark, stinky pump room ALL DAY just babysitting the damn thing so that if it busted open again, I could stop it right away. Nothing happened. Though after about 24 combined hours of water RO water, I still didn't have enough to fill the tank and reservoir enough to run the pumps. I turned off the RO unit last night - I wasn't going to deal with that again and I started making water at 7 AM this morning. I'm praying that by midnight or so I should have enough to start the tank up. I now have an oxygen tank that the engineers use for welding acting as an airstone to pump O2 into the tank. Luckily the temp hasn't dropped at all even though the air has been quite chilly. The animals all look ok - even the corals and anemones are open and happy. I did notice a dead anthias fish this morning but they had been dying since before Neil left so something else is killing them.

Well, I have to get back over there and babysit. I will be leaving Barcelona on Friday afternoon for Pisa where I will meet up with family and stay with them for a week. I will then (hopefully) drive up to Hungary with my nonna. She's got a cold right now and is not 100% sure they will make the drive. If they don't I will have to get there via train or something because my flight home to SF is booked out of Budapest.

Thursday 2 Sept 2010

Today is my first day flying solo. Everything has gone pretty smoothly. It was a dive day so I read and re-read all of the instructions for draining the tank, shutting off the valves and refilling the tank. Everything seems to be running again after all is said and done so I must have done it right!

Neil left yesterday afternoon for San Diego to go shark diving off of Guadalupe Island. People back home are jealous that I am here but I am jealous that he is there!! I'd rather be jumping into white shark infested waters off of Mexico....I've done this gig before! Scotty and I have always talked about doing that shark dive but we never have. Someday.

I had to move out of my original cabin and into Neil's cabin on the Shadow. Apparently, the room I was in is used for frequent "guests" and if the guy shows up, he wants his room. It has to be empty and ready should he just stop by, I guess. Now, if we should leave for Hamburg, the Odyssey and Shadow will split up so I will have to be relocated again to the Odyssey. The tank is on the Odyssey so I wouldn't be much use on the Shadow. I'm excited at the prospect of living aboard that big beautiful yacht but I was told that I might possibly have to share a cabin. That isn't exciting news as the cabins are pretty small. I'm sure I'll survive.

Tuesday 31 Aug 2010

Today I got in the tank for the first time with Neil watching and trying to guide me through stuff from the other side of the window. Now, as SCUBA divers we have a small repertoire of hand signals that we would use to communicate while underwater. Unfortunately, those signals are mostly limited to things like, "are you ok," "I'm out of air," "SHARK!" and "let's go up." I am unfamiliar with the hand signals for, "please move that mushroom coral from its current location to up on that rock over there behind the clam." Not only was he making ridiculous hand gestures, but his facial expressions were quite humorous. Did I mention that I am no good at charades? After alot of laughing at him through my regulator I seemed to accomplish what it was that he intended for me to do.

We started talking about some of the special circumstances that I might encounter if we go cruising. Rough waters pose the biggest complication as the reservoir tanks could slosh around creating a big mess and therefore headache. The life support system is housed beneath the tank in a very small, very cramped room. The reservoirs are located in this room. I would need to cover the tanks and secure the "lids" - which are simply pieces of plexiglass that attach with rusty bolts. There is also a phosphate removal dosing system that Neil has MacGyver'd up which would need to be drained and stowed. There are also about 5 different ways to do water changes depending on the circumstances so I have to keep all that straight in my head. Luckily, Neil is very well organized and had prepared a document with the basics of how to do everything so I feel pretty confident.

So, why might I need to know all this info? Turns out we will be leaving port. There is some event happening at the port which will require us to undock and sit at anchor for a few days. That won't be too bad, we will still have access to shore via tender boats. We will probably go to Beaulieu which is between here and Monaco.

Another possibility for leaving port would be if the boss comes aboard for a cruise. This would probably be sometime after September 15 and stay relatively close to Nice. In this case I would stay aboard the shadow boat and be shuttled over to the Odyssey to work on the tank.

The last possibility would be that the boss doesn't come and we sail to Hamburg, Germany where the ship will be in dry dock for repairs and inspections. This is my favorite option! We would sail through the Straits of Gibraltar, around Spain, through the English Channel and into Germany. I'll keep you posted as to which option wins.

Time to get back to work...