Day 3

Things are still going well, and we continue to collect targets from the sonar data.  There is one target that has a magnetic signature associated with it, so we will mark it for further investigation with divers or Autonomous Underwater Vehicles. We spend many hours looking at images of sand and rocks, and it’s a tough call as to whether a target merits additional research or not.  We have had the usual amount of equipment malfunctions, but everything gets repaired quickly.  It is a luxury for us to have an entire team of hydrographers who are used to looking at sonar images, so they do the first review of the data as it’s being generated, choose targets, and we look at the data afterwards to further narrow down the choices. One of the hydrographers created the mission logo below..

There is a crew of about 50 on the ship, including me and three other women who share a room.  It’s difficult to get to know everyone in such a short time, but we are making progress.  Today we were invited to dine with some of the crew in their mess, and they were curious about the mission and what we were finding, so it was good to be able to chat with them and answer their questions.  Tonight we are invited to dine in the Petty Officers’ Wardroom, so this will be another great opportunity to get to know more of the ship’s crew.  It’s an honor for us to be welcomed into the respective ranks.  The favorite question seems to be:  “Did we find the BHR?” and I think they are a bit disappointed when I say that we won’t know that until Phase Two Operations with the divers and AUVs.