Woohoo Data!
MTF: Nothing Broke! Lots and lots of data :)
LFP: St***d sunglasses
So today we took the ferry over to Ebeye the motu where almost all of the local Marshallese live. This motu has a high population density (relative to atolls) of 18,000 people who all live in about 2 km by 0.2 km strip of the motu. The funny thing is that the motu is over 9 km long but almost everyone is clumped in town. Anyways, this morning (Sunday -- hahaha a weekend) we woke up a bit later (woot all of an extra 30 mins of sleeping in) we took the ferry (free) over to Ebeye. It took about 20 minutes and was very convenient. The big question of course was whether or not we would be able to rent a car/hire a taxi for the day to drive all around the motu. We had no idea. At first when we got there we were told they were all out of gas on the island, but then Richard found a taxi truck guy who was willing to let us rent his truck for the day (sans driver!). This was good, because otherwise we would have had to lug about 50 lbs of equipment plus personal gear all over the island all day in the glaring sun.
Anyways, while Steph and I waited for the guys to finish the rental transaction, I got to stand on the street corner converging the GPS (aka wearing my backpack with an antenna sticking out and holding a small handheld computer). It looked pretty funny and most of the local children thought so too ;). Then we attached the GPR to the truck and set up the GPS on the back too and were ready to go. We took the long North South road out of town. It runs for 9 km pretty much along the island (it's about 10 km long and 0.2 km wide (at the widest). We had to go very slow (1st gear the whole way) so the GPR wouldn't break. Oh right! Richard brilliantly fixed the GPR last night by resoldering everything and drying it out with rice. It mostly works great (the backlight on the computer won't turn on and there is some moisture on the inside of the screen). Anyways, it's great that it is back up and running cause I need it for another 9 weeks of fieldwork! We are going to try to get another backup computer out to French Polynesia for me to use in case the soldering doesn't hold.
Because we were running things off the back of the truck, two of needed to stay in the truck's bed overseeing all the instruments and making sure they were working. One of the cool parts of the day is that we got the dGPS unit to have incredibly SMALL error (10 cm in the vertical!) for large parts of the topo data. Ok so bit of background, I paid (on my grant) for a subscription to Omnistar for use of satellites that supposedly gives us sub-decimeter scale precision in the vertical. However, it hasn't really panned out (partly because our receiver is not GLONASS enabled...sigh too expensive to do right now). Mostly we are on the order of 20-40 cm resolution in the vertical but we wanted sub-decimeter. So today when it got down to 10 cm I was very happy!
We managed to end early after covering a LOT of the island and take the 4:30 ferry home. This meant that we had time for a swim (and a beer) on Kwaj before heading back to finish troubleshooting, downloading data, cleaning equipment, and eating dinner. All in all, it's been a great day. We got a ton of data and NOTHING BROKE! Can't ask for too much more :).
Ok so the worst part of the day was about midway through when I realized that some how the polarization on one two parts of one lense of my NEW sunglasses had disappeared. It happened after I rubbed it with my shirt. Now the only things that could have been on the glasses -- salt spray, sunscreen (scary spray SPF 100 & less scary spray spf 50), and handwipes. What do you think caused the polarization to come off? I'm very saddened because these were great glasses, luckily I have a second pair of sunglasses (not the same) but I want to know what to avoid!
LFP: St***d sunglasses
So today we took the ferry over to Ebeye the motu where almost all of the local Marshallese live. This motu has a high population density (relative to atolls) of 18,000 people who all live in about 2 km by 0.2 km strip of the motu. The funny thing is that the motu is over 9 km long but almost everyone is clumped in town. Anyways, this morning (Sunday -- hahaha a weekend) we woke up a bit later (woot all of an extra 30 mins of sleeping in) we took the ferry (free) over to Ebeye. It took about 20 minutes and was very convenient. The big question of course was whether or not we would be able to rent a car/hire a taxi for the day to drive all around the motu. We had no idea. At first when we got there we were told they were all out of gas on the island, but then Richard found a taxi truck guy who was willing to let us rent his truck for the day (sans driver!). This was good, because otherwise we would have had to lug about 50 lbs of equipment plus personal gear all over the island all day in the glaring sun.
Anyways, while Steph and I waited for the guys to finish the rental transaction, I got to stand on the street corner converging the GPS (aka wearing my backpack with an antenna sticking out and holding a small handheld computer). It looked pretty funny and most of the local children thought so too ;). Then we attached the GPR to the truck and set up the GPS on the back too and were ready to go. We took the long North South road out of town. It runs for 9 km pretty much along the island (it's about 10 km long and 0.2 km wide (at the widest). We had to go very slow (1st gear the whole way) so the GPR wouldn't break. Oh right! Richard brilliantly fixed the GPR last night by resoldering everything and drying it out with rice. It mostly works great (the backlight on the computer won't turn on and there is some moisture on the inside of the screen). Anyways, it's great that it is back up and running cause I need it for another 9 weeks of fieldwork! We are going to try to get another backup computer out to French Polynesia for me to use in case the soldering doesn't hold.
Because we were running things off the back of the truck, two of needed to stay in the truck's bed overseeing all the instruments and making sure they were working. One of the cool parts of the day is that we got the dGPS unit to have incredibly SMALL error (10 cm in the vertical!) for large parts of the topo data. Ok so bit of background, I paid (on my grant) for a subscription to Omnistar for use of satellites that supposedly gives us sub-decimeter scale precision in the vertical. However, it hasn't really panned out (partly because our receiver is not GLONASS enabled...sigh too expensive to do right now). Mostly we are on the order of 20-40 cm resolution in the vertical but we wanted sub-decimeter. So today when it got down to 10 cm I was very happy!
We managed to end early after covering a LOT of the island and take the 4:30 ferry home. This meant that we had time for a swim (and a beer) on Kwaj before heading back to finish troubleshooting, downloading data, cleaning equipment, and eating dinner. All in all, it's been a great day. We got a ton of data and NOTHING BROKE! Can't ask for too much more :).
Ok so the worst part of the day was about midway through when I realized that some how the polarization on one two parts of one lense of my NEW sunglasses had disappeared. It happened after I rubbed it with my shirt. Now the only things that could have been on the glasses -- salt spray, sunscreen (scary spray SPF 100 & less scary spray spf 50), and handwipes. What do you think caused the polarization to come off? I'm very saddened because these were great glasses, luckily I have a second pair of sunglasses (not the same) but I want to know what to avoid!
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| A predug Trench! And stratigraphy :) |
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| Cute little coral in all of 6" of water |
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| Reef flat on the ocean side of Ebeye |
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| The wonderful truck setup with dGPS and GPR :) |
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| On the ferry to Ebeye -- so happy! |
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| Playing with the GPR. |
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| Steph posing for science :) |
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| Our truly lovely rental that saved us walking for ever |
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| Chris enjoying the truck and GPR |
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| Panorama of lagoonside view from Ebeye |
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