This post comes a bit late as the internet connexion was down yesterday...
 |
| Different conditions compared to yesterday |
As we feared the weather is getting worse. We still launched the dive today but it had to be aborted early because sea conditions got too bad and it can be quite problematic to recover the Shinkai submersible in rough seas. Fortunately a few samples could still be collected and and the rocks sampled suggest that there is indeed hydrothermal activity. Maybe the hydrothermal vents were just a few meters away, it is quite frustrating to have to stop the dive half way through, but well if deep-sea research would be easy, maybe it would not be as exciting…
Tomorrow, it is very unlikely that we can dive with the submersible because of the sea conditions, but because our time is limited, we will still try to get images from one of our target seamount by towing a camera near the bottom of the sea behind the ship. We will not be able to get samples, but at least we can see what is living on the seamount.
Now it is time to take again some seasickness pills and wait for better weather...
 |
| Still we could catch one squat lobster |
 |
| Some fish got accidentally trapped in the submersible, bonus samples |
 |
| Beautful rocks for the geologists on board |
 |
| A better picture of the squat lobster |
