HELLO STAVANGER

Picture of the week: REMUS starts moving after being launched in Adventfjorden.  A blue ribbon of smoke from the Longyearbyen power plant follows the contour of the coastline.

This week started with the first deployment of the REMUS AUV.  When planning the mission, the first objective was to calibrate the compass.  This happens by driving it at the surface in two large circles so it can “see” all the compass headings (0-360 degrees).  After that it knows the magnetic field and adjusts the compass accordingly.  This close to the north pole, the magnetic compass is significantly different than the geographic headings, and therefore the calibration is very important.  The vehicle run was done with a colleague from NTNU in Trondheim, Geir Johnsen.  We went out at about 20:00 and the winds were calm and the fjord glass...perfect conditions!  The objective after the compass calibration was to simply drive the vehicle up and down in the water column across the fjord and back.  We lifted the vehicle out of the boat into the water and sent the acoustic start command and it conducted its mission flawlessly, coming up the surface occasionally for a GPS fix.  We had a period of nervousness when a large cruise ship passed us as the vehicle was heading back, but the time to cross paths was off by 5 minutes. 

REMUS doing its circular compass calibration with Avdentdalen in the background.

Enjoying a cod roe sandwich that Geir made while tracking the REMUS... and driving.

The next day after a hectic morning at UNIS I flew to Stavanger in the southern part of Norway arriving at 22:00.  I was invited to give a talk and contribute to a discussion on AUV technology, so had spent last week putting the talk together.  The workshop went very well and learned about some of the applied challenges for AUV operations in Norway.  We had an amazing dinner on Wednesday night starting with champagne and caviar and ending nine courses later at 01:00.  The following day we all met again to summarize the discussions and document some next steps for the group.  I left that evening for my return voyage back to 78 degrees north.  The flight from Oslo to Tromsø and Tromsø to Longyearbyen was amazing as we were continually chasing the sun setting with the hues of violet to deep red on the left side of the plane.  I caught a cold on the way back, so work on Friday was a bit difficult, so I stuck to more housekeeping duties. 

Stavanger is the oil capital of Norway bustling with offshore activity (here a foot of an oil rig).

In a side meeting at the top of the hotel overlooking Stavanger with Asgeir Sørensen, head of the NTNU Applied Underwater Robotics Laboratory in Trondheim.

It has been a long week for everyone, so Saturday has been a day to relax, clean the house, give Nicole a break, play a few board games, and for the boys to do their homework. 

The Sun is rapidly setting; now at 10:30 and rising at 3:30 with amazing colors throughout the night... still no complete darkness.