Sunday, 8 Jan 2012
After a 6 am breakfast, we started preparing the magnetometer for an early start to take advantage of the morning high tide. We left for the inside of the reef and set up the equipment in the Caribe, the larger inflatable boat. After about a half hour a rogue wave broke over the side of the boat and splashed the power inverter and computer. The inverter failed immediately. We dried the equipment, switched the inverter to our spare, and continued using the magnetometer. Half an hour later the same thing happened again. We cancelled the survey and headed back to Kanimbla.
I flushed the inverters with fresh water to remove the corrosive salts from the sea water. Then we let them dry in the sun. As a final measure we flushed the circuit board with rubbing alcohol to remove any remaining dampness. I left them while the crew had lunch and when I hooked them up again, one came back to life, but the other was well and truly fried!
In the afternoon, our team started testing the back-up magnetometer we shipped out from Western Australia. It kept blowing fuses and we found there was a wiring fault in the power box. The team decided to start a manta board survey along the north side of the coral cay at about 3 pm. We were in the water for about an hour and a half before returning to Kanimbla.
We downloaded the GPS tracks of our survey and annotated our field notes, finally finishing off at 6 pm. Here are a few photos of what the other teams got up to during the day….
Photographer: Xanthe Rivett
Lee Graham and his team found a lead scupper that would have drained water off the deck.
Photographer: Xanthe Rivett
A broken blade stem glass. Very high quality, possibly lead crystal. The fact that it is still clear indicates that it hasn’t been exposed to the coral and surf for very long.
Sunset over Frederick Reef. Photographer: Xanthe Rivett
Good Night…..
Paul Hundley (Sr. Curator and archaeologist)