some diving?

The paradise hideaway of Las Caletas combines fantastic diving with
the luxury of one of Mexico's most famous beaches. Your family and
friends who do not dive can enjoy sea kayaking, snorkeling, nature
walks, a relaxing massage, or just lazing around on the beach - while
you explore the world below the surface of Banderas Bay. Underwater
coves and a nearby natural reef offer some of the finest snorkeling
and diving on Mexico's Pacific coast. With an abundance of colorful
tropical fish, turtles, lobsters and mantas combined with good
drop-offs, nice shallows, and fine beaches this is a great place to
combine diving and snorkeling with beach combing and lazing in the
sun.
This collection of islands off the northern coast of Banderas Bay was
made famous by Jacques Cousteau in the 1970's. With its variety of
caves, reefs, and drop-offs combined with tropical fish, mantas,
dolphins, turtles, and whales (December - April) this is one of the
most popular areas in Western Mexico for scuba diving and snorkeling
and also provides the chance to see humpback whales during the winter
months. Beginner and certified divers can share the day with friends
and family who do not scuba dive by taking advantage of our daily
trips to the Marietas Islands. By combining your bookings, your
non-diving friends can enjoy sea kayaking or snorkeling while you
enjoy your underwater adventure in the crystal clear waters of the
Mexican Pacific.
u like??!

AD4367 done!!

Desde las profundidades del Pacifico, en un lugar llamado "Levantamiento
del Pacifico Este". Pues esta vez si que tuve un viaje novelezco, del tipo
Julio Verne 20,000 lenguas viaje submarino.. lo unico es que no saque la
lengua y tampoco las medi, en lugar de eso con anticipacion sabiamos que
la profundidad era de 2500 metros y pues bajamos en un submarino llamado
ALVIN, Mark (piloto) Lauren y Angel.
Nos tomo cerca de 1 hr y 45 minutos; al principo, un oceano tan
transparente que pareciera no tener fin, sin embargo despues de 3 minutos
la luz nos dejo atras y se nos hizo de noche a 100 metros. Cuando estaba
completamente obscuro, entonces la bioluminiscencia entro en juego y
parecia que nos rodearan luciernagas!!
Las medusas nos acompagnaron todo el transcurso desde que nos despedimos
de la superficie hasta que llegamos al fondo. Mark, el piloto prendio las
luces a 2400 metros y nos pregunto que le avisaramos cuando llegaramos al
fondo. Las funciones que tenemos son de observador y pues como solo tiene
3 ventanitas el submarino, pues nosotros somos los otros ojos del piloto.
El fondo es negro y pareciera alfombra corrugada, de hecho es una zona
activa. Las temeperaturas se incrememntan y la vida existe. Cangrejos,
pulpos, gusanos marinos y otros bichos raros, ahhh tambien hay camarones
"fruti di mare". Pronto enviare algunas fotos, pero creanme que el fondo
del oceano es increibe!!

AD4367

Esta vez me adelantaron mi regalo de cumpleagnos... AD stands for Alvin
Dive. Oficialmente, magnana me toca ser el observador a estrabor abordo
del submarino llamado ALVIN. Salimos a las 7:30 de la magnana y regresamos
a las 5:30 de la tarde. Creo que no voy a poder dormir de la emocion!! Aun
tengo mucho trabajo que hacer antes de que el momento llegue.

Station 004 (NA) done and 005 on its way

We finished the station 004 (NA) around 8 in the morning, then they
were deploying some moorings that took quite a while. We deployed the
station 005 (E2) around 20:45 and now we are waiting, it would be 3000
meters so it should take a little longer. The ocean got quite crazy
and people started getting sick. I gave up and took another pill. I
also helped to deploy the microprofiler, I think that I will be doing
something with that device, I would love to get involved in that
project.
I will stay up for one more deployment, station 006 up in E3 and then
I will talk to "Morfeo" while they steam back to NA.

Station 002

The second deployment was done, I got to see some squid swimming close to
the surface of the water (this is at night). Now after figuring out how to
predict tides I could go and get some sleep.

success!!!

yeahhh! I didn't lost the LADCP at 2500 m. Today I found out that I will
be diving with them, I will be down to 2500 m looking for deep ocean
mussels and more.
Regarding the CTD/LADCP cast we downloaded the LADCP data and a quick
postprocess of it in Matlab gave the first results and now we are waiting
for the CTD data in order to calibrate the salinity and the devices.
I am still fighting with the "t_tidal.m", those guys use altitude and I
believe from satellite, but we use current meters instead and from there
we look at the phase.
There is going to be another deploy in 2.5 hrs at the northest most point
of this site. The coordinates would be:
9 50'
104 17.4'
(the previous coordinates should read xx xx' instead of xx' xx'')

first mooring

Yeahhh!!!
I got to see the first mooring, it was 2000 meters deep!!! so cool. The
ocean is so blue and it is like a desert over here, there is no animals
besides some birds that think we are going to feed them. I have no clue
why are they out here if there is almost nothing to feed on. I saw a tinny
spider on my shorts though, but didn't seem to be really meaty for those
birds.
Once we get the mooring on board they would give us the data from the
Current Meters (CM) and we will estimate the tides. I get to use a program
called t_tide written in MatLab (I really like MatLab). By using this
program we could predict the main tides M2 and K1 --aparently K1 is a lot
less energetic than what M2 is--.
While downloading the data, Lou will test his microprofiler, it would not
go down, it is just to train the crew on how to recover it.
The CTD/LADCP team will deploy it for the first cast. We are looking
forward to do that since we adapted the holding system. The main problem
is that one of the instruments, the one facing down, coul beam the
structure giving us errors in the data. So far, we are confident this
won't happen.

Microporfiler

The micro profiler is having dificulties on the deck, we will be
recovering one of the moorings (I have no idea how they look like) today,
the station is called SA (south something) and the coordinates are:
9' 09'' N and 104' 12.5'' W.
We still have a good 3.5 hrs of steaming. They call it steaming from the
old way to say navigating, but since we are not using steam, in fact it is
not quite true, we are producing steam to make the turbines move. I know,
this is complicated but we have 3.5 hrs left and then the fun part should
start soon after that.

white submarine

this is not a yellow one, but I am not allowed to bring those guys
from the UK. I visited the ALVIN and they gave us all the instructions
and stuff. We might be diving in one of the excursions. This would be
great if happens. For now, I have to plan the casting schedule for the
LADCP/CTD and coordinate with the rest of the people. Hopefully this
coming test, tomorrow, will be a successful one. I will be looking at
the tides as well and now i recall Christopher DiCaprio, cause maybe
we were talking about the same software. I have to predict the tides
for the next 12 days !!!
the coordinates today are:

12' 03''
104' 18''

Learning LADCP

This is lovely, I am learning so many things in such a little amount
of time. I will be responsible for the LADCP system and I got it all
to work.

From the Atlantis

Bueno, bueno, probando, uno, dos, tres!!!
que paso tan chevere. Ahora si reportandome desde el Atlantis, el barco
del Woods Hole oceanographic Institute. En estos momentos me encuentro
conectando cables y ayudando a que todo quede listo para soltar el yo-yo
que medira todo lo que necesitamos del mar!
Como lo mencione antes, esta es solo una prueba a ver si furula.
Coordenadas:
16' 52''
104' 24''

¿Dónde está Angel?

Dale un click aquí y verás dónde estoy...
Válido a partir del 12 de Noviembre.