Gulf of Mexico research vessel meets visiting engineer from Hamburg, Germany

Guten Tag everyone and welcome to my blog!

My name is Saman Hosseini or just Sam and I am a visiting engineer from the University of Technology Hamburg – Harburg (TUHH), one of the C-image partners. I have the opportunity to be on the Weatherbird II with a group of scientists from the University of South Florida (USF).

Due to high winds, we left St. Petersburg, Florida last night (Nov. 6th) at around 5:30 p.m, a couple of days later than expected to hit our first measuring spot: The Florida Middle Grounds.

Being on a research vessel for the first time and with the expected bad weather, I made sure to take my motion sickness medication a day before leaving and so far I can say: I’m fine ;). I hope it stays this way, even though we are expecting high winds tonight.

This morning, around 6 a.m. we started the first rounds of testing the C-BASS system, a piece of technolgy that is currently in the development and test phase. C-BASS stands for Camera-Based Assessment Survey System and it is being developed to be used for fish and habitat surveys. It has 6 cameras and sensors measuring salinity, temperature and depth.

Right now, we finished recording the first determined path and we are moving towards the next one.

If the internet connection allows me, I will try to log on here and post texts and pictures day by day in order to show you what we are currently up to and explain some of the science that is being done out here. All I can say for now: It’s pretty impressive!

Bis bald,

Sam