8/22: Just flew in from coring...

After much preparation and planning for a break in the weather, we finally got mud on our hands today…which is a good thing. The day started with drinking coffee and drilling aluminum core tubes and by lunch we had full command of the ‘mystery machine’ to head off to the radio tower and lug the last of our gear in to the pond. The pressure was on because now, the science was only waiting on us. 

Hopefully the photos/videos and captions speak for themselves for now and I can update the in-between once my arms don’t feel like I ‘double-poled’ a 50k skate race and my face doesn’t feel like I stared at the sun for 24 hrs, determined to see an eclipse. Our engineering worked, we didn’t tip the raft, and we got mud. There is further to go and we have some innovation planned for tomorrow but for now, hopefully there aren’t too many miles to go before I sleep…

I have asked many times if there was maybe another way we could transport the core tubes...there is apparently not. 

Pre-coring fuel-up

Mike and Maddie ready the tripod for initial fitting

Turns out the tripod is tall once it is on the boat so we utilized a different technique for reaching it

Securing the tripod legs to avoid mishaps when using the block and tackle. The suction of 8-10 ft of core tube in stiff sediment takes a significant amount of force to break. We decided the locals would not appreciate a flag pole in the middle of their pond.

Hauling Mike and the coring raft into the middle of the pond with the small boat "MS Baby-Fun" (you can see it if you zoom in on the side of the little boat). There is an entire GoPro video of me cracking up while towing Mike out that I will be processing shortly.

Going high to load-test the tripod.

Going low, bottom-of-the-pond low, to get the core.

Ain't it a thing of beauty...

I now see where my son gets that face while exploring new and exciting things in the world. 

Leaving the raft anchored overnight and returning tomorrow morning. Note: the two cores go together to make one longer core consisting of two separate drives. This is what required me to go benthic in the photo above...

Hiking out amongst the cloud berries...

Caught stuffing my face amongst the cloud berries. 

Typical morning commute