Port Call in Portland

Thursday, August 02, 2012
TE SubCom Dependable Passing Astoria

We arrived offshore of Astoria, Oregon, in the early morning hours today on our way back to Portland for a quick turnaround to load two more deep water nodes, change out some personnel, and provision the vessel. Our port call will be only for 24 hours, but will allow us enough time to get set for the second leg of our node installation work. The final three OOI RSN primary nodes will be installed along the northern cable section of the OOI system. No cable burial will be required during this leg where we will be working in deeper water depths. The ROV will be used only to inspect the nodes once on the seabed and to help recover the cable ends and deployment bridles.

Along with our two Oregon Fishermen's Cable Committee (OFCC) representatives, I will be getting off the vessel in Portland and passing the baton to my UW OOI colleague, Brian Ittig, for the remaining node installation operations. As of tomorrow, I’ll be watching the second part of the OOI RSN primary node installation like most of us… from shore.

It has been a pleasure working with the OOI L-3 MariPro team and the crew of the TE SubCom Dependable these past few weeks. Their professionalism and positive attitude have gone a long way to making this installation a success. Keep it up!

-- Cecile Durand, OOI Marine Maintenance Manager, University of Washington