Mixing Zephyr Program
Dive 2932

Port Observer: Butterfield
Starboard Observer: Summit
Pilot: Williams
Date: 6/6/95

Summary

Dive objectives: 1. Lay a trail of small markers (CA-CZ) from just north of Peanut eastward along the north edge of the Bastille complex and past S & M. Markers should be spaced about 5m apart.

2. Continue Bastille area water sampling.

Summary: ~9:50 We touch down northeast of S & M, find the canyon and drive south along its bottom. The first excitement of the day is some fishing gear? at [4952 6045].

10:10 Popping over the top of the canyon wall we encounter Kim's camera

north of S & M. It"s hard for us to say whether its still upright or

pointing at what its supposed to. We can see the trail of markers that Kim left as we transit across to Peanut where

10:21 we find Kim's other camera. We sit facing east with our tail on the talus slope and Blee wrestles with the marker unwinder.

10:35 Small marker CA is dropped at [4863 6012]. Markers are dropped every 7-8m (some in groups of two or three) along the north edge of the Bastille complex. We turn south after Needle and a line of markers are dropped east along [x 5985-90], passing south of S & M.

10:46 We pass over the fault and drop marker CO into the chasm. We continue to drop markers in similar fashion until the end of the alphabet at CZ [4968 5995].

10:56 A ground occurs and Blee deals with it.

11:02 We transit back to do some water sampling at the Bastille complex. Passing north of S & M we find Dudley lying on his side.

11:08 Searching for water to sample (we were warned that we would probably get called back early), we arrive at a set of smokers [4895 5998] that Blee sampled with Eric on dive 2928 when their navigation was bad.

11:13 We place marker B7 on the worm-topped phallus that Vero later decides is Needle itself. We press on for previously unsampled sites, have difficulty maneuvering in a tight spot at [4890 6002] and fly up and out.

11:27 We are back at Peanut and get called back to the surface. Blee negotiates for 10 more minutes and we go looking for any kind of water at all.

11:32 After flying southeast over some diffuse flow, we attempt to sample a smoker at [4887 5995], heading 166, depth 2188m. Marker AH could be seen 10-15m away. The discrete major that we are using does not fire properly (though some quite dilute hydrothermal fluid was evident upon analysis) and

11:37 we leave for the surface. later.... The Niskins are fired off between 2056m and 2045m (about 150m

above the bottom) in a smoky plume at [4900 5973].