Ahoy Octo-Cadets, and welcome to the Okeanos Explorer!
I’m Debi, and I’m an ocean explorer. I work for NOAA, which stands for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Together with many other people, I work on this ship, and we explore the deep sea. How do we do that? Let’s go find out.
Octonauts, let’s do this. Yeow!!!
The pressure in the ocean is so great, humans can’t go there, so we send a special robot.
Octo-Cadets, meet Deep Discoverer our special robot for ocean exploration.
And this is Chris, he works with Deep Discoverer. Hi Chris. Hey Debi.
Can you tell us about what Deep Discoverer does?
Sure, so this is Deep Discoverer, and today we’re going to take Deep Discoverer up to four miles down to the ocean floor, so you can see what Deep Discoverer sees.
And how do we do that? We do that by using these powerful cameras and powerful lights.
That’s neat, and what is that? And this is our manipulator arm and we use this arm to take biological and geological samples that we store upfront in these boxes so that we can bring them to the surface so scientists can analyze them.
Whoa, isn’t that cool Octo-Cadets?
Wow, wow, hmmm.
Now that we know more about the special robot that explores the seafloor, let’s find out more about the ship. Octo-Cadets, let’s do this.
Now let’s find out what we do with D2’s video. Come along.
This is the control room. A lot of things about D2 happen in here.
Behind me you see the pilots. They steer D2 on the seafloor.
And over here we have scientists. Hi Steve and Stacey.
Hi, this is Steve, and I am Stacey, and we are marine biologists.
Can you tell us about the work you do here?
We actually look at the videos collected by the robots, and we try to identify organisms along with other scientists on the shore.
What are you looking at right now? We’re actually looking at a sea star. That’s so awesome, thank you.
Now let’s look at how we make maps of the seafloor.
Excellent Kwazii, a good map helps you to get to places you’ve never been.
We also have a scientist on board who makes maps of the seafloor. Hi Derek. Hi Debi. Can you tell us about your work?
Sure, my job on the ship is to make maps of the ocean floor. We do this by sending sound from the bottom of the ship that echoes off the seafloor and comes back to the ship. And then from that, we can make maps like this.
So, this is what it would look like if you were able to drain the water out of the ocean and actually see what the landscape looked like down there. We use these maps to give the vehicles a place to dive, and they explore further, just like Octonauts do.
Status report Dashi? We’re right on course, captain.
So, earlier we learned that D2 picks things up from the seafloor with his manipulator arm. Let’s find out what we do with those samples.
This is the wet lab, and Megan spends a lot of time here. Megan, can you tell us about your work?
I am the sample data manager, so when the ROV comes up, we go out and we collect the samples from the ROV and we bring them in here. And we try to record as much information about them as possible.
Everything from the details about what they look like to the environment conditions where they were found. How cold was it, for example.
Then we come in, and we take imagery using this microscope, and we take pictures using this camera as well.
And then after we get all the pictures taken and we’re ready we prepare them for shipping to other scientists and museums so more science can be done, such as this squat lobster, this cup coral as well.
And what is that? This is a piece of coral, or several pieces of coral, that we think might actually be a new species. So, we are going to send it out for a comparison to existing species to see if we’ve discovered something new.
Wow, you have a really cool job. Thank you.
Fascinating, I’ve read about this, but I’ve never actually seen it.
An important part of how we explore the ocean is keeping in touch with scientists, and Octo-Cadets, on shore. Let’s go see how we do that.
Rosemary, could you tell the Octo-Cadets a little about what that dish does? Sure. My name is Lieutenant Rosemary Abbitt, I’m the operations officer aboard the Okeanos Explorer, and that is our VSAT.
It stands for very small aperture terminal, and inside that satellite dome is a very powerful dish antenna that allows us to communicate with shore and share video in real time.
The technology is called telepresence. Whoa, that is so interesting. Thank you, Rosemary.
Now I’m getting really hungry. Let’s go to the kitchen and talk about food.
[Vegimals speaking Vegimalese]
This is the ship’s kitchen, also known as the galley, and this is Michael. Hi Michael. Hi Debi.
Michael is the chief steward on this ship, and he keeps 49 people fed for three weeks at a time. Michael, how do you do that?
With a lot of care and with the help of three crew members. I have myself, the chief steward, a chief cook, and a second cook, and we just do it with a lot of love and care and make sure that everybody’s happy and well-fed.
We use up to 150 dozen eggs per trip, up to a 100 gallons of milk, a lot of veggies and fruits, a lot of snacks. Everybody’s very pleased with what we usually put out.
We also make sure that we do it in a loving way and in a sanitary way and a safe way that keeps everybody from getting any tummy aches.
[Vegimals speaking Vegimalese]
I’m about to enter the ship’s bridge, it’s like the Octopod’s headquarters.
Octonauts, to the HQ.
Ahoy Captain. Ahoy Debi. Hi Eric. Hello. Octo-Cadets, meet Eric Johnson, the commander of the ship. Eric, can you tell us about what you do up here?
Absolutely. Hello, Octo-Cadets, my name’s Eric Johnson. I’m a NOAA Corps officer and I’m the captain of the Okeanos Explorer. Welcome to my office.
This is where we drive the ship. This is where we control the operations, we run the propellers that are underneath us in the back to the wheel up here at the front, which is where we steer. It’s a pretty cool job. It’s very exciting, and it’s pretty beautiful around here as well.
So Octo-Cadets, now you know a little bit about the ship and how we explore the deep sea. I hope you enjoyed our time together. I’ll see you next time. Debi, safety first.