Today's dive was cancelled due to increasingly heavy winds and seas. Here, ROV Deep Discoverer is recovered and safely brought back on deck. Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2017 American Samoa. Download larger version (jpg, 2.7 MB).
Following overnight mapping operations, the science team woke up very early today to evaluate newly collected mapping data and select a dive site on an unexplored seamount located about 20 nautical miles south of the southeast corner of Rose Atoll Marine National Monument. Shortly after deployment of the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for Dive 04, the weather picked up and continued building, with wind gusts over 35 knots. We cancelled the dive and recovered the ROV. The onboard team spent the afternoon catching up on paperwork, developing outreach materials, and continuing to evaluate the weather to determine contingency plans for the coming days.
