August 16 -August 22, 2004
While we were off site avoiding Hurricane Charley, our master tool designer, Gary, built a new system to isolate the manipulator arms from the rest of the ZEUS ROV system, and which should greatly extend the life of components within the arms. Gary is one of our master fabricators in addition to being the ROV supervisor on this leg, and it is fun for us to turn him loose on projects like this to see what he comes up with. The isolation system worked beautifully on the very first dive and has continued working, which is a testimony to the experience and ingenuity of our technical team. After satisfying ourselves with the testing of modifications and improvements, we quickly put down an empty fourplex basket and recovered one of the full ones to keep our archaeologists busy while we turned our attention to the debris field. We have always noticed a large trail of debris, leading into the shipwreck, but until now had not made a concentrated effort to define the extent and content of the debris trail. Since this could be critical in defining the last hours of the Republic's life on the surface, we started mapping and recovery efforts on this debris. This also gave the operators a little change-of-pace from shifting the coal pile off the main hull. We finally ended the week by coming into Jacksonville to pick up a new piece of equipment, which we hope will give us added search capabilities for any metallic objects within the hull and debris field. This is a very unique sort of metal detection device, which not only detects any type of metal, but which can give discriminatory information about the metal type, mass, and depth of burial. We are hoping to add this to our arsenal of tools for the Republic wreck and future projects as well. I also turned the keys to the Explorer over to fellow Project Manager, Roy Truman, before leaving for a much needed two week vacation.

September 27 -October 03, 2004
Just to fill you in on what we have been doing over the last few weeks, it's been mostly trying to keep things in place, including stomach contents, while trying to maintain safe distances from the seemingly endless line of storms Mother Nature threw at us. After dealing with Hurricane Charley, we had Tropical Storm Gaston form near our work site. Then Hurricane Frances headed our way, barreling up through Florida in early September. Hurricane Ivan steered clear of Florida's East Coast, but Jeanne came through on a similar track to Frances. But this week, finally, we got back to work on the Republic site and everyone was happier for it. We took advantage of the down time to clean up and arrange some of the ship spaces and the shops (when ship motion was reasonable) and then spent time picking up after the periods when King Neptune expressed his displeasure at our not consulting with him on these new arrangements. A new shipment of DVD movies from the office couldn't have been more timely, as some days the motion was so bad that getting flat and watching TV was about the only safe thing to do. Of course, we still had to brave the elements periodically to make sure everything was still in its place. Such is the nature of going to sea. But we all came through it and nobody has given up and left. The ROV seemed to have enjoyed its down time, despite the beating it took from wind and waves on deck. It was working extremely well this week, moving coal and recovering artifacts.

October 04 -October 10, 2004
It's been a great week, in that we were maintaining regular watches again, and keeping the ROV at work on the bottom as much as possible. The weather has been moderately rough and squally, but nothing like we encountered in September, and not bad enough to keep us from working. We have made great progress in the final clearing of the Republic bow section. And the best thing is that I also began training my relief, Andrew. Andy, who's been with Odyssey for quite some time, and who most recently served as ROV supervisor, is now training to be a project manager. Andy, or "Irish" as his friends sometimes call him, was part of the search and initial identification of the Republic, and has worked on the Explorer from the very beginning including its outfitting in Baltimore. Andy and I will work together most of the time, but periodically one of us will be able to get some time off while the other takes the boat alone. Andy's overall technical knowledge of the ROV is unsurpassed, and this is what helps to keep us racking up the continuous hours of operation. We also worked on readying the boat for the Sussex project by cleaning and organizing our shop spaces, making sure that we are adequately stocked with ROV spares, and trying to use the experience of a year of operations on the Republic to improve upon our use of spaces on the ship. Concurrent with ongoing operations, we gutted one of our shop vans which was not being used very effectively, and the guys took turns working on it with the ship's crew to make it into a new and improved electrical/electronics shop. We are also in the process of altering the archaeological spaces to improve the working conditions of the team receiving the artifacts coming from the wreck site. It's been busy, but that's the way we like it.

October 11 -October 17, 2004
Monday night was really strange. Giant dragonflies and hundreds of birds attacked us. It was actually hazardous to walk on deck. Apparently the flies and birds got blown out to sea by the storms and the birds then went into a feeding frenzy on the bugs. You had to dodge panicked bugs and frenzied birds to get out to the ROV control shack. We closed all the doors leading to the interior of the ship, but a few of the bugs and birds got inside anyway. It was just like something out of Alfred Hitchcock. One of the unusual things that occasionally occurs at sea and keeps this life interesting. Hurricane Nicole, which formed to the northeast of us, gave us long period swells of fair height. Most of the week, we continued working on clearing the bow section of the Republic and recovered one fourplex of artifacts. We have seen a very unusual period of relatively low surface current and bottom current for this site. Apparently the Gulf Stream had moved. This was very strange for us since we are used to working in a very high current environment and all our techniques were set up around it. This lack of current actually was bad and good. Whatever sediment was stirred up on the bottom didn't get carried away as quickly, so our visibility suffered. But, the lack of current allowed us to look more closely at some parts of the ship which were difficult to get to with current pushing us. At the end of the week we swung by Jacksonville to get some more fuel and food as well as pick up a spare electrical motor for the ROV to replace one which has gone bad.

October 18 - October 24, 2004
I have been busy planning out all the last minute work we have to do before the ship leaves for the Western Mediterranean and the Sussex project. Some of our systems are in need of some general maintenance after a hard year of almost continuous and demanding work, and we want to get as much done as we can before starting the new projects. The crew has been helping me by writing their recommendations for each of their special areas of responsibilities. We have to plan in the work required on the Explorer's engines and equipment as well. Some of this work we have been doing as we go, but some will require careful planning to cause as little disruption as possible to our planned work remaining on the Republic. We are also using the current period on the Republic to test some of our software developments, which have been done specifically for the Sussex and its extreme archaeology demands. The other major project is to anticipate supplies needed for the coming year which are better purchased here than in Europe, getting them on order, and preparing a container load to be shipped over when we make the transit across the ocean. We're all getting pretty excited about getting started on the Sussex.

November 1 - November 7, 2004
While continuing some of our normal dive activities, we conducted a test with the DP system to see if it could work with the new setup we plan to use on the Sussex site. This will allow us to grid the site much as a land archaeologist would do. After successfully completing this test, we pulled the ROV and began steaming to Jacksonville to pick up a repaired electrical motor and other supplies. This was just a touch and go, and we were quickly back on the site and back to work. We began clearing the debris field just adjacent to the wreck to define its limits and depth. This effort gave us a much clearer understanding of the last moments of the Republic's bottoming, and coming to rest as it now lies. We also began testing of our new and improved SERF system, which our master fabricator, Gary, built for us. This system is designed to allow the ROV to suck up bottom sediment and then gently retain any artifacts which may get sucked up as well. This allows the archaeologists the opportunity to recover them at the surface. The system worked very well, and we were able to recover a few coins, which had fallen into cracks near the stern and escaped our earlier attempts to recover them. Finally on the last day of the week, the weather calmed down enough that we could bring up the final fourplex and begin the processing of the artifacts.

November 8 - November 14, 2004
We commenced the cleanup of the Republic Site, satisfied that the hull and adjacent area were going to yield little else. The first task was to place our modified recovery basket on the bottom, and to begin recovery of the acoustic transponders that had been our navigation reference throughout these operations. Each transponder was carried over and placed into the basket, a time consuming operation, especially considering that with each transponder that is removed, navigation gets progressively worse, and then non-existent. After picking up our last transponder, we could only estimate where the recovery basket was, and drive towards it. It is a credit to the skills of our navigators and ROV team, that working together, managed to get back to the basket with little problem. We had to hurry to get this basket hooded up to the ROV and recovered, as a pretty serious gale was starting to blow up. We got them back on board just in time, and had to secure the ship and ROV for a serious blow. We began to slowly make our way back to Jacksonville for our scheduled major maintenance period in preparation for the next year of operation.

November 15 - November 30, 2004
The ship is undergoing major maintenance. The engines and generators are being overhauled, a fresh coat of paint goes on everything, and any wanting repairs are being made. The ROV crew is completing a major rebuild of the ROV, including changing out the floatation pack on the ROV, which now gives us a much greater payload capability. Our cranes and winches have been overhauled and serviced. We completed a beautiful new van for the electronics technicians to work in and for storage of all the electronic spares in a controlled environment. We also have built out a new and improved van for the archaeologists, curators, and environmentalists to work in during the Sussex project. We have been taking on stores for our next extended period of operations and getting ready to hit it for another year.