It's a little after 2 p.m. and we're 30 minutes into the second ROV dive of the day. This will be our tenth dive of the cruise, though each dive is a novelty for us. For Paul Donaldson, the ROV pilot, however, it's all in a day's work. It's a bright summer day outside. Yet inside the ROV control van on board, the only indication we're at sea is the gentle motion of the boat.
Music plays from the speakers.
Today we're listening to Schubert, though we have an eclectic mix of about 100 CDs, ranging from Randy Travis to Talking Heads, to provide ambience. The lights stay dim so Paul and ROV engineer Nick Worebey can concentrate on the four computer and video screens. A dot on the digital video screen shows where the sound from Tim Stanton's acoustic transducers is focused. Paul flies the ROV and tries to steer the vehicle so that the zooplankton move into the area of the dot on the screen. When the animals and the dot converge, echoes are being collected.