(Deutsche Version unten) Finally, we have JAGO back on board the FS POSEIDON once again, and this time in an even warmer working area. We gladly left the gray winter in Kiel behind for this cruise. Every time we pull the yellow submersible out of the transport container on the deck of POSEIDON, it’s like coming home. The 60m long ship is familiar to us through many previous cruises, we know most of the crew members, and Captain Mattes and boatswain Achim are experienced “old JAGO hands”. Launching and recovering the submersible from the low working deck of the ship has been running smoothly from the beginning, without much need for conversation or the usual training activities for the crew. The POSEIDON is an ideal working platform for us submersible operators.<\/p>\n
We three are the JAGO-Team: J\u00fcrgen Schauer, JAGO pilot since the first dive in 1989, Karen Hissmann, mission coordinator and team leader, and Peter Striewski, who has been part of the team since 2015. J\u00fcrgen is training Peter, step by step to become the second submersible pilot and technician. The two complement one another very well and already learn from each other now. The subtleties and tricks that cannot be found in any textbook, are, however, learned best during a scientific mission at sea and not under conditions such as at home in the Kiel fjord. There is space for two people inside JAGO, the pilot and usually a scientist. Training dives with two pilots during scientific missions at sea must therefore be fit into the scientific program. On February 19th it fit together perfectly when cruise leader Henk-Jan Hoving sent J\u00fcrgen and Peter together on a successful videosurvey and sampling dive.<\/p>\n
Months before, at GEOMAR’s technology and logistics centre in Kiel, J\u00fcrgen, Peter and their colleagues of the TLZ workshop built two new sampling systems. They are specially designed for collecting organisms that live in the water column and are often fragile and very sensitive to injuries. The most delicate and smallest creatures can best be captured with a suction pump whose long flexible suction hose is brought close to the animals with the manipultor arm of the submersible. Once sucked in, they then land gently in a large Plexiglas container filled with seawater. In addition to this suction collector, J\u00fcrgen and Peter have built collecting cylinders that are open on one end and closed on the other. They can be placed around an animal with the manipulator arm and then safely stored in a holder in front of the submersible until JAGO is back on board the vessel.<\/p>\n
With JAGO we usually dive to the seafloor. The submersible is built for 400m maximum diving depth. Our dives now, in front of the steep volcanic islands of Cape Verde, are different since our research cruise is dedicated to investigate animals that live in the water column well above the deep seafloor. We mostly dive now above the 1000 m bathymetric line, to a maximum depth of 360 m. The clear waters of the Atlantic allow daylight to penetrate to a depth of 300m. JAGO has an interior volume of 3 cubic metres and when we sit inside the personnel chamber we feel like we are sitting in a tiny bubble of air that drifts through a giant space that appears like an endless universe. On our more than 1350 dives we have seen and encountered a lot. Every single trip into the underwater world has its own charm and still awakens our curiosity. During our day and night dives off the Cape Verde Islands, we encounter creatures that we have never seen before. Even as experienced divers we often cannot assign them to a particular group of animals right away. After each dive we learn new things from our experts on board. After dismounting the collecting containers from JAGO, in which fragile and mostly transparent animals float, it is a special experience to look at them again much closer or with the stereomicroscope. For us it is also very motivating to see the enthusiasm with which our scientific “passengers” climb out of JAGO, with wide smiles on their faces. They are filled with new impressions, which, in their three-dimensionality, are so different from those that one gains when sitting in front of a large video monitor. The personal immersion into the world of the deep sea is particularly significant here, in the lee side of the volcanic Cape Verdean islands, as easy as almost nowhere else. It is enchanting and, at the same time, awakens the strong desire for \u2018let\u2019s do it again\u2019.<\/p>\n
Between the 14 Feb and 1 March POS520 with the Poseidon and the submersible JAGO takes place off the coast of the cape verde island Santo Antao. The cruise leader, the team of JAGO and participants of the cruise will write here as guest writers. Today: Karen Hissmann, J\u00fcrgen Schauer und Peter Striewski, JAGO-Team.<\/em><\/p>\n
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