This bulletin was to have been transmitted by voice over a satellite phone on 21 to 23 March, but we encountered technical problems. It is being sent from Seychelles on 28 March.
Gaby, Harmut, Pete, Wolf and I start work on a much simplified structure: ‘the Saya Screw’. This will be a helix made up of equilateral triangles two and three meters across and about a meter high. It will be placed on the seabed and connected by a cable to photovoltaic panels floating on a raft at the sea surface. The solar panels will provide power for mineral accretion and coral protection.
We begin welding the new structure together on the foredeck of Orphee. But the generators, rated at up to 2 kilovolts, provide only about half the power needed to run the welder. This makes for hard going, and before the end of the day both the generators are burnt out and useless because of the overload.
We complete the Saya Screw with annealed tying wire and lashing cords normally used to secure heavy loads on lorries. Getting this half tonne creation off the foredeck and into the water without killing anyone (we have no winch, and the boat is rolling all over the shop) proves surprisingly easy.
We start work on a solar raft. This will float above the structure and supply electricity for mineral accretion and enhanced coral growth. The raft comprises six photovoltaic panels (138 watts peak at 6 volts, yielding 23 Amps peak) secured to a steel frame and floating on ten empty Jerry-cans. We reinforce and recheck every joint, bolt, lashing, connection and seal. This is probably the largest and most powerful solar raft Wolf has ever attempted. He says it should survive for some time, even in heavy seas. A smaller one at St Croix in ‘hurricane alley’ in the Caribbean has already lasted over a year.
Hartmut and I dive down to the Saya Screw, which lies 15 metres down and about 30 metres away from the old structure. It landed upside down on a sandy bottom, and we turn it over using an inflatable lift bag. Hartmut attaches a chain and a line which will be used to secure the solar raft. In the afternoon Gabriel and Hartmut secure more lines and marker buoys and we all place a few corals on the structure. On board Orphee Wolf finishes water proofing connections to the solar cells and prepares the connection to the anode – a coated titanium mesh that will be placed on the seabed a few metres from the structure to enable a complete circuit.
Charlie Tango reports a tropical depression several hundred miles to the West and heading our way at a rate of knots (10 to 15 to be precise). The skippers do not hesitate: we will be out of here before dark. We get the solar raft into the water and turn it the right way up. Hartmut and Pete secure the lines that will hold it to structure below in heavy weather. Gaby, Wolf and I secure the cathodic link to the structure itself, and place the anode nearby. Wolf does his first dive in many years, photographing and filming everything. We place more corals on the structure. By dusk we are rolling North towards the Seychelles, hoping to outrun the fury of the sea.
Over the next few days we encounter truly horrible weather. But both Orphee and Vaka-Lele arrive safely in the Seychelles on 27 March, finally clear customs and immigration by 28 March – and feeling relieved to still be alive. Over the next few days I will send a more detailed and colourful account of the period 11 – 27 March.
Caspar Henderson
© GrainOfSand Ltd 2002 | To see the world in a grain of sand, And heaven in a wild flower,
|