Trip to Nihoa

After a month of training and not blogging much we are finally underway to the Northwest Hawaiian Islands on board the NOAA vessel Oscar Elton Sette. We left Pearl Harbor Thursday the 13th in route to Nihoa island.

NOAA Vessel Oscar Elton Sette

Nihoa from the ship

At Nihoa a team was put ashore to photograph seals, as well as look for any pups. The science team was able to find 27 seals before being called off the island. While the team was ashore I photographed birds from the ship. Nihoa is a highly active nesting island for many birds. There were a lot of birds foraging around Nihoa; sightings for the day included wedge tailed sheerwaters, Bulwer's petrels, blue-grey noddies, sooty terns, red footed boobies, brown boobies, masked boobies, white terns, red tailed tropic birds, and great frigates.

Masked boobies

Two female great frigate birds from the Sette

Operations on Nihoa were called off early due to a medical emergency aboard the ship. We brought the team back to the ship, and set course for Kauai. The navy was involved in active training in the Barking sands training area. A helicopter evacuation of the patient was arranged by the navy due to their proximity to our ship. A navy destroyer approached at a distance and deployed a  SH-60B helicopter to attempt a rescue, in turn a C-130 airplane circled the ship assessing the scene. The afterdeck of the Sette is unusually cluttered due to the amount of scientific equipment aboard so the rescue was attempted from the bow. The bow of the ship proved to be a small target given the conditions. The SH-60 struggled to get the rescue swimmer on the deck of the ship for nearly 2 hours. At that point it was decided to cancel the helicopter rescue. Several hours later a second attempt was made by the US Coast Guard using the H-65 "Dolphin" helicopter. This attempt was successful even though winds had reached 27 knots, with rain, and building seas. The Coast Guard had a swimmer on board to set up the rescue litter, and had evacuated the patient within 30 minutes. It was very impressive to watch these professionals work. The USCG did a fantastic job, working with almost surgical precision.

SH-60B "Sea Hawk"

H-65 "Dolphin"

Bow of the Oscar Elton Sette

After the successful rescue operation, we set course for Pearl Harbor to pick up a new crew member so that the ship is at operating capacity in regards to crew. We will be heading back to sea on Monday.

Oscar Elton Sette photo credit: http://www.moc.noaa.gov/os/
Helicopter photo credit:
SH-60: http://www.navysite.de/planes/sh60.htm
H-65: http://www.uscg.mil/datasheet/hh-65.asp