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[Scott C. Mitchell]

The camera rig with the extended weighted end was a wonderful improvisation.  And putting the twin lasers to register scale was an inspired idea.  Bravo, TIGHAR team!   As Theodore Roosevelt said, "Do what you can with what you've got, where you are!"


Scott
#3292

[Bill Lloyd]

I'm not sitting on anything cool.  On the contrary.  I'm sitting on a hot seat of criticism from Facebook trolls - including you.  I really didn't expect that.

 Facebook seems to bring out the harshest criticism of all. Those trolls are vicious, especially the TIGHAR members.
 
Over time I have been critical of the TIGHAR operation and the accounting of finances and events, but not on this issue. FedEx flat did you a job and it was totally unnecessary. They could have went ahead and shipped the equipment that you needed and billed you for payment. This would allow you to have a reasonable chance for success.  I think that you have explained it quite thoroughly.

[Greg Daspit]

The timing of the FedEx decision was unfortunate. If their decision was made a week later(and they had kept their sponsorship), the shipment would have already been on its way, and if it was made sooner, there may have been time to raise the extra funds.

[Bob Smith]

Actually, the cameras on a string and lasers is probably worked better than the ROV would have or has! I can't find any real good video or pictures from the past dives..

[Matt Revington]

Yes a great job in what must of been an incredibly frustrating situation.

Any banjos down there?

[Bob Smith]

Next trip (if there is one) ditch the ROV and bring a deep sea camera and longer rope. Or hire more fish!

[Jerry Germann]

Very, Very nice photo. Look forward to viewing others. As mentioned in the past, one should try to avoid seeing things, that may just be coral, or otherwise, but upon viewing this photo, my eye was immediatly drawn to the object I circled. Any thoughts on what this may be?

[Ric Gillespie]

Any thoughts on what this may be?

Sharp eyes.  Yes, that's the dive weight on the end of the bottom-detector line.  You'll see it in many of the photos.

[Monty Fowler]

Might be a good idea to note the dive weight somehow, if it's appearing in a number of photos. To avoid too many banjo finds, as it were.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 EC

[JNev]

...now you're being coy, bad boy, you're sitting on something cool, aren't you???

I'm not sitting on anything cool.  On the contrary.  I'm sitting on a hot seat of criticism from Facebook trolls - including you.  I really didn't expect that.

There was no "spider eye."  In a last ditch attempt to get some imagery of the anomaly area the ROV team (Ron Bernier, John Clauss and Walt Holm) rigged the HD camera from the ROV on a line with the laser-scaler and a dive-light flash attached. For the hell of it, they also attached a GoPro camera rated to 70 meters.  Predictably it flooded and failed but they were willing to take the chance - any thing to get more pictures. They set the HD camera to take still shots every 5 seconds.  (They wanted 2 seconds but it took the flash 5 seconds to recharge.)  The plan was to go to the supposed anomaly coordinates in the skiff, set the contraption running, and lower it down.  The problem was figuring out when to stop lowering. If they waited until the line went slack, the lens of the camera would be resting on the bottom.  The solution was to add a 1.5 meter length of line below the camera with a dive weight on the end.  That way, when the line went slack the camera should be 1.5 meters off the bottom and in a good position to take photos.  They would then take in the line enough to get the dive weight off the bottom, move the skiff a bit, and drop it down again.

It was crude but ingenious and it mostly worked. They captured 170 high definition images of the bottom in the vicinity of the anomaly.   The high-definition photos are of excellent quality as you can see from the attached example. Many also overlap so we may be able to create a partial mosaic of the bottom. In the attached sample photo you can see the two red dots generated by the laser scaler mounted on the camera.  The dots are a set distance apart - 2.5 inches (64.2mm) - no matter how far away the subject is, so the size of observed features can be measured.  By matching the time in the metadata of each image with the time of GPS coordinates taken on the surface we should be able to trace the approximate trail of the camera and see how close we came to the calculated position of the anomaly. We already know that no airplane wreckage is immediately apparent in the acquired images but neither do we see any obvious geological explanation for the object in the sonar data.  Whether any conclusions can be drawn from the imagery remains to be seen.

Once we have the GPS coordinates plotted so we have some idea of where the photos were taken in relation to the supposed anomaly coordinates I'll make all of the images available for everyone to look at.  We can all play Find The Banjo.

Thanks for the straight answer on the limits of what you are 'sitting on' in terms of what was managed to be captured, and otherwise.

As to 'trolls' - all who criticize or disagree are not nessecarily not trying to be a friend.  The urge to promote, it appears, can be blinding, Ric.  Take that as you will - but I yearn for you to seek to find a path to the very soundest paths of science and self-critical analysis instead of resorting to labeling critical speakers as trolls and simply cleansing your sites of distasteful comments.  That would be the more rigorous path, and TIGHAR seems to need it very badly.

All the best -

[Ric Gillespie]

I yearn for you to seek to find a path to the very soundest paths of science and self-critical analysis instead of resorting to labeling critical speakers as trolls and simply cleansing your sites of distasteful comments.  That would be the more rigorous path, and TIGHAR seems to need it very badly.

You posted on the TIGHAR Facebook page:
"Sounds like good reasons to have put this one off until it could be more adequately funded and resourced. Oh well, should be grateful for all they made possible before. At least the cruise ship visit worked out, there's that."

Sarcastic comments that ignore facts that I had already provided is trollism.  I expected better from you. I will continue to ban trolls and haters.  I try my best to welcome informed comment and criticism but I see no reason why TIGHAR should tolerate or respond to hatred and lies on our own Facebook page.

[Ric Gillespie]

That would be the more rigorous path, and TIGHAR seems to need it very badly.

If your perception of what TIGHAR needs is colored by the firestorm of criticism on Facebook you may be comforted to know that most of the negative comments have been posted by people who are neither TIGHAR members nor contributors.  The TIGHAR board members, the expedition team members, the researchers, the major contributors, and the TIGHAR membership in general have seen setbacks before and are in it for the long haul.  The mood among the team members at the end of the expedition was (to me) surprisingly buoyant and eager to press on.  All they could talk about was "next time." 

[Eddie Rose]

Maybe some criticism and outside objective performance review would be helpful. Those are things that lead to improvement.

[Bob Smith]

There are facts, and there are facts. Depending on who is defining happenings as "facts", maybe there aren't as many facts as one would think. I once worked with people wanting to get their inventions on the market and in front of the public. Not as a promoter, but as a writer, composer and engineering analyst to determine if the "invention" they loved was fit for exposure in a scientific sense, and was actually something worthy of claiming what the inventor thought the invention was capable of doing. It will come as no surprise that every one who had an idea thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, and my group was wrong if we decided it would be difficult, if not impossible to do what they thought it would do! Criticism is available and sometimes rampant in all new ventures and untested avenues where one person or group presents a hypothesis and another person or group is able to view that hypothesis. In this "free" society, there are no two people, or no two minds that are alike. But that's OK isn't it. You agreed that someone might disagree when you, as TIGHAR, started the FORUM. Sure, there are and should be RULES. But sometimes the reason for a forum is to have opinions presented, whether the opinions support your "facts" or not. "Read them and weep!" I heard someone say. I think if you take the opinions as opinions of your opin ion, you will find there really isn't as much hate mail as you think. We're just expressing an opinion, sometimes not very informed, perhaps, but an opinion. That's our way of saying thanks for the forum and a chance to be involved with TIGHAR.

[Ric Gillespie]

Maybe some criticism and outside objective performance review would be helpful. Those are things that lead to improvement.

Good Lord.  I don't recall any lack of criticism. As for outside objective performance review whom do you recommend?  This expedition was funded primarily by the team members themselves and members of the TIGHAR board of directors.  They had the best reason to be objective - they had "skin in the game. " They were intimately aware of the decisions made and the challenges met as they came up.  They were, and are, wholly supportive.