The NOAA Diving Center assisted the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS)

The NOAA Diving Center assisted the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS) with the recovery of two oceanographic moorings with equipment valued at over $10,000 and containing six weeks of data. Early fall storms had buried mooring anchors in sediment, making them irretrievable from the surface. Since 2000, between April and October, the OCNMS has deployed 12 or more moorings to collect oceanographic data to document water circulation and upwelling, low oxygen, and algal bloom events. Because funding does not support a more robust mooring design, the sanctuary retrieves moorings before they are lost to the Pacific Ocean’s winter storms. Since 2009, the sanctuary has been unable to support a dive team, which in the past has salvaged irretrievable moorings and installations that lost their surface floats. The assistance of the NOAA Diving Center prevented abandonment of the moorings and the loss of valuable data and equipment. The dive team was comprised of CDR Joel Dulaigh, LT Ryan Wattam, Zachary Hileman, and Jim Bostick. The dive operation was conducted off of the sanctuary’s R/V Tatoosh.

Mooring buoys turn 30 this year.

FKNMS Diver David Becker

The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Mooring Buoy team monitors, repairs and installs valuable resource protecting buoys along the coral reef tract in the Florida Keys. This system was developed over 30 years ago by NOAA Resource Manager John Halas who tested the first mooring systems on French Reef in June 1981. To date there are over 470 mooring buoys available in the Florida Keys sanctuary. The embedment anchor system is now used in over 38 countries around the world. 

Buoy installations include surface supported hydraulic tools to embed the hard bottom anchor eye and “MANTA RAY” anchor system into the soft sea bottom. When the ocean floor can’t be penetrated, a drill system using a special hollow two inch core barrel is used.

NOAA Diver Kent Edwards and David Becker install a mooring buoy on the Speigel Grove (above). Photos submitted by Brenda Altmeier.

MANTA RAY anchors are 8 feet long with a spade-like head that pivots. Once the anchor is driven into the soft substrate using an underwater jack hammer, a load locker is fitted over the rod and a hydraulic device is connected to the rod lifting it and locking the shovel end in an horizontal position.

Manta Ray mooring buoy anchors

 

The heavy equipment is lifted to and from the vessel by a davit system. Lift bags are utilized to bring equipment from the seafloor back to the surface. Once the anchor is installed, a shackle and mooring buoy line system are attached and the mooring is ready for use. 

R/V Agassiz

The R/V Agassiz is a Key West number one hull employed into NOAA service in the late 80’s. The vessel is specially outfitted for mooring installations and maintenance. It is named for early marine scientist Professor Louis Agassiz who studied the Florida coral reefs in 1851. “I may say that here, as in most cases where the operations of nature interfere with the designs of man, it is not by a direct intervention on our part that we may remedy the difficulties, but rather by a precise knowledge of their causes, which may enable us, if not to check, at least to avoid the evil consequences.” ("Extracts from the report of Professor Agassiz to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, on the examination of the Florida reefs, keys, and coast").

FKNMS Mooring Buoy Staff include: David Becker, Robert Snyder, Brady Booton, Olly Adams, Alex Creedon, Damon Jackler, and Noel Kartman and Kent Edwards.

Article and Photos submitted by:

Brenda Altmeier

Program Support Specialist 

Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

http://floridakeys.nos.noaa.gov

http://www.maritimeheritage.noaa.gov