|
Beach finds - intriguing and not
TONY AMOS
I immediately recognized the big yellow ball that washed ashore at Marker 45 on Mustang Island Gulf beach last week. It was a 17-inch diameter glass sphere protected from
protected from getting dinged by a plastic housing that resembles a giant hardhat, which oddly enough is known in the industry as a "hardhat".
This particular industry supplies those studying the sea for science or profit with instruments and equipment. Suppose, for example, you wanted to measure the currents near the bottom at a remote location anywhere in the world's oceans, and you wanted to do it for a whole year. You would need a ship from which you could send the current meter down to the bottom attached to a release device, which in turn was connected to some disposable ballast. You would need some flotation to bring your current meter back to the surface, but it would need to survive the tremendous pressure of the deep ocean.
That's where glass balls come in. Glass is very strong under compression, but is vulnerable to getting broken when mechanically stressed, hence the hardhat protection.
A year later you would sail back to the vicinity of where the meter was deployed using GPS, locate the release device on the bottom by sending acoustic signals to wake it up, send the release code, and wait (with fingers crossed) for it to pop up to the surface, leaving the ballast on the bottom. You would find the array by spotting the bright yellow hardhat, or more likely, have a flashing light and a radio direction finder to recover the meter. I have used these flotation devices several times in my oceanographic career.
 | | 'Hardhat' This sphere, known as a 'hardhat,' was used to gather and retrieve data from the ocean floor. |
|
The glass spheres are made in two halves and the edge of each hemisphere is ground flat to extreme tolerances. The halves are sealed under reduced pressure and are nearly impossible to open due to the force exerted upon them by the atmospheric pressure. They can be sent to a depth of 22,000 feet without imploding, and can lift nearly 60 pounds.
I discovered (from the serial number) that this particular float was purchased in 2004 by a distributer in the United Kingdom, who will contact the people who bought it to see if they want it back or not. It will be interesting to see what convoluted path it took to get from England to Mustang Island.
 | | COURTESY PHOTOS BY TONY AMOS Desperate captives? The note in this bottle, found on a Gulf beach, claims the writer and others are being held captive. A joke, or not? |
|
I found another object on the beach last week that tells of a convoluted journey full of intrigue and mystery. The message was neatly written on a paper towel in a small wine bottle sealed with a cork. The battered cork said "Con …oro," which must have been the well known Chilean brand Concho y Toro. It was written in Spanish by a sailor who also named his fiancé and captain (of the boat?), saying they were from Tampico, and pleaded with the finder to notify the authorities that they had been assaulted and were being held against their will in a "so called" remote town and that they had mucho miedo (great fear).
Is this real, or is it a hoax or a joke? What autoridades would I inform? A problem is that no date is given in the note. One would think that if you were imprisoned and thought your only hope was to send a message in a bottle in the hopes that someone would find it, you would at least date it.
Also, if incarcerated a la Devil's Island, where would you get a wine bottle still retaining a heady aroma? Yet the message contained no hint of humor and named the three prisoners, names that were certainly not the Spanish equivalents of Jane and Joe Doe like fictitious names might be. Any interested autoridades out there?
I have been at the Sargassum Symposium in Corpus Christi this week. Organized by the Harte Institute's John Adams, the attendees are an interesting mix of scientists, state and federal agency officials, mayors, council members, city managers and beach management workers, politicians, county commissioners and interested members of the public. You'll be pleased to know that our city seaweed removal techniques received favorable attention and may soon be copied elsewhere along the Texas coast.
Tony Amos is a research fellow at The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute in Port
|
|
)
)