Thursday, November 4, 2004 Matthew A. Russell has been an archeologist with the National Park Service Submerged Resources Center since 1993. He serves as Project Director for the USS Arizona Preservation Project.

The Sun Doesn’t Always Shine in Paradise

Dave Conlin uses a common C-clamp to secure a solid electrical grounding to the ship. NPS photo by Brett Seymour.

We’ve fallen into a nice routine on the project – the lead-time to get divers in the water is shrinking every day, and today we splashed about 9:30 am. Jenni Burbank, from the Memorial dive team, and I made the first two dives, continuing ultrasonic thickness (UT) measurements on Arizona’s starboard side. At each UT location we’re recording baseline corrosion potential (E_corr) measurements both before and after we remove the concretion. (E_corr gives us a measure of how much corrosion is taking place at any particular location.) To record accurate E_corr, we have to establish a solid electrical ground with the ship, which means firmly attaching a large C-clamp to the ship and running a wire back up to the instrument on the surface where Dr. Don Johnson is recording the potentials.  Yesterday Dave, Jenni and Brett established good grounds on both sides of the ship, and we’d left the grounds in place overnight, which meant this morning we could get right to the work of recording E_corr, removing concretion and taking UT measurements of the hull’s thickness.  Today we again had Jay Schraan, from Inspection Technologies, Inc., using a GE Inspection Technologies (GEIT) Krautkramer USM 35 working with Dave Conlin and Dr. Johnson on the surface. The UT measurements are going very well, and for the most part the data correlate well our expectations.

When we took a break to eat our croissant sandwiches from the Visitor Center concession stand (a project staple), Dave, Brett and I noticed the sky was growing increasingly dark, and it looked like rain was threatening.  Although it rains frequently in the mountains surrounding Pearl Harbor, we rarely get more than scattered showers at the Memorial, so we didn’t think much of it. After lunch, Dave, Don, and Jay motored the Whaler back to the battleship’s starboard side and tied up just forward of the Memorial, while Brett and I swam over to get the final UT measurement.  After about 45 minutes underwater, we finished the job and surfaced to a light rain and the topside crew miserably sitting in the boat, which was now pulled as far under the Memorial as they could get it.  The final dive task of the day was to re-check the UT measurements on the port side, this time using a different probe.  By the time I’d switched tanks, and Dave motored the boat back around to Arizona’s port side, the rain was falling steadily.  After a quick conference, we decided we could finish the UT work tomorrow and Dave, Don and Jay tied the boat up to the Memorial dock and quickly unloaded it.  As they finished off-loading the gear, the sky opened up in a downpour of epic proportions.  Brett and I finished a quick dive to shoot some photos in the bow while the final visitors of the day ran from the tour boat to the relative shelter of the Memorial’s flag room and back to the tour boat.  We then scurried around the dock futilely trying to pack our gear while trying to keep both it and ourselves dry.  Despite our genuine imitation Gore-Tex jackets from VF Uniform Solutions, by the time we moored the Whaler on Ford Island we were soaked to the skin – go figure.

It never rains in paradise. . . . NPS photo by Brett Seymour.

The good news: we finished UT data collection, although we still want to double-check a couple areas.  The bad news: more rain in the forecast for tomorrow.