So there’s this really small island north of the regular Galapagos – well there’s two: Darwin, and Wolff. Today, we sent a few scientists ashore to put some sort of GPS tracking device on the island. Apparently, it had never been accurately pin pointed on maps/charts so that’s what they’re off to do. I’ll see if I can get some pictures of the thing, sounds interesting.
This shot is of me, chief mate Chris, and os Rob. We’re just waiting around for some anchor operations to leave the port at Galapagos
Here we are getting ready to go on our small boat ride out to see Wolff island up close.
Ah, they did get an interview of me up there:
http://galapagos-expedition.blogspot.com/p/crew-corner.html
The reason they went to Wolf island was to do a geology survey using some nifty gps technology. As I understood gps, the us government didn’t want people using their signals for super accurate tracking which could be used for guided missiles – so they embedded a mistake in all the tracking codes which is the main reason why, when you’re standing in one spot with your gps, it sometimes says you’re moving around. Apparently, now there is a second signal the is broadcast out that can be accurate to millimeters, but to get a fix of that accuracy, it takes about 10 minutes of not moving. Useless for guided missiles, but perfect for measuring small movements on slow moving things, like Wolf Island. Movements like this used to be measure with lasers, but even lasers had some built in errors, as the temperature of the air would change and distort the light. Some of which scientists could get around by shooting a red, and green laser. But even then, only accurate to a few millimeters. Now, with this new fangled gps technology, that sort of movement measuring is going away.
Wolf Island looks very white from a distance off. It’s all the bird shit. Amazing.
these two pictures are both from galapagos-expedition.blogspot.com