A Day in The Life...

Wake up at 7 am to the sun streaming in,  face and arms cold from the AC whilst every other part of the body roasting. Turn on the TV to our daily dose of over the top American news and somewhat graphically dated weather forecast. Grab a hotel mug and fill it to the brim with corn flakes and warm long life milk. This is breakfast! If feeling especially tired reuse left over milk and add to re filtered coffee to get us going. 

At 8 o'clock the base is put up, 5 gallons of water is collected for the day whilst the days equipment is loaded into the truck which looks like how we are feeling.  Passenger riding shotgun become DJ for the day as we head out to the dump on some questionable roads, this is our rent for using the truck.  We reach the dump after avoiding the feral cows which inhabit the island and throw yesterday's rubbish away...is this what surveying involves. After the quick pit stop with minimal extra flies added to the truck we head out to our first station.

We scour the beach, avoiding the spiky balls which have become the bane of the expedition, looking for the chosen peg which is marked with a red ribbon. The peg has been positioned using GPS earlier in the expedition. The team "quickly and efficiently " set up the tripod and level the total station. Start typing the station name in before realising its on numbers rather than letters has become a daily encounter. DIST ...SET, we have RO'd and the survey is under way. As the total station take its Panoramic photo of the surrounding area we huddle under it trying to avoid photo bombing the beautiful view. Each member has found their own detailing speciality. Chris endures the worst the anegada under growth has to through at him as well as the deadly sea anemones. Josh transforms the beach into a perfect grid as he takes spot heights taking more than 100 points in 20 mins, whilst Larissa repeatedly ventures back to the sea And tries to interpret Chris's hand signals in order to gain some profile information.  We complete the survey by taking the required grid scan , a handy feature on the total station. This allows for some tanning whilst scanning. On average we manage 2 stations in the morning. 

At 12 o'clock we head back to the hotel to make lunch which consists of 1 grape jelly sandwich and 1 piece of fruit. After avoiding the hottest part of the day in the pool or in our cool and refreshing rooms we head back out at 3 o'clock to get a further station done. On completion of the final station the equipment is packed into an oven like truck and we head to Pams bakery at Neptune's Treasure. Here we have become regulars and no longer need to ask for our regular 16" pizza and pitcher of water to share amongst us for $13. By the time we eventually venture back to the hotel it's 6pm and getting dark. Batteries used in the equipment are put on charge as post processing the days observations commences under the blanket stars which cover the sky as wifi is only available outside the office. Everyone is tucked up in bed at 10pm.

Despite the minimal food, flies and heat we are all grateful to be here and look forward to each day, as we get ever more confident using the equipment. Thanks again to all sponsors who have helped us. 

Wi Fi and Finally some Pictures!

Anegada Expedition, a set on Flickr.

So we finally got access to some stable wi fi at the accommodation! So we thought we'd take the opportunity to share with you some of the photos that we've taken so far on the expedition. The link to the album has been posted on the 'Pictures' page of our blog, we hope to set up a slideshow on this page soon but obviously work comes first!

Scanning and Tanning

Excellent news the scanning function issues have been resolved and we're now fully into the swing of detailing despite being a member down for the remaining couple of weeks.  We wish Lauren all the best with her Skanska placement over the summer and a safe trip home! We'd also like to thank Dave Dawson at Leica for coming to our rescue with scanning help.

Regardless the detailing is going well, we have just completed the first of 4 planned areas.  At each area we are gathering topographic detail, a manual spot height grid, a number of profile lines at 30 degree intervals and those all important grid scans at varying densities.

We are also capturing a panoramic photograph using the ts at every control station we set over we hope to be able to share those images with you soon!

All we need now is a Puerto Rico datum despite being able to work around it for the time being with false coordinates, we're itching to bring all the data collected so far together, and we hope to be able to do so very soon! 

Progress Update

Apologies again for the lack of blog entries over the past few days. We're very grateful for the staff at the Beach Club allowing us to use the computer in the office to maintain contact with the outside world!  Anyway, on Friday last week we completed our GNSS baseline survey of the northern coast, and now have quite an impressive looking LGO plot.

After a self awarded weekend off this Monday saw the beginning of the total station detail surveys, as we put some control stations on the beach outside the accommodation, and over the past few days we've been re-familiarizing ourselves with the total station and all of it's impressive features.  Though we are able to easily undertake topographic detail survey, and beach profiles the handy scan function on the TS15 is being less than handy. We have however e-mailed the appropriate experts seeking advice and we're sure it will be resolved within the week.

We will however continue to work with what we know and we also hope to have a local Puerto Rico Datum within the week, so watch this space for some (hopefully) interesting LSS screenshots.

We're not the only ones sunbathing...

We went all David Attenbrough yesterday when we caught sight of a shiver of sharks catching some rays in the shallow water. Our brave camerawoman Larissa ventured in to get a closer look.  The above video was the result. Enjoy!

One week without wifi

Apologies for the lack of blog entries over the past week and a bit.  We've had issues with the wi fi connection in the hotel, so we're having to use the wi fi in a nearby bakery! Still, needs must.  Anyway here's a quick summary of what we're done so far: 

Monday - Wednesday: Reconnaissance.

After arriving on Anegada via ferry on  Monday we spent the first day driving round the island locating some of the known control points. Anegada is a beautiful island with some somewhat secluded survey controls, chief among which being a point on top of the islands fire station! Tuesday and Wednesday were spent observing some of these control points, to allow for an easier transformation from Wgs84 coordinates to the local Puerto Rico datum. We spent an hour on each of these sites, and we hope they will allow us to better locate our base station for the post processed kinematic baseline survey. On the Wednesday afternoon we chose the point for our base station, shown below it is located on flat open ground behind the secure office. 

Thursday -Friday: Baseline Survey.

On Thursday we began the kinematic survey of the coastline,  we are using a post processed method with an occupation time of two minutes on each point.  On each morning we start the base station and leave it recording throughout the day, we have been achieving on average 40 points a day, and we're getting quicker as we get to grips with the bi pod!  We hope to carry on the baseline survey for the next couple of weeks before moving on to coastal detailing. 

On Friday afternoon we experienced a flat on our truck. This hampered the afternoons plan for data collection as it was on the otherwise of the island. But following the quote of the day by Winston 

Churchill ' a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity whilst an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty', we decided to survey the coastline outside the hotel, making the most of the situation. 

We hope to get wi fi, next Friday but we will try our hardest to keep the blog updated between now and then.  We hope to post again soon, watch this space!

48 hours in Tortola...



So we've successfully landed and reached our first stop over in Tortola, after some hairy moments in customs.  Despite all this Tortola is a beautiful, picturesque island, if a little humid for four students used to the worst that the British summer can throw at them!


Day 1, on the first day we were able to use the surveying equipment out on the island for the first time. We measured to two known local control stations to check the calibration, with the help of a local surveyor and former Newcastle graduate, Mike Adamson.  Though the equipment worked well we hit a stumbling block when attempting to measure the positions in the local Puerto Rico datum.... the rest of the afternoon was spent attempting to resolve this problem with little success, and then resulted in a mini expedition around the town, surveying some of the many drinkeries that Tortola has to offer....



Day 2, brought fresh heads with fresh ideas, after further consultation it was decided that we would instead measure all points in WGS84 system and apply a coordinate transformation in post processing. With this decided a celebration was in order, so it was off to the beach.  The weather however had other ideas, we'd barely got our feet wet by the time the heavens opened, and when it rains here it pours!  We were informed whilst taking shelter in a nearby restaurant, that this was the front of a tropical storm forming in the Atlantic... which would explain the thunder and lightning! With that we retired back to base for some food and a few quiet games of monopoly.

 

And with another day comes another island, we catch the ferry to Anegada early tomorrow morning, where we will check in, begin the reconnaissance and establish some control for the survey. Keep checking the blog for updates, we believe that our base in Anegada is still in the process of setting up a wi fi connection,  we hope to bring you more info once that issue is resolved!

Christmas come early!

We were very excited this morning to receive the equipment for the expedition. Huge thanks again to Leica, for this very generous loan!  The more survey savvy amongst you may be able to identify these as GS15 GNSS receivers and a TS15i total station. We'll be getting to grips with them on campus over the next couple of days. We were also able to use a bi pod for the first time in our brief survey careers!  Also thanks to Chris for his camera work. 

Imagine you're on a beach...

...was the imaginative advice given as we took to a less than Caribbean campus to re-familiarise ourself with the GNSS equipment today.  With the Leica equipment arriving tomorrow and only 3 days until the expedition begins, there's no time like the present.