OCEAN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
p.46, Ben Oostdam's Autobiography, 1964
Departed Capetown 20:00 April 16 for "Rockeater"s first cruise.
Very quiet sea conditions overnight, but sea got rougher in day time on
| April 17, when some of us got seasick. Near Cliff Point, we dropped anchor three times before finding suitable drill spot with 12 foot of sediment. It was foggy and beacons and charts were a bit of a problem at first. WvdM was too sick to work, Des O'Shea was fine and Socrates, our guest from MDC , was very active and helpful. I worked on "cook-book" morning and evening, and after the drill operation we sailed north to the ADK (Atlantiese Diamant Korporasie) - Concession located at Chamais Bay. |
 Socrates Vartsos , Marine Diamond Corporation geologist here shown navigating aboard the "Diamantkus" |
April 18, Sat: All day in transit. Ed Horton supervised several welding jobs,
I taught some navigation and oceanography.
 Rockeater bridge (left to right): |
April 19 through 26: Spent whole week doing four lines in Chamais Bay, starting with a very rough Sunday. One line has several sites and each site has several holes. We agreed to drill 2 or 3 holes only on bare bedrock, 4 to 8 where there is sediment. Captain Cook and ship's crew had to learn to work anchors and winches which get a lot of action since at each site 3 or 4 anchors have to be dropped and the ship winched fom one drill hole to the next. The drill-crew, too, had to get experience and cooperate with the geologist stationed at the top screen to monitor the flow of sediment through the pipes to the screens and processing plant on the forecastle. |