Vacation 5: Chatham Railroad, ROVs and Alvin!

You may recall that ever since a cas show last spring, my antique car had carburetor issues.  Getting them repaired was a major task, since most of today’s mechanics are trained on fuel injection systems and computer controls.  Being a 1967, mine has neither, and to complicate matters, it also has an intact prehistoric California smog control system . Fuel-injection and computer emission training is useless on old-fashioned antiques.  

And trying to make a 1,200-mile trip in a freshly-repaired car, without some significant shakedown runs, would be a "real fool's errand."  Thus I decided to take the daily driver on this trip, and extend our agenda exponentially.  What started out to be a simple antique car tour for my better half and myself, with a bunch of friends, ended up being an epic vacation.  We were gone for so long (two full weeks) that it was easy to lose track of time.

On a day which dawned sunny and chilly, the better half and I elected to start by visiting the Chatham Lighthouse, to get a morning view.  That is what you see here. 

From there we drove around town and came upon a striking example of Victorian-era architecture (also called Railroad Gothic), the railroad depot.  It was the stepping off – and on – point for riders of the old Chatham Railroad, which served the town on a seven-mile strip of railway from 1887-1937. Today the depot houses the Chatham Railroad Museum, including relics from the era, a 75-year-old caboose from the New York Central system, and a diorama of the Chatham train yards of 1915.   Being a ferroequinologist at heart, I couldn’t resist getting a picture beside their pretty caboose.

From there, the weather started a downhill turn, as the clouds moved in.  The closer we got to Falmouth, MA the cloudier it got.  Not to be deterred, we went on into Woods Hole, to locate the ferry embarcation point for tomorrow’s adventures, and explore a place new to us.

A centerpiece of the town and dock area is the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory's Office of Marine Operations (OMO)m which currently operates the research vessel Marcus G. Langseth that serves as the national seismic research facility for the United States academic research community. The R/V Marcus G. Langseth's unique seismic capability allows it to provide both 2D and 3D maps of the earth's structure miles below the seafloor. Utilizing the vessel's other capabilities, expeditions have collected sediment cores for understanding climate variations throughout the Earth’s history, sampled seawater for determining physical and chemical properties of the oceans, and deployed remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for studying submarine volcanoes. Scientists and researchers from all over the world are encouraged to participate in research programs aboard the Langseth.

Another centerpiece of Woods Hole is the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which is famous for its Human Occupied Vehicle named “Alvin.”  WHOI operates the U.S. Navy-owned Deep Submergence Vehicle Alvin for the national oceanographic community. Built in 1964 as one of the world’s first deep-ocean submersibles, Alvin has made more than 4,400 dives. It can reach nearly 63 percent of the global ocean floor.

The sub's most famous exploits include locating a lost hydrogen bomb in the Mediterranean Sea in 1966, exploring the first known hydrothermal vent sites in the 1970s, and surveying the wreck of RMS Titanic in 1986. 

A mock-up of the cabin is shown below:  

Also we visited Nobska Light (seen below), which was nearby, and then ended the day with a delicious seafood dinner.