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Basket Catch

There’s a joke among WHOI staff that John Kemp will miss no opportunity to get into a ship’s crane-operated metal basket. In July 2007, Ola Andersson (chief officer of the icebreaker Oden), lowered the ship’s basket toward the ice with Kemp aboard, reaching slightly underneath the ship and along its hull so that they could retrieve the autonomous underwater vehicle Puma. Eventually the crew spotted the vehicle and Andersson maneuvered Kemp toward it. With a long metal pole, Kemp pushed aside ice floes to free Puma, grabbed hold of it, and brought it back onboard after 22 hours underwater. Follow Puma this week as it has another adventure, this time in the South Atlantic.(Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)