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We are back in the office after nearly 3 weeks at sea aboard the University of Washington’s R/V Thompson. The team followed the Operations Plan that was set out over the last 6 months and achieved most of the planned goals. The weather co-operated perfectly for dive operations, resulting in no weather downtime. The remotely operated vehicle (ROV) crew ensured that there was as little vehicle downtime as possible and was quick to resolve any problems subsea and on deck.

Here is a summary of what was accomplished on the NEPTUNE Canada June 6-26 Installation/Maintenance Expedition aboard the R/V Thompson with the Oceaneering Millennium ROV.

By the Numbers

• 20 days
• 19 dives
• 9 visiting scientists and engineers
• 8 ROV and navigation crew members
• 4 guest staff on the communications team
• 14 Ocean Networks Canada staff
• 10 connected instruments deployed and 4 recovered, plus several autonomous instruments deployed.

Endeavour

Mothra

• We completed 10 dives focussed on laying the Mothra-Midpoint cable. The first 3 were cut short due to vehicle hydraulic issues. The Oceaneering Team had only 4 weeks prior to shipment for design and manufacturing of the cable laying system. With input from Ocean Networks Canada, we devised a system that straps the cable spooling device under the ROV cage. Unfortunately, the cable lay was ultimately unsuccessful due to issues with mating the hydraulic connector between the ROV cage and the cable laying system. We retrieved the Mothra cable spool and cable laying system for further investigation on shore.
• 4 push core sediment samples.
• Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) rosette.

Endeavour North (a.k.a. RCM North)