I spent a few hours this morning in the hotel room working on the
photographs for these journals. By the time the sun had managed
to warm up the air enough for me to really want to be outside, I
decided that this would be a good time go for a walk down to Te Papa,
the New Zealand National Museum and see what everyone has been
talking about. The plans for work on the ship called for us to
get there later in the afternoon to start taping the fiber optic cables
onto nearly one half mile of poly-steel cable. Figuring that I had a couple
of hours before I needed to be at the Kaharoa, I walked along the
beachfront promenade and made my way to Te Papa. Architecturally,
the museum is quite spectacular with soaring atriums,
elevated walkways, and a blend of
traditional and very modern exhibition styles.
Heading back to the hotel to join up with the rest of the group before
going over to the ship I saw what must have been the start of yet another
boat race, except this time the boats were powered by dacron sails and wind rather
than by twenty very robust paddlers. That interesting cone-shaped shaped building in the
background is the New Zealand parliament house, affectionately called "the Beehive".
Since the Deep Rover will be diving in Kaikoura attached to the ship by a tether, this
configuration provides the opportunity to send the video images that the Deep Rover's cameras
take up the tether and to the ship where it can be recorded and viewed by the
scientists on board. However, since the video signals cannot travel up the rope tether,
two additional fiber optic cables need to be taped to the tether to carry the video. As the
sun went down, we carefully offloaded the reels of fiber optic cable from the Kaharoa onto
the dock where we had stretched out the entire tether. The task before us seemed quite
overwhelming. Attaching the fiber to nearly one half mile of rope with wraps of duct tape
every three meters was not something that we were going to be able to complete tonight.
.......the saga of the duct tape will be continued
best regards,
gene
