July 19, 2016
Road trip
Rarely does an expedition run without mishaps or technical failures and our first technical failure happened in the first week. After several successful dives with our CTD – a device capable of measuring water temperature, salinity, pH, depth, oxygen, depth and chlorophyll – it suddenly stopped working. We attempted to get it running again while at sea, with technical support from the manufacturer in the UK, but with no luck. The decision was made to bring it back to the manufacturer for repair when the Neptune was at dock in Grimsby. Jorge Blanco and I drove 350 miles from Grimsby to Totness in South Devon hoping to get some answers.
Upon our arrival to the manufacture the CTD was activated…and started right up! In disbelief we watched the red light come on and everything was working as it should. The manufacturer kept the CTD overnight and did extensive tests, but found no evidence of errors.
So…the good news was our CTD was working…the bad news was, we had no idea why it stopped working. We ended up with more questions than answers. Did we drive 350 miles for nothing and still had 350 miles to get back to the boat? Maybe the CTD just wanted to go for a drive…!!!