By the time the sun had managed to warm up the air enough for me to really want
to be outside this morning, 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 Beach front 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 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 provides the opportunity to send video images captured by the Deep Rover's
cameras along the tether to the ship, where they 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
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.
