Underwater Swaps

The digital still camera at Southern Hydrate Ridge captured this cinematic shot of the Jason ROV working on swapping out junction boxes on the seafloor. Credit: UW/NSF-OOI/WHOI; J2-1536, V23.

August 27, 2023: The team arrived at Southern Hydrate Ridge on schedule (~0600). During  dive J2-1536, Jason swapped out junction box MJ01B. A series of instrument swap dives occurred at the same location. The medium-powered junction box (MJ01B) the was turned successfully. Jason then went  back into the water for dive J2-1537 with a digital still camera (CAMDSB103) in the undervator. The new camera was connected to the new junction box and swapped out with the old one. After the camera swap, operations resumed with dive J2-1538, which swapped out three uncabled fluid samplers and recovered a piece of sonar equipment deployed by MARUM (University of Bremen, Germany). The day’s events ended with a visit by some whales. What a day!