Return to Madeleine

This entry's for all the ROVers out there, past and present.

We, including 6 middle schoolers, returned to Madeleine Island last weekend to deploy the SS-MS Sub ROV, with its 30 foot tetherline.  The conditions were markedly different and much improved over our earlier trip, when the tide was extremely low.  The tide was high, enabling us to launch in a completely different location, into deeper water, with a much larger number and variety of fish.  How nice it was to be swimming in clear, relatively warm water (think Monterey Bay and 7 mm hooded-wetsuits), with the kids and their families, while the ROV roamed beneath us.  I thought about how much last year's ROVers -- Peter, Misha, Sasha, Anna, Haley -- would have LOVED to have been with us that day in the cove on Madeleine.

It's time to move on now, and deploy from a boat, which we have located.  It's available by the day, and we can book it for two hours in the evening.  It's not free:  the rental will cost us about 80 USD for a half-day or evening.  We can split the costs, of course, and gain access to deeper waters, particularly for our deeper-diving ROV Scorpion, with its 50 foot tether.

We have begun planning for the next generation of ROVs, with the battery on-board, with the thrusters controlled by relays, allowing for a much reduced tether, and eliminating any problem with voltage lost due to its length.  Unfortunately, I'm not able to run down to Home Depot to find just the right length of pvc pipe.