An historic subsea instrument that launched Ocean Networks Canada’s deep-sea cabled observatory network 20 years ago and introduced a new era of live ocean monitoring, was retired during the #ONCabyss Spring 2026 expedition.
The large telecommunications “power box”, called a node, was deployed in Saanich Inlet in 2006, providing Internet connection to instruments and sensors in the new Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea (VENUS) observatory network.
A key priority of the 10-day expedition (March 10-19) was to recover two VENUS nodes: the original 20-year old Saanich Inlet node and a 15-year old node in the Strait of Georgia.
ONC and Canpac Marine Services successfully battled rough conditions and low visibility aboard the motor vessel (M/V) Canpac Valour to complete maintenance on ONC’s major cabled observatories: VENUS, in the Salish Sea and the North East Pacific Time-series Undersea Networked Experiments (NEPTUNE), off the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Map of the NEPTUNE and VENUS observatories. Nodes highlighted in pink were recovered during this expedition.
Retiring ONC’s first subsea node
VENUS went live in 2006 when ONC partnered with Global Marine Systems and the Canadian Coast Guard to lay four kilometres of cable and deploy the node, along with two instrument platforms in the Saanich Inlet, a coastal fjord on Vancouver Island.
The Saanich Inlet node was ONC’s first-ever deployed instrument, marking the launch of the world’s first large-scale interactive portal for monitoring the ocean in real-time.
Since then, the node—also known as device ID 0001 internally at ONC—has dutifully served as the power source to a range of ocean monitoring instruments. The long time series data provides an important baseline for monitoring the health of this ocean region. See the data here.
Oxygen, salinity, and water temperature data collected from Saanich Inlet over the last 20 years. The black lines indicate the overall daily average of each variable.
Where it all started - Saanich Inlet
Saanich Inlet on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
Saanich Inlet, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is a deep glacial fjord with high plankton productivity and naturally low oxygen (hypoxic) conditions.
Coastal fjords are hot spots for organic carbon burial, storing 11 percent of the carbon buried in the oceans—an estimated 18 million metric tons a year. Saanich Inlet instruments help us understand how low/no oxygen hypoxic ecosystems function, and how low oxygen affects marine biodiversity.
Next generation ocean monitoring infrastructure
The new Saanich Inlet node deployed during the spring expedition was designed and built in-house, with steel and fibreglass components, making it lighter and easier to deploy and recover. Its function remains the same—providing power and Internet connectivity to oceanographic instruments in Saanich Inlet.
The new Strait of Georgia node retains the original pod-like, trawl-resistant design, continuing to serve as the site’s subsea Internet-connected “power box”.
Oxygen, salinity, and water temperature data from the Strait of Georgia. The black lines indicate the overall daily average of each variable.
See the live Strait of Georgia data here.
Along with the node replacements, new instruments that measure water quality properties and sound, were also deployed at the Saanich Inlet and Strait of Georgia VENUS sites, and at Folger Deep on NEPTUNE.
From recovery to redeployment
The work doesn’t stop after the at-sea operations are completed!
Recovered instruments are cleaned and refurbished for their next deployment while the nodes (after a very thorough powerwash) will be dismantled, with components repurposed or recycled.
Junior ONC engineer, Sebastian Coates (engineer-in-training) putting in elbow grease to clean the nodes.
Looking ahead to the summer expedition
A big thank you to Canpac Marine Services for providing a safe at-sea home to ONC staff during the annual spring #ONCabyss expedition.
Stay tuned for our next expedition this summer.
