Today marked the end of Leg 1 - servicing installations in the Salish Sea - wrapped up after a successful 10 days of operations. At 09:00 the newly arrived leg 2 crew stood in the sun on dock with the happy, but tired, leg 1 crew. We began loading our gear and instruments right away with the ship's crane and finished at 14:00. It took us until evening to rearrange it like a giant block puzzle and tie it all down. All those hours playing TETRIS finally paid off.

The CanPac ROV Team spent the day conducting maintenance on the Remotely Operated Vehicle and working through the various tooling required for leg 2.

The big event of the day was the installation and configuration of the satellite system which will enable high bandwidth communication for leg 2. We began in the morning by setting up network equipment in anticipation of the satellite system's arrival. The frame finally arrived on the dock at 13:30 enabling the pedestal, dish and ISO connectors to be installed. The entire assembly was hoisted onto the CanPac Divers containers on the aft deck at 16:15 with most of the science crew outside watching.

Cable runs and terminations were completed by 18:30 and the system was powered up. Calibrations, verifications and network testing continued for several more hours. Testing included clockwise and counter-clockwise spin tests with the Tully, a.k.a. doing donuts in Pat Bay. The spin tests confirmed we have a 15 degree dead zone facing the ship's mast. The system is now functioning (enabling us to send you this log), but requires a few tweaks in the morning to get the streaming video online. We have two VoIP phones with Houston area codes, but don't expect a Texas accent when you call, and saying "Houston, we have a problem!" is not funny to us.

The satellite technicians from Oceaneering, Hung Phan and Gary Cheramie, along with Ocean Networks Canada's Nic Scott were transferred to shore after a long, but ultimately successful, day of system setup. We are currently underway to Barkley Canyon Upper Slope, looking forward to our first day of offshore operations tomorrow.