How many Maka Niu (accesible deep-sea cams) can you get through before deployment?
Hi everyone - yes, it has been a while. Unfortunately, this year started with some very big personal bumps - which meant putting science and exploration on the side for some much needed family time.
But I am glad to be back and excited to start our work. You see, science and exploration much like life - does not always go according to plan! We were very excited to receive a Maka Niu from the Ocean discovery league team in December and my very excited dad (my personal mechanical engineer =) ) and I did our first water test. Nothing fancy, just a deployment in about 3 metres of water. Sadly - we started to see smoke - never a good sign when thinking about electronics and the ocean. As we scooped it out of the sea, my heart sank - and I was truly, nearly in tears. The Maka Niu was smoking, it smelt like rubber - turns out the pressure hull had been compromised (likely by customs) and the lithium batteries had exploded - there was no way of knowing this unless we had first opened the tube (which is kind of a last resort). The amazing team at Ocean Discovery League - sent us a new one and it arrived in March. So here is to hoping that Maka Niu III is the champ that survives deployments in the Indian Ocean.
We have also been able to get the light sorted from GroupB inc and I will be taking it back with me to Seychelles from the US. What am I doing in the US? That's a story for a different post! stay tuned ;-)
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