Photo of the Week

WHOTS Up? The Woods Hole Hawaii Ocean Time-series Site (WHOTS)

Photo: Samantha Adams

It’s deployment day! After months of preparation and days of practice, this buoy is finally going in the water! The sheer volume of stuff that’s involved is mind boggling. There’s the buoy itself, which is nearly 3 meters (approximately 9 feet) tall; one meter of that sits below the surface. There’s 16 MicroCats (which are instruments measuring temperature, salinity and depth of the water) attached to over 350 meters of chain and wire. Then there’s another 1,800 meters of wire and 3,600 meters of two different types of line (rope) -- heavy nylon and polypropylene. Then there’s 68 glass balls, for flotation. After that, there’s another 35 meters of chain and nylon line. Attached to that is an acoustic release, which does exactly what it sounds like it does -- if it “hears” a special signal, it detaches from whatever is holding it down. In this case, that’s a 9,300 pound anchor. (The acoustic release and the glass balls make sure that all the instruments on the mooring line can be recovered.) All in all, nearly 6,000 meters -- three and a half miles -- of equipment and instrumentation is going over the stern of the Hi’ialakai.