ACO

The cruise will transit to Station ALOHA, a site 100 km north of the island of Oahu to work on instruments on the seafloor (~5000m depth). The site is the location of the ALOHA Cabled Observatory (ACO), a deep ocean site with cabled-to-shore power and internet, making ACO one of the deepest real-time observatories in the world. The cruise will perform three main tasks: 1) retrieve a faulty sensor package (CTD, fluorometer and pressure gauge, 2) deploy new sensor package, and 3) deploy new camera system. The sensor packages are "plug and play," and an ROV will be used to transport the packages to the site and plug them into the ACO main system. If time allows, the cruise will also recover additional sensors that have been deployed on the sea floor in the vicinity of the ACO as part of a separate project.