You can test all your oceanographic equipment in the lab, and on land, and even off a pier, but there’s nothing like the real thing. “They work perfectly in the barn,” said WHOI engineer John Bailey, “but things are different at the bottom of the ocean.” So you have to test-drive (or in this case, “test-dive”) your vehicles to see if they work according to plan. If they don’t work perfectly (and they rarely do on the first try), you make adjustments before the next dive. Today on a typical Arctic summer day—32°F, windy, with scattered snow flurries—scientists and engineers leashed their newly built vehicle Camper to a cable and took it for a “walk” near the seafloor.
Read on about our adventure in the slideshow below. Can't see the slideshow? Get the Flash plug in »
