Swapping out the Current Meters

We changed the current meters relatively quickly with zero complications on the same mornings that we set up during HF28. The current meters are held vertically in the water column by buoys that remain 5 meters below the surface. In order to swap out the current meter we had to device a pulley system with a sliding knot to take the tension out of the line before we could do the swap.

In a Timely Manner

We establish three sites in the canal and work feverishly to drill enough holes to install our equipment with the limited number of days we have left. The time it takes to drill is the bottleneck of the operation. With the force one must exert to operate the drill and remain in place against the current we are consuming air much more rapidly than normal.  We install two current meters (seen in above photo). This device measures the speed and direction of the current in the canal, which seems to be wind driven by the neighboring larger bodies of water at either end of the canal. We assume that the current is wind driven because within a one hour period it can easily change directions entirely up to three times.

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