Europa has completed about one-third of her voyage north as she continues to cruise across deep ocean basins between the shallow banks, islands and atolls of PMNM. We monitor her health and download audio files and pictures of the sub daily. So far, we have posted some pretty interesting audio files. Below are some pictures of Europa’s sub showing the umbilical with tension and some slack. We painted one side of the umbilical so that we can tell if it gets any twist. Looking pretty straight now!!
Meanwhile, back in Puako, we were able to capture some pretty cool pictures off our Wave Glider, Metis, which is towing a hydrophone and streaming live whale song off Puako. These are of a bottlenose dolphin swimming around the sub, perhaps just curious or trying to catch one of the many fish that hang out around the vehicle. Something very similar has likely happened to Europa while transecting the environmentally rich waters of PMNM. Our hope is to get lucky enough to capture some images like these off Europa during her voyage.
Take a look and listen to the audio we captured at the moment when the bottlenose dolphin is hanging out with Metis.