BUTO1 Buccoo Reef CREWS/IMA Buoy Field Log: March 2014

The Buccoo Reef CREWS (BUTO1) was serviced on 19/03/2014 after several months of basic maintenance. Rough seas prevents schedules maintenance in December/January.

Pre-cal CTD

Depth: 1.05m
Temperature: 27.23
Conductivity: 56155
Salinity: 35.5

Mooring lines, the buoy and the hardware attached to the buoy remained intact and with no noticeable damage. Mooring lines and the buoy were heavily fouled with green filamentous algae and sessile barnacles. The anchors remained intact with no cracks or weaknesses noticed. The eastern subsurface buoy has shifted up to below the surface of the water, and will be adjust on next visit.

The EXO2 was heavily fouled primarily with sessile barnacles at both ends. The fouling was to the extent that it prevent the opening of the unit from the protective casing and the release of the probes from the EXO2 base unit. Most of the copper coating surrounding the probes had been oxidised but no physical damage was noticed on the sensors. The probes were thoroughly cleaned of all barnacles, algae and other encrustations. All debris removed from the threading and krytox gel reapplied to all ports prior to reconnection to the base unit. On recalibration it was noted that the conductivity/temperature probe was faulty (during calibration it registered temperature of 1.xx e-9 and conductivity readings of 96500 in the conductivity standard) and has been replaced with a new probe. The faulty probe has been sent to YSI from examination. The new probe passed calibration process. A QC result was generated during the TSS calibration process for reasons undetermined. This also occurred during the first installation of the CREWS.

Buccoo is a high fouling area and as a result more regular checks to BUTO1 will be made. Basic checks will be made twice per month to clean any fouling and recalibration exercises conducted monthly as best as possible.