Hi all,

It looks like the ReefCam is down for a while. Linda went today to try the power cycling thing, and it no longer works.

My guess is that the cable has a short in it, most likely above water (that's where I want to look for it in any event).

What I'm hoping for are some volunteers who will be available on island this Friday afternoon, or maybe over the coming weekend to help me try and find the problem - it requires helping pull up cable, and looking at it in detail. Worst comes to worst I actually do have a spare cable we can install to replace the existing one (although that is quite a bit more work, but it involves diving...)

And, for an extra bonus, the Marine Park tells me they installed a drill mooring ring somewhere above the ReefCam mooring block which we can ultimately use to secure the mooring block so that it doesn't slide down-slope. However, the last dive I did I could not find the ring, so we need help locating it (and doing a ReefCam cleaning and cable resecuring too).

Beers or other refreshments at Bongos, and maybe even some food, as well as my eternal gratitude, are the thank-you I can share.

Any takers? :-)

Jake

Hi Jake, I would be happy to help, will be on island on the Wednesday evening. See you soon. I'm not so high tech, but follow directions pretty good. Got to have the reef cam back up.

I won't be there until Monday night but if you still need help I'd be happy to pitch in from Tuesday on.

I SO wish I could volunteer to help. I know you will find the problem and, with your intrepid team, fix it in due haste! Thanks, Jake.

We'll keep y'all posted.

Jake

Well, with the able assistance of Debbie Babcock, Pat & Mary Murphy, and the Richter family (and our surrogate, part-time son Chip), we went and played with cables for the ReefCam.

What we found was that the cable from the server room to the tree where the ReefCam cable is spliced in is fine. And the cable from there to the pier seems to be okay.

What we don't know is whether we have a cable problem from there to the ReefCam or a problem with the ReefCam itself. So, the current plan is for me to go and get the ReefCam up from the depths this weekend, and try it out on land to isolate the problem and figure out where to go from there.

However, at this point we have cable ripped up, and we also need to secure the ReefCam mooring block more securely, so in all likelihood, the ReefCam will be out of service for a few weeks (one other reason for that being that I will be off island from Feb. 14 to Feb. 25 and can't work on the ReefCam then).

Per Dan's request (and I'm trying to get him to get his butt to Bonaire so he can share in the fun ), I will probably be using waterproof junction boxes when I reattach cables (once I know I have working cables) at the tree and pier, adding additional cabling so that we can ultimately also mount another (experimental) underwater Cam under the pier at Eden Beach in a couple of months.

While the outage of the ReefCam is a disappointment all around (hopefully short-lived), there is good news to share too. We came to an agreement with Eden Beach today on extending our agreement for them to host the Bonaire WebCams for the next three years.

More later on the ReefCam as it develops.

Well, all good things are worth waiting for.

Thanks for spending your day (all of you!) working on it, we really all appreciate it. And the thought of another u/w cam......that's SO exciting!

We can wait it out. Take care all, and thanks.

Thanks for all the hard work. We'll keep our fingers crossed that it's an easy fix.

have a great weekend!

Thanks for all the hard work everyone!! Please let us know if there's anything we can do from this end (help with funding for improvements, etc.?).

Thanks for the straightening of the NorthCam!


And even more thanks to Eden Beach for continuing support of our addiction!!!!

Lisa, I hadn't even noticed!! Excellent!!

Now the water won't run out of the picture any more!! LOL

I remember when we thought we would lose all of the cams forever.....

This is nothing!!

Thank you, Eden Beach!!

And thanks to "J" and the entire crew in tracing this problem. We can be patient......

OR 'Hit The ARCHIIVES!!!'

Bill

Thanks J and crew!

Thanks to Eden Beach for another three year contract...wooohoooo!

And Dan, get your butt to Bonaire...it's bee tooooo long!

Oh yeah - I forgot to mention I had straightened the North Beach Cam :-)

Jake

Thanks for the hard work, problem solving, North Beach Cam straightening etc, Jake & crew (the latter was the first thing I noticed when I checked in this morning!)
And thanks to Eden beach for the continued sponsorship!
I'll be happy to help if there is still help needed in 6 weeks or so...

Okay - latest update. I got the ReefCam out of the water this afternoon and tested with a spare cable, and after a few false starts, I kind of got it working. However, as I can't get a replacement cable installed before I leave on vacation, I decided it would be best to send the ReefCam in to the supplier to get overhauled so that we have a nice, squeaky clean ReefCam to reinstall in a couple of weeks.

I will definitely be looking for volunteers around the beginning of March to help with a cable replacement and reinstallation. This will require a fair bit of underwater time, as well as interaction with a fire coral encrusted old cable and mooring block (so hand protection will be necessary). I will post a note hear once I know the date better. I would like to first find out where the drill mooring the Marine Park installed for us is before I reinstall the ReefCam, so we can properly secure the mooring.

Jake

Thanks for all the hard work and the update Jake .... we wish you and Linda luck and safe travels and a healthy knee when Linda returns..

Will be there 23 Feb to 15 March, will plan on helping!

And on behalf of the huge multitude of lurkers--many thanks to Jake and helpers!

--Dan