Morning all

What's going on with the cams this morning??!!



Crazeeee!

Emma

looks like the reef cam is offline. Was the stripey capture from the reef cam too?

The stripey one was from the North BeachCam after I reset the system, trying to figure out if it was a fluke that the ReefCam was off-line. The ReefCam is still off-line however. Happened between 4:32 and 4:34am this morning. Will probably need to go in for a dive to figure out why.

Jake

Brian
No, the stripey one was from the North Beach cam at the same time, that one seems ok now... it must've just had a bit of a funny turn!

I figured it was Jake hitting the hard drive reset button due to my heated remarks regarding dive theft. ;-)

Gordy

I hope the reef cam wasn't found by someone Gordy!

Here's the sunrise

It's a beautiful morning - greetings, cammers!

Well, I've removed the ReefCam from the water. I suspect it's going to be out of commission for a few days.

In case we need to ship down a replacement, is anyone coming down in the next few days?

Jake

I'd offer to be the courier - I do have the next few days off... I'd have to walk, tho!

Be happy to carry, but since we're leaving early Saturday morning, I'd need to have it in hand by tomorrow. Anything else you need that I could pick-up today or tomorrow?
Chet

Jake sent out emails to all the dive shops and posted an "out of order" sign on the mooring block. So we hope we don't have too many disappointed divers.

Now out to the StreetCam to post another notice for any potential shore divers.

To help minimize the effects of reef-cam withdrawal, here's a shot I took of a Flamingo Tongue at South Bay a couple weeks ago:

Maybe you could put the Patio Cam back on and we could babysit the dogs. Or *Living Room* cam - and we could watch TV with you!

More more more! That's a superb picture, Megan or Eric!



(Where's the rest of the bird?}

Suffering major reef cam withdrawl symptoms!

Great White shark siting!

HAHAHAHAHA! Jake and Linda take awfully good care of the inmates, I think!

This is folks! The moment I've been waiting for: My first visit to Bonaire. Leaving tomorrow morning and I'm going ballistic with anticipation. If the reefcam is up by then, I'll wave a cheery "hello!" to everyone. Take care!!!

-Glenn

Glenn - will you stop by and see Shamu and wave to the Street Cam?? Bet you hardly sleep tonite! See you soon...

Look ma, no hands!

ENTER - if you dare:

Morning all, I see we have a LAND SHARK!!!!

and morning visitors!

Here's a big wave for everyone!

I especially like Mr. Sharkhead, Freddie!

CANDYGRAM!

hahah i'm glad I'm not the only one who remembered that!!! Delivery Shark!!!!

The Land Shark is hilarious !!!!

Thank you for starting my day with a laugh !

"Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And as this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more."

Out making a delivery no doubt!!!!!!

If your doorbell rings - don't answer!

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, perfect passage to an Orca over the Richter's doorway.

Web cam withdrawl too! What am I going to do with my day. Loved the shark thanks for the laugh!!!! Karen

there might be another suprise on the other side!

Cecil - you *are* the perfect man. LOL A body like Fabio and a brain like Douglas Adams.



"So long, and thanks for all the fish."

Rusty (red-faced): Erp, that wasn't the white mouse I intended to post. LOL

Your close, Rusty. Body like Douglas Adams and a mind like Fabios

But a wonderful sense of humor! Keep it up folks, and I won't even miss the reef cam. Okay, I exaggerate...

Got fish?

Linda - you're getting some goodies, huh?! Love that vac - they ought to be outlawed!

afternoon all - wish the vacs were outlawed. Just had my final Dr. visit...good news - I can sit in the hot tub again; bad news - I can vacuum the house again. I guess we can't have it all.

days without the reefcam? No fishies? That's more distressing than the vacuuming.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Maybe the bowl of petunias is behind the wall...

Aquaman

Cindy - that's good news (sort of!) If you pardon the pun tho, vacuuming sucks.

Did you Hitchhiker fans know that Trillian is the voice of the speaker on the Teletubbies?? (But only in America - it's a man, baby, in the UK.)

Now, if J&L will only play an archived (random, even, for variety) reefcam image set with 2 minute image changes we can all have a fix instead of reefcam blues.

Hey, a Babelfish!

For those concerned, it appears the ReefCam failure was natural. We're still trying to get status on a replacement unit.

Jake

Jake,

You say the failure was 'natural'--are you getting the full 'natural' life of these units or is Bonaire especially hard on them???

The cameras we use were designed to be used on ROVs, at depths up to 5000m, but ROVs are only in the water for hours or maybe days at a time. We're probably being hard on them by keeping them submerged for as long as we do. This one has lasted the longest though, probably because the housing is Titanium. The previous units we used were Delrin (a carbon fiber composite) and turned out to be porous after a few months of submersion.

Jake

Did the housing leak or get condesation?

Not that I can tell, Barry. It seems to just not produce a signal when power is applied...

Jake

That seems rather odd. Do these camera's have a listed service life?

I don't believe they have rated service life for non-stop underwater usage in depths where sea life will live on them :-)

Jake

Yeah - MAC wouldn't honor the warranty on the unit for my fishcam either:

Rusty...That pic cracks me up! One of my Mac buddies made a fish tank out of an old SE case.

My 16 year old Mac SE continues to work flawlessly for non-online apps. For surfing at home, I have a Mac Performa: 6 1/2 years old & it also continues to "Perform" The only upgrades I did to the Performa were installing a larger HD & a faster modem.

COLOR me gone!

I finally had to bury the 6500 I used for a backup graphics machine and put in a G3. The G4 is the main machine, with a WIN98 machine for converting files and opening customer stuff, and a WIN95 machine that runs the RIP for the Canon Color Copier. We've mirrored that drive - want it to last forever, if possible! LOL

rusty, the question is, did the koi know how to use it...

I'm sure you have offers sooner than we would be arriving... but if needed, we could bring parts with us on Monday, Mar. 4th.

Jake,
I'll be coming down Sat but I also know people coming down Sunday. If you can get the camera to Long Island either friday or sat contact me

Jake,

It seems to me we have had this 'why did it fail' discussion for earlier cameras. Has the company had any comment on failure modes/improvements they have tried? I gather that you don't open the cases.

Hi Glen,

Jake asked if I'd address this. The cameras are sealed units, comprising the video module and housing.

The first two cameras were built with a Delrin housing material. The cameras worked fine by the time they got shipped back to the manufacturer. In those cases the failures were with fogging within the housing. the electronics were still working, but the housing contained a bit of moisture. The cameras were pressure tested and run in a test tank, but neither test showed any trouble. The conclusion was that since all plastics are at least somewhat porous, after 6 months, enough moisture entered the camera to cause fogging.

The present unit is housed in titanium. It has survived much longer, but the failure mode we now see is different from previous failures.

The October failure was not a problem with the camera, but rather with the cable. While the cables are kevlar jacketed, given sufficient time and surge, it's possible for the cable to get damaged. We took extra precautions this last time replacing the cable, using pieces of a wetsuit Jake could no longer wear (Grendel had played chew-toy with it) to protect sections that might be subject to wear. Even so, we expect the cable will fail again in time.

We're using some of the premiere underwater camera modules. These are used on research submersibles and ROV's. They're good units, but in most uses people don't leave these cameras underwater and operating 24x7. It's a bit different when the cameras are raised to the surface after a few hours of use, and washed off with fresh water.

This is one of the areas where our webcam work is breaking new barriers. We continue to research new technologies, and new applications of existing technologies, trying to find ways to improve what we're doing.

Dan

dan, thanks for the explaination. very inovative using a wetsuit that grendel had chewn on (shame on her I was thinking today of when Jake was trying to install a new camera because it was fogging up...foggy divers...then I was thinking of the actual thread when Jake posed the question..."...what (would) it take(s) to pull an air filled buoy the size of a soccer ball 4 feet under water and secure it there. Any guesses?"....still gotta be one of my favorite threads to read (tear rolling down my cheek)...really, I learned quite a bit that day the answer...Dan, Faith, Jake and Linda...muchas gracias for putting up with us

Cynde, one thing interesting about the soccer ball that I have discovered since then. How much lift do you get out of an object full of air underwater? Answer, the same about as the weight of that same object full of water (you got to love symentry and physics). So if you can imagine a soccer ball full of water that's how much lift you get underwater.

When we did the great snow mobile rescue, I accidently did a bunch of experiments with different lift bags. The best were plastic bags designed to carry fish, ie. capable of being full of water and not breaking. The worst was a pool pillow (4 foot square plastic bag), when inflated it became floppy, flowing thing that only wanted to get to the surface no matter how many ropes were wrapped around it, alot of fun.

ok Cecil...what did you finally use to get the vehicle to the surface...the plastice bags to carry fish...and I think this requires another picture of your successful efforts

To answer the question, yes, all of the above, plus an innertube. The bag was best but we only had one. Here's our catch.



Here's a link to the conversation, Link