Maintenance cruise to Pylos

In the period between 29/08/20 and 4/09/20, there was a maintenance cruise for the recovery and redeployment of the oceanographic buoy at the Poseidon-Pylos site. The buoy now features an experimental AIS system with the ability to transmit messages containing station measurement data (eg wind speed/direction, significant wave height, etc.).

During the same cruise the seabed multi-parametric cabled observatory was also recovered in the same area (EMSO-Hellenic site).The redeployment of the cabled observatory will take place in a future maintenance cruise, because during the two years and three months that it remained at 1580 meters depth took its toll. Already repairs and upgrades are under way.

The recovery and redeployment of the buoy was performed by the oceanographic R/V Aegaeo and the help of its crew, while the recovery of the cabled observatory was realized with ROV MAX ROVER and the help of its support team. The oceanographic buoy and the seabed cabled observatory are part of European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO)

In addition, as part of the research cruise, two new deployments of free-drifting Argo-type profiling floats were carried out in Myrtoan and the Cretan Seas. The floats (WMOs 6903289, 6903290) are configured to record temperature and salinity profiles every five days and down to 1000 meters depth while drifting to a depth of 350 meters. Along with the deployments of the floats, measurements of the vertical distribution of temperature, salinity and biochemical parameters were performed with the CTD equipment of R/V AEGAEO.