Ocean Networks Canada: What It’s Really Like to Work in the Deep Sea

1:00:00 Welcome back to another episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin and today we're diving into what's really like to work in the ocean as part of our monthly series called Surfacing Secrets. Explore the ocean, know the planet. Have you ever wondered what it takes to explore the deep sea? I operate cutting edge underwater technology or spend your days surrounded by one of the most planet's mysterious environments. In this episode, I'm joined by Meg Paulson and Dirk Lorsau from Oceans Network, Canada and Josh Tenereco from Canpack who share their first-hand experiences working in the field. We talk about everything from excitement of deploying ROVs thousands of meters below the surface to the challenges of working under intense pressure, both literal and figurative.

1:00:43 If you ever dreamed of a career in marine exploration engineering or you want to understand what life is like for those protecting and studying our oceans, this is the episode for you. Let's start the show. And then on the flip side, there's days where you're like, I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this right now. This is absolutely incredible. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. On today's episode, we are going to be talking about the deep sea. We're going to be talking about the work done by people and partners of Ocean Networks Canada and we're going to be going beyond the surface to talk about what it really means to work in the ocean, especially in the mysterious and challenging world of the deep sea.

1:01:36 Our guests, Megan, Josh and Dirk are ocean professionals who spend their days deploying and maintaining remotely operated vehicles, troubleshooting problems miles offshore and gathering crucial data for ocean science. We'll hear what it feels like to operate equipment under extreme pressure, the surprises you can encounter when exploring the ocean floor and the teamwork it takes to make every mission a success. We're also going to dig into the personal side of life at sea, how they balance long stints away from family, the camaraderie that develops among crew members and the passion that keeps them coming back to this vital and demanding work. This conversation is a rare behind the scenes look at careers that keep our understanding of the ocean moving forward and it's a chance to appreciate the people who dedicate their lives to studying and protecting ocean ecosystems.

1:02:24 So stay tuned, get ready for the stories from the deep and let's get to know the planet on Surfacing Secrets. Here's the interview with Megan, Josh and Dirk. Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after. Megan, Josh and Dirk, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about what it's like to work in the ocean? Let's do it. Yeah, all right. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm super excited because it's not often actually, I don't think we've ever really had a full conversation of what it's like to work in the ocean, especially the deep sea. We have three people here who work in a partnership with Josh and for Oceans Network Canada with with Megan and Dirk and we're going to find out exactly what they do with those programs.

1:03:12 But we are here to talk about what it's like to work in the ocean because that is what they do. And we're going to talk about sort of the challenges, the fun that you get to have out there. But also just like what it's like to work like in such a deep pressured system and all the materials I have to go in, ROVs. There's going to be a lot of fun chats coming on this podcast on this episode. So I am super excited to do that. Before we get into all that, though, why don't we hear from all of you who you are and what you do? We'll start with Megan. Thanks, Andrew. My name is Megan Paulson. And my role here at Ocean Networks Canada is executive director of observatory operations. And what that means is basically all operations at ONC as it relates to our observatories is under my purview.

1:03:58 And that includes physical operations and digital operations because what we do, we don't just put stuff in the ocean, but we collect data from everything that we're putting in the ocean. And we make that data available to basically anyone with the Internet connection for free. That's amazing. I love that. I love it. I can't wait to dive deep into that. Let's go. Josh, next. Yeah, I'm Josh Tederenko. I'm director of ROV operations at Campact Marine Services. We're a company on the west coast of Canada that provides any subsea services down to six thousand meters with our deep sea rated ROV. My job in the company is to take care of and run and operate, mobilize, upgrade all of our underwater robotic systems.

1:04:44 OK, that's that's interesting. That's like I feel like that is a continually growing field to to look at robotics and especially when it comes to underwater underwater work, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yes. I mean, just like any tech industry, you're always sort of chasing the newest latest technology and trying to be at the forefront. And a lot of what our partnership is with Ocean Networks Canada is not just to provide the services, but also to make sure that we we stay on top of the latest and greatest technology for the industry. Absolutely. Absolutely. Looking forward to diving into that as well. And Dirk, how about us know who you are and what you do.

1:05:26 OK, I'm Dirk Russo. I'm the director of Observatory Physical Operations for Ocean Networks Canada. And my team is made up of engineers and technicians. And we work together to integrate new physical infrastructure onto the network, whether that's new sensors, new equipment or new technology, stuff like that. Nice. Very nice. Very nice. This is going to be a lot of fun to be able to talk to you. I want to just start right from the beginning before all of you got to where you were. And Megan, we'll start with you. You know, what was it like for you to get into the ocean? Like, what made you want to work in the ocean? Great question. So I grew up on the east coast of Canada. So very ocean friendly place. But it wasn't really until I was an undergraduate student in engineering in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1:06:16 And I applied for a position for the Geological Survey of Canada and fortunately got the position at the in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and had the opportunity through my supervisor to do an offshore expedition where we were collecting sediment cores and absolutely fell in love with it. Like I was absolutely hooked to the point where when I graduated my undergrad, my main criteria for getting a job was I needed to work offshore. That's amazing. Quick question here. You know, when you work and we'll get into it a little bit more, but when you work at sea, there's a lot of sacrifices you have to make. It's not a regular what we, you know, quote unquote, what people would consider regular like land job where you get to go home after your your nine to five year at sea.

1:07:06 What was so appealing for you about working at sea? Part of it was the adventure of it. I mean, you really you get to go to places that very few people go to. Part of it was the food. I like being fed. The food is usually amazing. I like it when people make food for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And part of it was really getting to know the people on board. It's such a different environment than a regular office environment. And you're meeting people and you're working really closely with people that you wouldn't normally do so from every walk of life, from every type of education level.

1:07:50 And it's really it's really a fascinating sort of microcosm environment and you're kind of stuck together. So whatever comes up, you have to figure it out. You have to work it out and you have to move forward for the very, you know, focused reason that you're out there for whatever your mission is at the time. Yeah, for sure. And I find too, like I've had experience working at sea and I find like when you have to work through those problems, you're able to get it. It's a complete confidence boost when you're able to figure it out. However long it takes, you know, you never know when an instrument is not going to work or or something is not going to work. And you're if you're able to get it going, that's probably one of the best feelings. Oh, it's yeah, it's it's such a rush, you know, because sometimes things break.

1:08:35 Sometimes you get really creative. And when you're able to work through as a team and troubleshoot and put something together to solve whatever the issue was and it works, you turn it on, it works or whatever it is, it's, oh, it's an it's infectious. Absolutely. Absolutely. And speaking of, you know, fixing things that see Josh, you know, you're you're into robotics. You've come across that quite a bit. But what what got you into this company that you're working at? Like, what were you doing beforehand? Was this always the plan when you were younger? Like, how did this all come to be? Yeah, sure. Well, first of all, no, I've never had to fix a robot offshore.

1:09:15 They're always they always work perfectly. I never ever experienced that once. No, we're fixing them all the time. So I was fortunate fortunate enough to grow up with a dad that he was in the field for his his career. So I kind of grew up around it. And, you know, we spent time on the ocean, you know, privately. And then I got to see some pretty cool ships when I was young. I always wanted to be a pilot, though, an aircraft pilot. But eventually, I was an electrician after high school, I did a trade. And then really why I went into subsea robotics is the challenge. Subsea robotics is especially deep sea is one of the most challenging jobs, careers on the planet, in my opinion, intellectually, just just the problems that you have to solve offshore and the teamwork needed to solve them consistently, drew me into working offshore. That's really the main the main reason why I love it every day.

1:10:28 I love the food more than Megan. I love getting a team together on the ship. And just like we talked about, you have to you all have to come together to solve things, whether it's subsea or, you know, fixing something on the surface, so you can get back in the water. But the real draw for me is that you are always learning. You're always being challenged, always something different, especially working with Ocean Networks Canada or in the science field because you're always just pushing, pushing to do new things. It's not like more common or OB fields and oil and gas and things. They've kind of got everything figured out and they've been doing it for a long time. But in the fields that we work in, it's actually a challenge.

1:11:15 You're always trying to solve an issue with people that really, really want to solve it with you. Yeah, that are really interesting. Everybody's very motivated. We all come together offshore. So that's that's the main draw for me. That's why I got into this. I don't blame you. I don't blame you. That sounds amazing. Dirk, how about yourself? When I growing up, I grew up in a kind of a subtropical rainforest in South Africa and at the age of six, I already had my own horse and we would like ride our horses in the game reserves and stuff to my friend's house. Like we were pretty wild kids, right? So I've always had this sense of adventure. And I think that just kind of came stuck along when I was in university and got opportunity to do a co-op with Ocean Networks Canada.

1:12:01 You saw the same thing. It's like this is you get to go all these places kind of what Megan was saying, like we have got observatories in the Arctic all along the coast of BC. We got one of the east coast. So it's a lot of really remote travel. And that's what I that's what I really liked. And then working here, I kind of got into the offshore working on the vessels and stuff. That's just part of the job, right? So yeah. And I guess one of the favorite things about working here is everyone kind of circle. I want to say circle the train, but everyone kind of came together because they're equally passionate. So the people you're working with are just as excited. And I think both Josh and Megan already mentioned this, but you kind of end up here because you want to be here. It's not necessarily easy road to get here. So right coworkers, I guess.

1:12:47 Yeah, I think it's I think it's really interesting to how you know, a lot of people I'm a marine biologist and I think a lot of people who try and get into this field who want to work on the ocean think they have to be a marine biologist. You are all scientists. You are all engineers of one one way or another of worked in that in that field. Did you ever picture yourself during our Josh, you might be a little different because your dad worked in this and this is something that you know was you can see what what you could what was one of the potentials other than just the being a being a pilot. But did any of you think that this is what you were going to be doing dirt will start with you this time. Like, did you think that you will be working on the ocean as a your mechanical engineer, right? Mechanical engineer. Yeah. Yeah. So do you ever think that that was one of the things you're going to be doing? No, not at all.

1:13:32 Like I like it. Like I've always loved fishing and I like being on the ocean and stuff like that, but I never thought I'd work in the ocean. Initially, I was an aspiring geologist, my first track, trying to get a degree and that did not work out. So kind of went back square one did electrical apprenticeship or start that and then went to you Vic from marine biology kind of left that as well and then eventually did my engineering degree and still ended up kind of where I in the field work kind of thing. So long track but yeah, yeah, love it. Love it. And Josh, I know you kind of worked in that that you saw what it was like, but did you ever picture this is what you were going to be doing or like I know you said you want to be a pilot. Was this all actually what you do?

1:14:14 Yeah, no, I didn't really consider this until my mid mid 20s to be honest. I knew it was a was an opportunity that I could probably take up. But I yeah. And then I and then once I got into it, I was basically thrown right in. I took the job and then we had our first cruise for onc in 2012 or 13. I can't remember. And we just we were kind of as a short notice thing and we got thrown on board ship and I just never turned back. So no, but no, I didn't I didn't really think that I would work offshore. I love spending time in the ocean either way, but yeah, I didn't expect this. No, absolutely. Absolutely. And Megan, how about yourself?

1:15:03 Well, it's funny that you said most people think you need to be a marine biologist to get into this field and these guys can attest. I'm a terrible biologist. I'm terrible at identifying anything. I call them all critters and all. But yeah, no, I when I went to university, I started in science until I and I thought I was going to major in chemistry and until I hit organic chemistry. And I thought no, thank you. And then I switched to engineering and ended up going into civil engineering. So again, you don't think a civil engineering and working on the ocean at all. But it was really the co-op work term where I got the opportunity to do ocean work where like that was it. I was done. So this is it. I love the field work. I love the environment. I love the working with the technology. I love the field work.

1:16:00 I love the technology. I love just the fact that you have to be self-reliant. You know, you can't just when you're out there, you can't just swing by the ocean hardware store to pick up anything you forgot. A lot of a lot of people in our mind, at least they say, you know, you fall into it. You get a that's exactly right. Yeah. So, you know, robotics or background in marine biology, some there's so many different backgrounds that you can actually get into engineering. It's not just limited to to marine biology or what people might think. And then you kind of get an opportunity at some point. And then a lot of people fall in love with it, just like we all have. But it's yeah, we say it all the time. How did you get into this? I kind of just fell into it.

1:16:50 I'm 100% right, Josh. Yeah, I certainly did. Yeah. Well, and maybe I wanted to just kind of ask a question to you, obviously, you know, being being the woman on the podcast today working in a field at sea is not something that I think we see it a little bit. We see it more today than we did, you know, a few a few decades ago. But it's not something that is advertised or not a lot of young girls are going to say, I'm going to work at sea back, you know, back when I grew up in the 80s and 90s. Although I did see a lot of women in my in my class, like in my marine biology class anyway. And there's more and more engineers coming through that are that are females. What was it? What have you found the difference when you first started to now? Like, what's been that?

1:17:35 Do you find there's do you find that you're seeing more women working in the field? And when you first started, like, how was that for you? Yeah, definitely. So, and it kind of depends on the industry that you're working in, I find working in science, there tends to be more, more women, and more women working in the field, which is kind of a friendlier environment. I didn't always work in science, and it wasn't always quite as friendly. But certainly the the number of women who are going into the field has increased. And I think the overall sort of expectations and acceptance of women being in the field has really grown a lot. You know, it used to be, you know, at times like, I wouldn't be allowed to go out on a ship because there wasn't accommodations. Yeah.

1:18:29 And these guys know very well that at Ocean Networks Canada, that's not an acceptable answer now. Right. And so we, we have to make sure that the accommodations are there. And I think having like, you know, a generation or a couple of generations of women who've, who've kind of gone through it, and are in leadership positions now saying like, No, that's not acceptable, we have to do better is really push things forward. And so we were off shore just this past June, and there were a number of young women, or younger than me, I should say, women on on board, where it was their first experience at sea, and it was such a open and friendly and supportive environment that was different than when I started for sure.

1:19:22 And so, you know, the other senior women on board, we just kind of looked at each other and and said to each other like, wow, can you imagine if this is what your first experience at sea was like, it was really it was it was so great to see. Obviously, having such a positive experience for for young scientists, any young scientists come out, we'll want them to come back out, that'll make it all. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was so much fun. I want to go back out and do it again. Let's be honest, it's not easy to work in the ocean. We say it's fun. We say it's but it's there's, there's some tough days, you know, when you when the seas are up and it's not always calm and it's and it's not always sunny. And so it can be quite difficult sometimes. So it's always good to have a great, a great crew.

1:20:07 And as we start to, you know, I'm sorry, the questions are going to start to get into the form of like, what types of jobs are you guys doing when you're out there that having that crew dynamic where you can everybody gets along, you know, and works together and supportive together. Obviously, the three of you know, each other quite well. You've been at sea quite a number of times. You know, Dirk, what makes a crew like what what makes it like in terms of the people work so well together? Like, what does it take? Especially at sea? Well, there's very, it's kind of funny, you pick a crew, you pick your crew list very specific to what the jobs are. And there's kind of these kind of discrete jobs. And then so you've got the kind of specialists for each one. And then you also have these like, I don't know, jack of all trade, but Swiss Army knives of people that you can bring along as well.

1:20:55 So that kind of kind of cover the spread. So we've got a few of those as well. So we'll have like a dedicated person from science or data that would focus a lot of their efforts on that field because it takes like their full attention. But then there's also the back deck work and leading dives and that kind of thing that you really need to shuffle the expertise around. But I think what gets you through the day or because some of these cruises are long, they're like 22 days of 12 hours on every day is again, is the people that you go with. I've cruised with people where the, you know, the camaraderie wasn't necessarily there. And then cruises with when it is there. It just it's a lot of jokes. It's a lot of stories. It's just kind of, I don't know. It's the people that you go with, I think it kind of form this little family on each cruise. And by the end, you're like, Oh, what I do now, because everyone goes there separately.

1:21:42 Right. Right. So yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Dirk, Dirk calls me at night after cruises for the like the first week. He's he's really gets really lonely. He misses me a lot. He doesn't ask. He calls me. No, I don't know. Is that enough with Dirk? That's enough. You've got all the voicemails. Voice mail full voice. Just check it in. Speaking of which, you know, you talk about missing each other after how long are these trips? I know they vary, but what's the average length of a trip at sea when you're going out for and I don't even know if this is what you call it. But like regular maintenance. Is that what these trips are usually for is regular mates making sure that everything is working there, making it. If you have to switch out some instrumentation things like how long are those typically those trips?

1:22:31 And we got Megan, you can show sure. Sure. So, um, sorry, for Ocean Networks Canada, we typically have at least two regular maintenance trips per year. One is really focused more on inshore. And one is focused more on offshore. The inshore one is typically a week a little bit more than a week. The offshore one is typically two to three weeks long. Okay. And when we say two to three weeks, you know, usually it's people are working 12 hour shifts. Yeah. Seven days a week. Like we don't have a lot of time to do that. It doesn't matter if it's a holiday. We don't get weekends. It's it's a grind. Yeah. Yeah. And you're and when we say 12 hour shifts, like you're on your shift for 12 hours. But you know, typically you're up, you're doing some prep work, you're doing some post shift work as well. So it's it's intense for sure.

1:23:20 Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's also it's like you want to make sure that, you know, when you're out there, everything works. And we've talked about this already. If something doesn't work, you have to be on it to make it work as fast as you can, because you only have a certain amount of time out at sea anyway. And if you're only having one or two trips, then it can be really difficult. You don't want to miss out on something or you don't have to go back out for one specific thing. If you couldn't get it done in the first trip, but I kind of got ahead of myself in terms of what goes into the planning of these trips. Like how, like how far into planning do you guys get? How many like that take months to get things done? You know, what is it?

1:24:00 What goes into that? And then you know, you're going to have to go back to the next one. And I guess we'll we can talk to who wants to take that one. It'll take Megan. Do you want to talk to Josh? Sorry, I can talk to, you know, speak to the ROV planning. Yeah. So well, we I like to consider the the cruises almost they're almost like a movie production in that there is a ton of prep and planning that takes place. And then it all has to get done in a short window. Everybody works 24 seven. And then you're kind of done and you wrap it up. And it's it's so planning is in my opinion, it's the most important part of any cruise because you don't plan it, right? Obviously you go out and you waste all this time and money. So from the ROV side of things, we like to meet with whoever we're working with, Ocean Air, which is Canada a couple months before a job, make sure that every couple weeks after that and then closer together to make sure we have deck plans for the ship all.

1:25:01 All worked out all of our operations that we need special equipment for we have the equipment, you know, either rented or purchased and on the way and installed. And so, you know, there's at least on our end, there's there's one to two months of prep work, depending on the specific exhibition, I think, you know, Megan, you guys, you guys have a bit more probably. Yeah, so so we we start months and months in advance and really the planning starts with what's broken and figuring out what's broken and what needs to be replaced and what needs maintenance or like where are we expanding and and from there and and we get, you know, it's it's a real team effort. So all the teams at Ocean Networks Canada and some of our stakeholders and and science partners get involved and make requests. So it starts with that. And from there, we're procuring instruments, testing them, validating them, making sure that the data quality is right, building them up.

1:26:10 Sometimes they have to be built onto platforms. Sometimes the platform needs to be designed first. So so there's a lot of that, that prep work that goes into it. And then, you know, so that's sort of on the instrument side. And like, what are we going to do? And sort of based on what our plan is, we, we, we have to procure sometimes a ship, sometimes a ship and an ROV. And so, you know, we have to know what our requirements are for those ships and ROVs based on the work that we're trying to get done. We have to submit our permits and make sure that all of that is above board. And then and then as we're getting a little bit closer, as Josh mentioned, we work directly with the ROV provider to really get into the nuts and bolts of like integrating sensors or specialized equipment into the ROV for every for every dive that we do. So every time we go in the water with the ROV, we call it a dive at a particular site, we have very detailed dive plans written. They're usually written in advance, but they're usually tweaked like the day before a dive with input from the ROV pilots and and the people on board. And yeah, so there's there's a lot that goes into it.

1:27:28 I would imagine too, like it's constantly changing because based on weather would would be pretty significant in terms of how that can change your plans quite quickly, whether you even go out or whether you even deploy an ROV or that type of work, right? Yeah, we're fortunate where we have a number of different sites that we can go to and and typically most of our sites are part of our expedition plan. But we are all three of us are glued to windy. Pretty much all the time looking at the forecast looking at at, you know, the wave hides the wind at each of our locations. And, you know, looking a few days in advance of like, okay, well, what makes the most sense? And does it make sense to run away from the weather here to go somewhere else?

1:28:14 You know, to get a good weather window or is it going to turn there just as we arrive, you know, like all all those real time decisions and then we work we're we work closely with the captains to obviously, of course, of course, and Megan's leaving out really the important part of the planning, especially on board. She brings along a very large white board every time. Yeah. She calls it her dream board. And she writes down all of the possibilities every day of what we could do based on weather and everything that's gone on. And then about 36 times a day, she goes to the dream board and changes what's on it.

1:28:56 So our vision board, right? It's like when people plan like they do their vision board. This is your vision for for. Yeah. Yeah. I have it labeled on the top. Oh, and see dream board. I love it. I absolutely love it. Now, once you've done all the planning, now you're you're steaming up. Does O and C have their own ships or do you do you contract them out? Do you take that one? Yeah, Dirk, why don't you take that one? So we contract the ships. We and those could be, you know, job specific. So a lot of times there's a certain requirement for cranes or ship size or something like this. On our inshore expeditions, we could get away with some smaller vessels and offshore. Of course, we need the bigger vessels and that's a combination of a lot of times we use Coast Guard vessels.

1:29:43 There's some partnership there. And then also we've used Josh's their company camp back. We used to their ship before there's a few different options that we can use. So it's a combination. So I'll contract it though. We do own our own little like aluminum little smaller work boat. And we do smaller operations with that where we do small coastal observatories, but not offshore. Now with that, will that little boat come on to some of the bigger boats to do some little experts? I know some research vessels do that. No, it does not. Yeah, makes sense. It's very, very, very, yeah, for the little boat. Yeah. Now, how long does it take like for the offshore sites? Obviously, the inshore sites probably doesn't take as long, but for the offshore sites to say your furthest site that you would go, how long would that take to get there, Dirk?

1:30:32 It takes about when you leave the dock here at IS, it takes about 27 hours of steaming to get there. Okay. So yeah, it takes quite a while to get there. Yeah. To our furthest sites. So that's our diverse site. But when we're doing our planning, we try and maximize our daylight hours and our dive windows to get to a site so that we're, yeah. So it's difficult, like when we plan our cruise in advance, we have an itinerary for okay, we're planning on leaving at one RV, are you going to be ready at one o'clock so we can leave so you can be, you know, Barkley Canyon at eight in the morning for first dive. And then you start creeping past one pass. Okay, so no point rushing to Barkley Canyon. Let's go to Cascadia. No point rushing that let's go to Endeavor because you might want to minimize those days for diving.

1:31:20 Yeah, yeah. And like, there's a seems to be a lot of logistics in here. Have any of you gone through like logistics training because I don't know if that's necessarily taught in university when you go to university. Is this something you learn as you do more and more trips like you just kind of learn on the go? Josh, you could talk about this because I learned to hand it off to somebody else. Yeah, it just seems like you have to anticipate a lot you have to like an experience obviously matters right when you come into this. Absolutely. I mean, my, I always tell people, you know, my job specifically as the director of operations is really to just try and think of everything that we need, write it down and get get people to either do it or get it or have it shipped.

1:32:12 You know, just like any company, we have logistics personnel and things like that. So, so there is a ton always to think about, which is why we meet so often with clients and ocean networks, Canada. Yeah, but no trading. Absolutely. And you can tell that sometimes. For sure. Yeah, I can imagine. I think you always have to be patient in a way of like not everything goes right when you're at sea, right? A lot of things can go, you know, not necessarily wrong, but divert because of weather or something that you realize when you get there. I think that's, you know, I think that's that's that's what it really happens. And when you when you get that challenge, you kind of work through it right and as a team and you talk about maybe a time making that you've you've come to a site and things didn't necessarily go as planned right off right off the bat, like the weather kind of shift like what happens when that when like weather shifts as you get to a site, is it more of a kind of weight or do you just go to the next thing that you can do?

1:33:17 Yeah, it really depends on the conditions. So we've definitely, you know, looked at the weather window and we get on site and the weather looks okay. And we started dive say, yeah, and we get partway through the dive and the weather's deteriorating and with a lot of input from the ROV team and from the ship's captain, you know, we say, okay, we have to cut this dive short, like we have to recover right away, you know, because ultimately, you know, when the ROV is being recovered, you know, it's it's a huge robot coming up on a crane and people are having to navigate it on deck and secure everything on deck. And we, you know, we have to do it in a safe way. Right. So whatever the operation is, we're not going to we're not going to risk unsafe operations. So if if the weather's deteriorating, if the captain makes a call, then, you know, the operation is done for the day and we recover the ROV.

1:34:21 Yeah. And and then we look at the forecast. And, you know, maybe it's blowing through very quickly. And we sit and wait, which we do sometimes. Yeah, maybe it's going to be really bad in that location for the next three days. And then we look at our other locations on our a couple years ago, we a really big storm was coming through. And it was going to impact all of our sites. And we actually ran away from the storm and hunkered down for over a day off the coast of Oregon, because that was the only place that we wouldn't get pummeled. Right. So it happens. And so when we're doing our part, we're going to have to do a little bit of a planning, like we we oversubscribe ourselves. So we plan to to do more things than we could ever possibly get done. Because maybe the weather is going to be great the whole time. And we could get nearly all of it done. Typically, we were down for a little bit during the weather. Sometimes when the weather is too bad to dive for safety reasons with the ROV, depending on the vessel that we have, we can get it done.

1:35:33 And so we have sometimes we can spend some time mapping. So using using a multi beam mapping system. Yeah, exactly. And so just kind of mapping the gaps and collecting data just to be somewhat useful while we're waiting for the weather to settle down. Yeah. Now, Josh, when you deployed the ROV, I've never been part of that. I've never had the pleasure of being a part of that kind of excursion. Is the ROV tethered to to the boat at all times? Like there's a cable that goes down that that that allows you to talk to the ROV in a way in a sense? Yes, yes. I mean, it's kind of the definition of an ROV remotely operated vehicle. They're always to be designated as an ROV. You're tethered to a ship or to a vessel or a dock if you want. So there are autonomous underwater vehicles, AUVs that are not.

1:36:30 But they're used for a totally different purpose. And for for for Ocean Networks Canada, we need to obviously we need to be operating our manipulators and we need to see the live view of the camera. So we need the tether, which is almost 7000 meters long on a giant winch that's on board and contain our power conductors and fiber optics to get the data up to the surface and down to the ROV. So yes, always tethered, which, you know, is is always it's the hardest thing to to manage for ROV pilots. If you can manage your tether through all that water when you're really deep, then you can you can work usually just fine.

1:37:16 So that's it's a big part of ROV. The tether is flexible, though, right? It's just like it's cables. It's not like a metal. Is it a metal piece? Well, there's there's multiple types. So we have several ROVs and really the two main types are soft, heather and armored. So a soft tether would be wrapped in a rubber and be easily bendable. And the other thing is, you know, a lot of the work is better for certain applications, but Ocean Networks Canada requires through framelifts of our vehicle. So we use our vehicle to attach to scientific platforms subsea.

1:38:04 And then we have an armored umbilical, which is very, very strong. We can pick up the ROV off the sea floor while we're latched into things that are thousands of pounds. And then we can bring them all the way up to the ship. So that's why we have an armored umbilical on our deep ROV so that we can use it as basically a really deep crane almost to deploy and everything should see for. Cool. So that's why, you know, all the currents that happen within the water column, however different they are, as you go down deeper, that that matters when it comes to these tethers and how the ROV is is operated. Let's talk about when you get I wanted to kind of hit on this this ROV when you guys are operating the ROV, you're in a little room, I assume, or a container depending on the ROV on the ship. And who's in the container when you do this? Obviously, Josh, you're probably in this operating it. Dirk, are you in it as well?

1:38:59 Yeah, so normally for every ROV shift, there'd be a ONC dive lead. And that would be either myself. It's normally me or Megan or we have another person here and we kind of rotate shifts as well. And we'll just go through the dive plan and kind of pivot as as things aren't going to work as expected anyway. So yeah, there'd be a senior person there every time from one C. Okay, and then that's where like that person's like, okay, this is what we want to accomplish on the dive. Let's see if we can find what we need to find and where we're going. And then Josh, your, your focus is more of just operating the ROV, making sure it's in a safe spot. And then there are arms on these ROVs and you actually start to handle things.

1:39:39 Yeah, can you talk can you talk about that? Because I still I don't know if my brain just doesn't fathom how difficult it must be to be able to operate these arms in like at depth. When you you know, it's clarity a problem sometimes I can you talk a little bit about what happens when you get to the point of where you want to go, and you have to start doing your your maintenance or whatever the purpose of that dive is. Sure, absolutely. Just, first of all, as far as God leads from ocean risk Canada, I have some that I like and some that I don't put that on the record. I'm not going to say who world boss over there. But yeah, okay, so visibility is always tough. Certain sites that ocean risk Canada picks make me want to just I, I get so angry sometimes Andrew, it's a good thing.

1:40:33 Andrew, because when you when you can't see what's in front of you with the cameras that you're trying to do manipulations, it's obviously it's very difficult. But we've been doing that for many years. I joke around that it makes me it doesn't make me angry. It's just a more difficult situation. But the science needs to be conducted in these areas, specifically, because of certain effects that make their to turbidity. So, you know, so bad. So there's several instruments we can use. Multigree sonar's and acoustic cameras to to kind of see through it and employing modes and getting better and better at that over the years. And then as far as manipulations go, so we basically we have two, what we call seven functions spatially correspondent manipulators on the vehicle one on each side at the front.

1:41:24 You know, each side at the front and spatially correspondent means that we have a miniature version of the arm inside the control van, we call it. And for each arm and a person sits there and when they move that controller in the arm will move exactly as the controllers move. Oh, okay. And they move the controller around the arm will follow and it's almost instant and we need to have that ability. They're very advanced, you know, expensive pieces of machinery and engineering. We need them to do the delicate science to do the operations that is required by Ocean Networks Canada.

1:42:06 So it's, you know, it's a very, very fun part of the job, of course, but also, again, can be extremely stressful. If anybody watches, it takes about, I don't know, any floor from 10 to 100 times longer to do something with those arms than it would for you to do something with your own arm. Yeah. Online. So it's a, it can be tough. Well, and also you're in an environment that's very different. Obviously it's the deep sea in many of these cases. And there are there are critters as Megan likes to call them critters in the deep sea. Have you ever had, you know, can you talk about some of the experiences that you've had where a critter comes in is like just curious about what they see.

1:42:52 They're probably like, what is this? What is this critter? Like, what is going on here? Do you get any, any kind of animals that come in and just kind of play around with the arms or try and touch the arms because they're curious. So mostly the arms, what will and be curious about those always octopus. Yeah. And it's always the coolest best thing that we encounter. We will go to plug something in for us, networks, Canada, and there will be an octopus hiding kind of using a platform and this for platform as it's den. And sometimes they'll be basically right in the way. And we don't want to, you know, scare or hurt these animals. So we have to sort of use the manipulator and try and they usually at that point, then they'll reach out and they'll, they'll grab onto you.

1:43:34 And obviously it's not dangerous to the ROV in any way, but it's extremely interesting and really fun. I mean, I joke around with my friends that I'm out fighting off octopus all the time trying to get them out of our way. A lot of crabs too, Josh. A lot of crabs. I'm sort of like coming into the into the frame of the camera. Yeah, they want to very slowly. Yeah. Yeah. But they they they get their they see the arms. Yeah, they're brave. They're like, okay, let's go. Yeah. I don't know what I get myself into, but I'm ready. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can I can oppose this all three of you. What's been the most interesting thing that's happened while deploying an ROV down at those depths while doing work down there? What's been the most interesting thing that's happened to it could be individually or is it as a team when you're when you're down there?

1:44:29 I think I can start one of the. Oh, go ahead, Derek. Yeah. So one of the ones you don't expect as we have these instruments that are called fenthic and resist resistivity sensors bars is what they look like. You know, the tubes at once and you go to a hydrothermal vent like the black smoker spewing out the hydrothermal fluid and you put the wand inside inside there and it measures temperature and resistivity of the of the fluid. But then you come back a year or two later and the whole instrument is now part of the rock since the road is growing as it's being deposited. The rocks actually growing around it and then there's no way to get it out. It's now part of it. So there's been a situation where we can't actually remove it. It's been completely engulfed over the course of like a lot of times it's completely melted ruined. Yeah. Yeah. Not working.

1:45:20 Yeah. But it's not so much that's like there's also cool stuff that happens because the unique. Like situation of operating ROV subsea the ship is actually stationary for you know, hours sometimes 36 hours because the ROV is there and now you're offshore sitting in the middle plot basically without moving and when the weather gets really thick or what they called socked in all the lights from the ship is kind of contained within that bubble on the surface. Yeah. Over the course of the night since nothing's moving you get the bait fish you get all the bait you get there if you didn't come in and then becomes a feeding frenzy. So. You've got I don't know we've seen one night you could see millions uncountable amount of fish but then also sunfish and sharks and dolphins all just all nights warming around the vessel. It's pretty cool. I don't think you get that unless you're getting the ROV down below as well for that long. Right. Right. That's kind of a cool thing. That's amazing. That's pretty cool. Megan. Do you have a did you have a different story that's happened to you where that's really memorable. Well, I'll tell a couple.

1:46:21 So one of our sites is the endeavor hydrothermal vents that Dirk was talking about a little bit and I remember kind of like one of my first cruises going there and you know I didn't really know that much about them but you know the ROV goes down and it's kind of like you're on a different planet. So there's there's all these hydrothermal vents that look like spires and there's like what looks like black smoke coming out of them and and it's kind of shocking and and the fact that the ROV can like navigate around these vent structures because you might turn a corner and then because you don't have the same sort of spatial awareness that you do as a human with like peripheral vision and necessarily like you'll you'll turn the corner and then in the frame there'll be this huge hydrothermal vent tower like whoa. Yeah. It's pretty magical and and kind of shocking because you're you're you're floating on the ship above it and you're like whoa. It's like this this sci fi universe just straight down below where we're sitting right now. It's pretty epic. And then I'll tell one other thing. So yeah, I think that's a great thing.

1:47:41 Yeah, for sure. We were on an expedition this past June and we'd finished all of our dives and we had a like a couple of hours before we had to leave to be back to the dock in time and it was lunch time and everybody was kind of sitting outside eating lunch and these humpback whales just were playing in front of the ship for and we didn't we didn't have to leave yet and nobody was on shift anymore. So we just it was this this epic, you know, whale watching situation and we could just sit there for an hour and the whole crew was outside. I would imagine running from one side of the vessel to the other as as we were watching these humpbacks playing and slapping.

1:48:35 I want to say it got up to five. Wow. Do you remember that right, Dirk? Yeah, there's a few groups that travel through during the dive and at the end they were kind of the last stragglers are kind of just playing. We eventually think they were playing in the bow thruster as a ship holding station. They were just like getting that blow of the thruster, right? It was a it was a pretty magical way to to finish an expedition. Yeah, I mean, it's it's really great when you can you almost have your you know, your your environmental documentary right in front of you. Yeah, you know, where you just see the beautiful scenery, you know, the ocean in the background, the horizon and then you've got you've got whales just playing in front of your ship and you know, and you're then you're off and that's that's probably the best way to to kind of end your shift, I think.

1:49:23 Yeah, and there's definitely you know, you talk about some days where you're like, there's not enough money in the world that you can pay me to keep doing this, especially if you're if you're seasick and it's rough and it's just oh, and then on the flip side, there's days where you're like, I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this right now. This is absolutely incredible. Yeah, no, it's it's it's it's amazing. I want to just talk a little bit about the challenges that we have, like out at sea, you know, obviously, we've talked about nothing works perfectly. It's it's it can be very hectic. Josh, for the ROV, what are the biggest challenges? Obviously, visibility is one we've we've kind of touched upon in a bit of the currents. Is there anything else that becomes a challenge? Or is your you just got an easy job?

1:50:10 It's not easy. It's a yeah, I actually don't really do anything. It's just robot. It's very true. It's very true. Really easy. I could do that one. Yeah, Josh, Josh mostly just calls it in. Yeah, I don't actually come out of my my bunk. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, so it's, it's a the most dynamic environment to work in. It that we know of currently in the I would say in the universe. And the reason I say that is because yes, we can get to space. But when you're in space, you have a one atmosphere. It's a vacuum, but that's it. You know, it's it's it doesn't change where you go in space, say, but if you go in the deep ocean, every meter deeper that you put your RV into the ocean there, the water pressure increases because of the weight of weight of the water. Right.

1:51:04 And that's because of the weight of weight of the water above you, of course. So so the biggest challenge in or obese general is is especially when you're going really deep to 3000 meters is making sure that all your systems are are built properly and maintained properly so that water doesn't creep into anywhere you don't want it to. And so it's a very highly advanced piece of robotics that you're throwing into salt water under pressure that's changing all the time. So that's the you know, that's that's problem number one. Now that's more or less been solved over the years of our engineering. But then the dynamics of the job, the other dynamics is obviously the weather solution, the ship has problems in the weather holding station or can make launch and recovery dangerous if you if you do it in two high seas.

1:51:59 So that's another issue that we face commonly. And then visibility, like we mentioned, that can be one. Sometimes we have great visibility, especially at the deeper sites. So that's not an issue. Currents, though, ocean currents can be a very large issue. We have a cruise in March coming up where we'll be doing some work where the currents can be really, really just terrible to work in. For example, we've launched an ROV once and of course we know what the surface current is doing from from just looking over the side of the ship. So we put the ROV in and we we face the ship. So the ROV will get swept by the current away from the ship to a safe spot.

1:52:41 But once we dove 10 meters down, the current was going in complete opposite direction. And we could not tell that we didn't have an instrumentation to know. So the ROV went 10 meters down and we're diving and all of a sudden it starts getting pushed directly underneath the ship, which is very dangerous. Yeah. So, you know, that that can be one for sure. Yeah, definitely. Definitely a change. I mean, there's a lot of I'm sorry, go ahead, make gifts. Oh, I was gonna say, Josh, you can tell Andrew about your very highly sophisticated surface current check before launching. I'm so glad that you brought that up again. Well, you're also my I have a very advanced instrument. I go over to the side of the ship and I spit into the water and I watch sit and see how fast and what direction it goes. Very scientific.

1:53:31 And yeah, and it usually works pretty well. Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine now. I want to kind of bring up there's there's a story that I've heard about an ROV deciding to go on its own trip at one point. And you know, in a way, it's a bit of a one of your scientific studies, I guess, of finding out currents and where they go. Can you talk a little bit about Josh, where an ROV ended up off the coast of Oregon? Sure, absolutely. No problem. This is my story of what I like to say is the longest ROV dive ever because it was in the water for two weeks straight. We were installing an outfall pipe, which is a pipe that comes from a sewage tank.

1:54:16 Comes from a sewage treatment plant in Victoria and then disperses treated sewage in deep into the ocean properly. We were installing a new one a few years ago. And as pretty much every time we've had a major issue, there was multiple factors involved. But basically, our ROV became the tether became trapped due to a few different things. The weather came up and we became trapped subsea. So we had to cut the tether manually on the ship and leave the ROV stuck subsea overnight because we couldn't stay where we were with the ship.

1:54:59 But when we came back in the morning, the ROV was no longer stuck and they're designed to float when they are not being powered so that you can find them. And we came back in the morning. It was nowhere to be found. I spent about four days in a small airplane searching the ocean around that area. We didn't see it. Is that the term? Absolutely. And I guess we weren't really looking in the right spot because evidently it had floated all the way down to the coast of Oregon from Victoria. I don't know how many kilometers that is. And we actually had we literally had lost ROV flyers and posters out in Victoria.

1:55:46 Like if found, please return to or please call. And we put our notices to the coast guard and somebody eventually found it in the US waters. And we got it back. Then we got it working within four hours by being returned to us, to our facility. So that was pretty cool. I think before we recorded, I think Megan says by a good scientific drifting study, I think is what we. That's a very expensive way to understand current versus Josh's spit test. He's got the extremes covered. Yeah, it was pretty rough at the time, but I could have been stressful. Yeah, it's also not the first ROV that I've lost. Just the longest amount of time.

1:56:37 Gotcha. Gotcha. Dirk, one of the things I wanted to talk about too, just as we kind of wrap this up, is you're working in very deep waters. The pressure is almost like to the extreme. What type of materials do a lot of the instrumentation have to have to be able to survive in deep? We talked a little bit about if you put something in a hydrothermal vent, the deposits can grow on top of it. But if we're looking at just a platform and tubes that instruments go into or water that flows through if it has to flow through, what kind of materials are we looking at here that you're working with? So obviously the easiest material that's the least reactive is plastic. So if you can get away with plastic in whatever pressure, that's the ideal. But like Josh said, pressure, our deepest site is almost three kilometers and the pressure down there is 4,500 pounds per square inch.

1:57:32 So you can't get away with plastic if there's any kind of air void, right? Yeah. So mostly what we do use is titanium because we don't want to have to recover an instrument or anything like this because we're worried about the corrosion on the housing. So titanium is normally our go-to for absolutely everything. So we have used aluminum, it's much cheaper. It's easier to machine, but in general, titanium. We also use shallow water. We do use aluminum shallow water. We can get away with plastic. But it's not just pressure. We're also worried about corrosion. And that could be affected by not just salt water. Like in straight Georgia, we get crazy corrosion on like stainless steel or anything like this. And we don't like it's just some other chemical or interaction in the water. Right. Some of the more dormant. I don't know, dormant, but like, I guess less interesting sites like the abyssal plains, the things just seem to last. And at the hydrothermal events, there's some other weird reaction that interferes with the materials and village to protect itself. So but titanium generally is good for any of those environments.

1:58:38 Gotcha. Wonderful. And I know it's sometimes for a lot of us, it's difficult to picture what's what's under there. And you guys have done a really great job of putting together a story map website where people can click on to. We'll put the links in the show notes. Can we talk about, you know, why this is such an important aspect, Megan, to have these types of story maps up to kind of give people a perspective of what it's like, what the instrumentation looks like, what it's like to operate in ROV. I'm looking right now. ROV arm that's that's trying to grab a rope. You know, it's what how important is that for for O and C to get that information out there and for campact to do that to share first shout out to the O and C comms team who actually puts a lot of work into the story maps.

1:59:26 I don't know that us as engineers and technologists are the best storytellers all the time, but working closely with our comms team to put these stories together in compelling ways so that anyone can understand what we're talking about and and to really tell the story for any ages, you know, kindergarten to, you know, seniors with any kind of background. And it's really, you know, if you think about the planet Earth, we're actually mostly ocean and, you know, other than the surface of the ocean, most people don't get a chance to see what's underneath and to understand how important the ocean is to the health of the planet and to our industries, to our, you know, food supplies, you know, the list goes on.

2:00:20 And so kind of opening up that window so that there's better understanding of what goes on in the deep ocean, the interactions in the deep ocean, you know, just for overall awareness and and really sort of, you know, opening the door and, you know, sort of opening people's minds and kind of maybe inspiring a few kids to to join us on these on these offshore expeditions in future. So, yeah, so it's it's super important to get out there and to tell the stories and to and to make it accessible for as many people as possible. Absolutely. If I have a question, you guys are preparing to go out in offshore soon in the next month, I believe. Is this going to be a regular maintenance plan or is this going to be anything different?

2:01:07 We'll go with this one. Yeah, so this is we generally have to I guess long story short, yes, it's regular maintenance. We have normally two expeditions a year. And normally we focus the early season one on inshore, near shore activities and then the summer one offshore. And that's kind of a combination between the inshore trying to get ahead of the like the fresh set, which when we get all the more nutrients in the water and we get all the more nutrients in the water and we get all the blooms and visibility kind of goes away. So we try and get our our instruments freshly prepped for that to capture all that data. Gotcha. And then offshore, we want to maximize weather. So we try to go in the best weather months. So that's always going to summer.

2:01:49 Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Well, I have to say the three of you. Thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about the work that you do. Obviously, it's invaluable to the operations of ONC and it was super fun to have all three of you on. And it's great to see, you know, the way you guys banter back and forth. And obviously, you've known each other for a long time, spent a lot of time at sea together. And I think it's a lot of fun to be able to have that on the on the episode too. So I really appreciate all three of you coming on and for the work you do. And good luck with the next with the next trip. And I'd love to have you back on the show at some point. Awesome. Thanks, Andrew. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. Thank you, Megan, Josh and Dirk for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast and this segment, Surfacing Secrets Explore the Ocean and Know the Planet. This is such an important thing for me to partner with Ocean Networks Canada as well as their partners to just kind of give the behind the scenes of what goes on.

2:02:43 We hear a lot about the deep sea. We hear a lot about the work that goes on, but we don't get the intricacies of it. We don't understand how like who are the players, who are the scientists, the data engineers, the IT people. We don't get to hear from them. And they are amazing people, as you can tell the chemistry between all three other people that we had on today, Megan, Josh and Dirk were fun. You know, you can tell that they have a lot of fun out there on at sea and in the field because it's hard. It's not easy. It's long days, long nights at times. It's very intense to work out at sea. You're never going to have like a perfect day to work out at sea when you're looking at, you know, wave actions and weather and so forth. So it's really good to be able to everybody get along. And you can just see that right now, the camaraderie between the three guests that we had on today. It was amazing. It was fun. And you get to see how much fun they have at sea as well as here on the podcast. So it's great to see that you have any questions or comments. Feel free to go to the website.

2:03:35 The ocean networks, Canada's website, I'll put it in the show notes in the description below, depending on how you're consuming this podcast. But I'd love to hear your questions for the podcast. If you want to let me know in the comments on YouTube, or if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app, you can go to our website, speakupforblue.com forward slash contact. Let me know if you have any questions about ONC or if you have any comments about the episodes, if you enjoy them, if you don't like it, let me know. I want to hear your feedback. Let me hear it from you. And I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the true North strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time.