I perhaps spoke too soon and in doing so invited Murphy’s wrath.
We completed deployment of the respirometer and accomplished 3/4 of the video transects we planned. During our bottom time we saw high densities of flat fish, asteroids, and the jellyfish Benthocodon. We also spotted a rather large pom-pom anemone. The squid Histoteuthis was also seen and at one point inked the respirometer.
But then there was problem, the ROV went dead in the water, no power and no video feed to the surface. We lost contact with the ROV. Houston we have problem! At this time we are retrieving the dead ROV on the wire and will crane it back aboard the ship. The current loss of connection is speculated to potentially be a break in the fiber optics in the tether.
