Global Marine Systems has installed replacement cables for NEPTUNE deep sea research observatory off the west coast of Canada.

The NEPTUNE subsea observatory is operated by the University of Victoria, Ocean Networks Canada.

Global Marine was selected to undertake this additional maintenance contract following its recovery of failed fibre optic cables last year.

“Four cables were installed in total with a pre-jointed mudmat on each end,” explains Paul Stalley, assistant maintenance agreement manager at Global Marine. “This took place in extreme seabed conditions and demanded a high level of accuracy with regard to mudmat positioning.”

The installation was carried out by Global Marine’s cable laying vessel, Wave Venture, in combination with touchdown monitoring provided by the Nautilus ROV, Hercules.

“On behalf of Ocean Networks Canada we would like to extend a large thank you to the Wave Venture crew for their efforts and professionalism, as well as the Global Marine support team and entire NAZ membership for approving this outside work by ONC,” says Ian Kulin, associate director, operations at Ocean Networks Canada. “Working with the Wave Venture and the Nautilus, all planned work was completed successfully. We will prepare a full report in due course but the work done these last weeks were the two top goals of ONC, so we are ecstatic to have these resolved.”