September 2, 2014, 22:40 Mountain Standar Time
Another beautiful day in the southern search area. With Environment Canada’s weather reports looking good, we took full advantage again to send out all of our assets and expand our surveys. The Canadian Hydrographic Service, Parks Canada and Nunavut’s terrestrial archeology team all made further progress today.

On our nightly check-in with our partner vessels, I was very excited to hear that the Defence Research and Development Canada team aboard the One Ocean Voyager ran very successful sea trials of the Arctic Explorer this morning. The Arctic Explorer is an autonomous underwater vehicle equipped with a state-of-the-art sonar system. More than just a search tool, it is a highlight in Canadian innovation and engineering. Prior to my arrival on Laurier, I worked on a number of our Coast Guard research ships, but never had the chance to work with the AUVs. I’m intrigued about how this new technology works compared to conventional scanning methods.

As for our colleagues, the Voyager was gradually inching northward today through areas of rotting ice in their efforts to get into the prime search area and were very optimistic about the improving conditions, while the Martin Bergmann remained closer to us in the south where it continued to make very impressive gains with its side-scan sonar operations.

As for us, with conditions just right and all systems operational, even routine operations are making for very full days. With another 11 days left to go for our group, the hunt continues.