Hey All!
So I (Nilsen) am officially in the Canary Islands where over the next month I will be at PLOCAN working on Silbo’s recovery, rebattery, redeployment and piloting. I will also be assisting our friend Alvaro who has been helping Rutgers since the RU 27 trans atlantic mission, working on the adcp data from plocan’s slocum glider and helping with the prep for another deployment.
Yesterday, I attended the Liquid Robotics/PLOCAN deployment of a wave glider off of the southern coast of the island.
The wave glider (pictured above) is pretty different than the slocums I am used to. This type of glider is tethered to a float that stays on the surface and is laden with solar panels and various sensors for surface waters and meteorology. Instead of using a pump as its drive of propulsion, the wave glider has a total of 12 fins that pivot with the motion of the sub surface waves thus driving it forward. It then drags the surface float along at the surface.
I have also begun to settle in at my desk in the cool room on the other side of the Atlantic which I have only seen in the back ground of numerous skype sessions with plocan.
As for silbo, he is now less than 35 km from where we will recover on the morning of Tuesday, May 22. 
At 8am Tuesday, Antonio(ULPGC), Lauren(TWR), Alvaro(PLOCAN) and myself will leave from Muelle deportivo as we make our way out to recover the brave little Silbo on this ship:
We will meet silbo about 45 km to the North West of Las Palmas (designated by the last way point).
The weather also doesnt seem to bad for recovery even though the winds and waves from the north gradually increase. However with the ship we have it should not be a problem. (Below we can see the correlation between the increases winds and wave activity)
Wave Forecast provided by Antonio
Wind Forecast from Antonio
Finally we have the all mighty ship traffic. Over the past few days we have been playing the old “Frogger game” of crossing the shipping highways to and from the island.
And so taking all of this into account, we have chosen the last way point of the mission and wish silbo luck on the final days of the mission. It is truly incredible what this little droid has been through over the past 11 months. From being deployed in the arctic waters of Iceland, to breaking the plane of the gulf stream, riding the azores front and canary current and finally, reaching the antarctic intermediate water. He has set forth quite a legacy to follow that of RU 27 and which will most definitely be upheld by his upcoming missions accompanied with the growing challenger fleet.
As always, Force Wind Sea & Honor
Nilsen & Antonio