15:45, 27th of October 2010.
I watched after the brave, retreating figure of Chikyu leaving Shingu Port under the cloudy sky. I know people would say whether Chikyu looked brave or else depends on the person or the person's mood who watched her leave. But you know, she looked just inevitably brave to my eyes. I think Namba-chan who was standing next to me also found her looking "brave", too. Why? Because the expedition to install Long Term Borehole Monitoring System has actually begun.

Looking back, I remember myself joining the late Dr. Fred Spies' team at the Ocean Seismic Network (OSN) site in Hawaii to install seismometer in the borehole, back in 1998. Since then, I have been participating in JAMSTEC's borehole observatory system engineering development. But, well, have I been responsible for their installing operations since then? Actually, no! It just kept remaining as one of the plans on our budget scheme. And what happened at the beginning of this year? All of a sudden, our captain told me, "Hey, you! You're going to do this, yes!? Of course, yes, right? I know you can do it! Well, only YOU can do it!" So, I just had to take it. Then I invited Namba-chan to join me, and thus we made a team and called it Long Term Borehole Monitoring System (LTBMS). In fact, this name is a temporary one, so if you have any suggestion, please do send it to us!
I'd introduce the team members later on this website. (If I ever get a chance to post my writing again!)

So, as a professional team, we quickly made realistic plan to explain to our top management. You can imagine how they wanted to make sure that our plan would be successful by saying (and threatening!) "Hmm･･･! You are going to do blah blah blah･･･ and you'd definitely succeed, right!? You are sure, right!? You will succeed, correct!?" and they even added "If you ever fail, you need to perform Harakiri, got it?" Well, Harakiri is an old threatening word now used only by some foreign people, but who knows how effective that kind of "putting pressure" on us. I'm not going to perform Harakiri, but I'd definitely be prepared for this mission with all my power.

Yes, the time has come! We got to get into that blue-black current Kuroshio and into its deeper part. Chikyu, go for it! Surely, she looked brave enough for the mission･･･

Nori KYO