20:00, 27th of November 2010. Set sail for C0002 Drilling Site from Shimizu Port… However, before the departure there was a three-days struggling for several members of LTBMS Team, trying to reel up the sensor cable at Shimizu Port. The sensor cable is as important as the nerves and blood vessels are for a human body. It means that if the sensor cable gets broken, the whole system just collapses. I hope you now know how important the cable is. In our actual operation procedure, we run this precious cable along 3-1/2 inch tube within 9-5/8 inch casing, letting it out for 1,000 m. You can imagine how cautiously we need to do that! So, why did we have to struggle reeling up the sensor cable? It was the winch we rented that had some trouble. There were four winches, and two went wrong. Guess how sad we were. I did not really expect such a trouble right before the departure. Some people might ask us “Oh, but you rented them, right? Why don’t you just ask them to fetch good ones as replacements?” But we rented them from Singapore, and we had only four days left for our departure. The only choice we had was to fix them by any means. But the winches were old and there were no replacement parts. At some point, we felt as if were on a deserted island trying to survive although we were in town. Oh, but in the end, the LTBMS Team made it…!

We disassembled the motors and valves, cleaned, polished and assembled them up again, and repeated these many times patiently although we experienced occasional depression attacks. In the end, we made all the winches work correctly on time before the departure! Even the worst winch #9803 that was making some noise of a diesel engine recovered and began reeling up smoothly.

I would like to thank the great members of LTBMS Team who cleared the “Shimizu Port Mission”; SARU-chan, Kashiwase, Kimura-kun, Namba-chan, and Fujiken-san from the Logistics Team for their support and effort. By the way, Kimura-kun… you really look as if you were on a “survival trip” with your beard! If your beard keeps growing at this speed, I think your beard and hair will all cover up your face and head at the end of the LTBMS installation. Anyways, your beard issue will be a funny update during the expedition.

When Chikyu departed Shingu Port, Mt. Fuji was covered in snow only on the top northern side. Now, as we are leaving Shimizu Port, it is totally covered in snow and looking majestic. I felt Mt. Fuji pushing my back telling, “Now, go. And good luck!” Yes, we are now heading to C0002 Drilling Site once again.

Nori KYO