1/25/2016

The Indialantic buoy was last heard from on 1/10/2016.  While we do have a visual on it we have been unable to get out to it to attempt on site troubleshooting.  We are currently working on a code upgrade for the transmitter which should help us in determining communication issues in the future and once we can get to the buoy we will swap out transmitters to implement the code upgrade.  We appreciate your patience.

12/16/2015

We had a great weather window today and were able to return the Indialantic buoy back to service! 1 foot of viz but other than that everything went well.

12/2/2015

The Indialantic surf buoy was recovered today, we will repair it as soon as possible and return it to service as quickly as we can. Thank you for your patience.

11/25/2015

We lost contact with the Indialantic surf buoy mid-day on 11/24/2015.  The issue is related to the same problem that brought down the Cocoa Beach buoy.  We will recover the Indialantic buoy at the next available opportunity, repair it and return it to service as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.

10/7/2016

The Indialantic buoy survived! We went to pay our last respects as soon as we got back beachside from the evacuation and there it was just sitting out there looking pretty. But it did stop transmitting data due to Hurricane Matthew.  This buoy will be recovered and repaired as soon as possible.  Stay tuned for updates.

10/24/2016

Finally had good enough ocean conditions to get the kayak out to assess the damage to the Indialantic buoy and try to retrieve the transmitter.  Fortunately the only physical damage was to the antenna mast.  The antenna mast had broken off stopping the data transmission and caused the buoy to get flooded.  The transmitter is inside a waterproof housing so it is perfectly fine and the battery was fully charged so the solar panels were still functioning as well.  The last transmission from the buoy was at 10/6/2016 23:00 EDT at Hs = 12.5 ft and Tp = 9.1 s.  The processed data is also stored on the transmitter as a back up and we had hoped to get all the data from the storm off of it but unfortunately the flooding compromised the portion of the data cable inside the buoy.  There are a couple of wiring splices inside the buoy that are only splash proof and being submerged in sea water allowed water ingress and has caused intermittent connection.  We did get 3 more data points during the storm with the last reading at 10/7/2016 04:30 EDT with Hs = 18.7 ft and Tp = 10.7 s! We also had intermittent data up until today so we know the wavegage is also still working and collecting data.  We replaced the broken antenna mast with a dummy antenna mast to keep anything else from getting in and hopefully keep this buoy afloat until we can swap it out with a new buoy.  Once we recover it we will also recover the wavegage and get all the data from Hurricane Matthew. Stay tuned as we will publish all the storm data once recovered.

11/13/2016

The Indialantic Buoy has been built and is about to enter the full system test period.  Once testing is complete in about a week we will begin to look for a suitable weather window to return it to service.

11/19/2016

The Indialantic Buoy has been swapped out and data is now streaming to the website.  Great conditions and we managed to do this by kayak. Waves were about 1.5ft, water temperature about 72 and almost 10 ft of viz and this is November.

3/30/2017

We went out to do maintenance on the Indialantic buoy today but discovered an issue with the transmitter that has forced us to take this buoy down for additional maintenance.  The issue should be fixed in the next few days but we will need a good weather window to get back on the water to finish the maintenance.

4/2/2017

The communication issue that the Indialantic buoy was experiencing after maintenance has sorted itself out and appears to be working fine with full data return.  We will continue to monitor in case the issue reappears.

4/26/2017

Weather and waves are still hampering our efforts to restore this buoy to operational status.  We will get to it as soon as conditions become favorable to get out to it in a kayak.

5/10/2017

We got some good conditions and attempted an in-situ repair that did not work.  We replaced the data cable from the wavegauge to the buoy but this did not resolve the issue.  We tried resetting the transmitter but to no avail.  We are working on the next attempt which will be to replace just the surface buoy.  As with replacing the data cable in-situ we have never swapped just the surface buoy before so this is also an experiment.  Sorry for the down time and we expect to make the next attempt in late May.

6/11/2017

We finally sorted out the issue with the Indialantic buoy.  It turns out that during one previous attempt to fix we had a faulty data cable and then on the next attempt we swapped out the cable and wavegauge but unfortunately we did not realize the wavegauge was set up for full-duplex communication while the buoy is set up for half-duplex communication.  So they could not talk to each other.  But we made the corrections and now have data streaming once again!

9/10/2017

Hurricane Irma took out the Indialantic buoy around 10pm EST on 9/10.  Last reading was 16ft at 12s.  Pretty burly but we are still striving to build an inexpensive buoy that will survive through hurricanes, even this close to shore.

9/13/2017

Recovered the remains of the Indialantic buoy today.  The buoy washed ashore about 4 miles north of its deployed location.  This buoy will be returned to service as soon as we can get to it.

11/1/2017

Ocean conditions good enough to get out by kayak to recover the wavegage.  We had 4+ ft of visibility which is incredible for November. Set surface marker to make it easier for deployment of next buoy.

12/5/2017

Had good enough conditions to get out by kayak today and deploy the new Indialantic buoy.  Unfortunately the surface marker we set on 11/1 had broke loose so  we had to locate the station first but we managed to drop in right on top of it without having to do a zero visibility search for it! 

2/8/2018

We got out to the Indialantic buoy and did some in-situ maintenance to get this buoy working again.  We replaced the data cable between the wave gauge on the bottom and the buoy.  The old data cable got compromised but as yet we don't know why.

3/18/2018

Went out to the Indialantic buoy today and swapped out wavegages.  The pressure sensor offset began drifting high so we had to replace the wavegage.  Great conditions for work, flat, water temperature about 68F and 2-3ft of viz.

6/4/2018

Swapped out buoy and wavegage at Indialantic.  Wavegage pressure sensor was drifting causing artifically high water levels.  The new buoy design has a design flaw at the bulkhead connector where the data cable plug into.  This causes to much stress on the mating end of the data cable from rocking and rolling 24-7 leading to premature failure.  Viz was great at 10 plus feet and bottom temp at 75. 

12/2/2018

The pressure sensor has failed and all associated data both waves and water level are not valid.  The sensor has been slowly failing for about 2 weeks now but we are currently out of the country and will address this issue upon our return at the earliest opportunity.

12/17/2018

We got out to the Indialantic buoy today and swapped out the wavegage.  Miserable conditions, viz at 1-2ft and water temp top to bottom was 66F.  The data is now back online.

1/29/2019

We lost communication with the wavegage from this station.  The buoy is still functioning properly so it  appears to be a failed data cable between wavegage and buoy.

5/30/2019

Swapped out the whole system today.  Another episode of broken data cable. Viz was great at about 10ft and bottom temp was a refreshing 73F.  G075 in and G067 out.  TX007 out and TX004 in.

8/30/2020

After a very long down time we finally rolled out our latest wave measuring technology buoy at Indialantic.  This buoy uses an inertial measurement sensor to measure the waves at the surface rather than at the bottom like the pressure sensor based system.  This eliminates the wavegage at the bottom and more importantly the data cable that connects the wavegage to the buoy which has historically been the weak link in the system.  This buoy is on it's first beta trail and will remain in the water as long as the battery lasts and/or the data is still good.  This sensor was hacked into the existing buoy transmitter for the proof-of-concept beta trial and as a result greatly increased the power requirements for the transmitter.  The only way to keep this system running was to increase the charge current for the battery in hopes of it keeping up with the power needs.  Otherwise this would have required a new board design and we decided to get it in the water to learn what we don't know prior to designing a new circuit board for this system.  At the moment this system will only provide wave height, period and surface temperature but eventually it will provide mean wave direction.

5/26/2021

The Indialantic buoy broke loose on 5/24/2021 and washed ashore just north of Canova Beach.  This buoy was deployed on 8/30/2020 and has greatly exceeded our expectations on how long the beta test would last.  

6/19/2021

The Indialantic buoy was placed back in service.  We installed a new mooring line and fixed the surface temperature sensor.  The rubber bungee rope had failed on the old mooring line and a ship worm had burrowed into the hard plastic float ball that was keeping the mooring line taught sinking it to the bottom.  The buoy itself was cleaned and re-deployed.