The days are growing longer, boaters and sailors are dreaming about getting back on the water, and the CBIBS team is preparing to redeploy buoys that were pulled from the water for the winter. And with winter 2019-20 temperatures being relatively mild, plans are to get the Annapolis and Jamestown buoys back in the water a little earlier than in recent years.
The current plan is to redeploy the Annapolis buoy the week of March 9 and the Jamestown buoy the week of March 16. The Annapolis buoy will include a new version of the onboard computer that compiles the data that the sensors on the buoy acquire, and packages that data for transmission every six minutes. It will be the first buoy to include the new computer, and the team is actively testing the computer setup to ensure it works well with the sensors and data transmission process.
Later this spring--likely April or May--the team also intends to pull the First Landing and York Spit buoys. These are still “old” buoys that have been in the water for a number of years--meaning that the chain and anchor used to keep them in their locations is likely quite degraded. The current plan is to then deploy “new” buoys--like the rest of the CBIBS system--in those locations. There will likely be gaps of potentially a few weeks between when the old buoys are pulled and when the new buoys go in.