John and Alex enjoy some ice cream at BUEI
August 11, 2008
This is our last broadcast day from Bermuda, and tonight – at 10 pm our time – we did our broadcast with Moody Gardens Aquarium in Galveston, TX. We had a leisurely day of running errands, filling tanks, and relaxing a bit. The IntX crew spent some time at the beach while Terrence fixed the lights on his scooter. We met in the afternoon for a pre-broadcast meeting and to discuss the plan for the evening. After the meeting, Alex, John, Terrence, and Amy headed to BUEI in Hamilton to test out the A/V equipment prior to our meeting there tomorrow night.
Alex and John troubleshoot before the Galveston broadcast
We headed for Fantasy Cave around 6:00 pm to begin setup and run all of the necessary tests. It was a very LONG evening because we had trouble receiving a signal for the satellite. There was thick cloud cover, and the staff at Fantasy even brought a set of outdoor lighting to assist with the assembly of all of the equipment topside. We were just debating about what time to call it off when we received a signal, and we scrambled to get the last minute things in order! Again, within 15 minutes of that signal connection, we were ready to go – yea team!! Thanks for your patience, Galveston!!
The broadcast went sooo well and sooo smooth! A big congratulations and thank you are in order to Jennifer Lamm (Moody Gardens) and Sam Waltman (Cambrian Foundation/TX) for selecting an excellent location – their IMAX theatre – for their audience participants! The picture was so clear and the sound was amazing! Terrence said that even though he was 70′ underwater, 300′ back in a cave, and 122′ underground, AND IN BERMUDA, that Galveston sounded like they were right up on the surface where our broadcast team was – AWESOME!!! About 60 people attended in Galveston, and we had a number of folks joining us online – including Carl and Jenny – who had been here for the prior broadcasts! It was nice to have so many methods of communicating during the broadcast! Thank you, too, to the staff at Fantasy/Crystal Caves for providing security and lighting topside while we were down in the cave! We returned to the surface in a downpour, and we learned that it had been raining like that the entire time we were broadcasting – so we were very glad that satellite had locked on to our dish prior to the bad weather! Whew!
John enjoys a rest and a green tea while waiting for the satellite signal
We packed up the essentials at the end of the broadcast and headed for home…time to get some zzzzzs before packing/shipping tomorrow! IntX has 900 pounds of gear to get ready for shipment back to the US.
Team:
Jenny Gautier
Amy Giannotti
Jon Jones
Alex Katsaros
John Nelson
Gil Nolan
Phil Peters
John Rife
Carl Saieva
Rehan Syed
Terrence Tysall
John Smith Park
Lighthouse
Tarzan - Gil and Pam's cat
Bermuda