For lakes accessible by road, we use a 15' aluminum Triton boat, a 15' Futura Mark III zodiac and a BIC Sports Yak boat..
... but for lakes that are inaccessible by road, we use a hydro-plane!
The Hydro-Québec pontoon boat is very stable - great for large lakes that can have big waves.
Here is our autonomous buoy, C-BASS (Carbon Biochemistry Autonomous Sampling System)!
The buoy is equipped to measure dissolved carbon dioxide by diffusion (using a GMP343 probe from Vaisala). There is a chain of probes (from PME) to collect data on PAR, dissolved oxygen at 3 depths, temperature at each meter of depth and total depth. The buoy can also measure CDOM and chlorophyll (with a Wetlabs fluorometer) as well as 5 meteorological conditons: wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, relative humidity and precipitation (with a WXT520 from Vaisala). All these data are integrated and saved by a processor and data-logger. The C-BASS, installed on Lac Croche in the Laurentians, took measurements every 10 minutes during the ice-free period in 2011, 2013-2019 and 2021.
A second buoy, constructed in collaboration with the GRIL, was installed on Lac Simoncouche in the Saguenay. It measured the same variables as the C-BASS every 10 minutes during the ice-free period in 2013-2014 and 2016-2019.
portable probes:
EGM -to measure dissolved carbon dioxide
YSI -probes for profiles of dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, conductivity
FlowTracker -probes for stream water velocity
TruTrack -probes for stream water level
ZebraTech -probes for dissolved oxygen and temperature