This is the cable spool where the massive amounts of undersea cable necessary make the Sydney-Hawaii connection are stored. It's seven metres deep and around 15 metres in diameter. All the cable is laid in the spool by hand.
The cable is run live from the ship — data is continuously being sent down the cable — even as it drops to the ocean floor. This gives an indication of the performance of the cable and allows it to be continuously monitored.
The 'hydraulic machine' depicted in picture 10 is a trenching machine.
Down the bottom near the person's head is where the leading edge of the trencher is.
The skids are just to the left of that.
It gets dropped off the back of the ship and cable is fed into the trench as it is made.
They use this when close to shore because of the possibility of trawlers damaging the cable.
It will feed cable out at roughly 500m/hour as compared to 10km/h when out at sea.
I have a small writeup of my visit to this ship as well at http://onut.net/computers/misc/cable-laying-ile-de-Sein.html
In that photo of the shielded and unshielded cables side by side, the shielding on the left cable is actually made of Kevlar!
If you want to read more about how these cables are laid, and the people who lay them, read this excellent article by post-cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html
It's over 10 years old but still great (if very long). I'd recommend printing it out, print version is here:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html
At last we know what the ship that has been moored off Mona Vale is doing! Great photos-esp the one where "we don't know what it's for"!
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"A giant hydraulic machine sits on the back of the Ile de Sein. We don't know what it's for, but it's impressive."
That's all kinds of funny!!