| It's 0130 and we are well
underway. We slipped out of Moss Landing Harbor departing the dock
at 0030 hours right on schedule. We cleared the sand bar at the
mouth of the breakwater by about 1 meter and are steaming towards
our first station where we will do a CTD cast (lowering a rosette of
water samplers and instruments into the water column to measure
several different parameters of the water). This station will be at
our mooring site M1 and we
will then move to M2 where
we will start the morning with a bluewater SCUBA dive followed by a
remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dive and then another CTD cast.
Later on today we will have our fire and boat drill. The weather is
beautifully calm. There is hardly any swell, the moon is at about ¾
full and I'm heading for bed.
—George
Matsumoto
| It's 1400 and we are
wrapping up the ROV dive with our last set of transects. We
are running 15 minute transects every 100 meters from 100
meters to 1000 meters and sampling the water column with a net
mounted in front of the vehicle (I'll try and send a photo
tomorrow) that ends in one of a series of 12 sampling
containers under the vehicle. This means that we can get a
discrete sample from each depth. We are using SCUBA divers to
sample the very shallow waters with 10 minute transects at 20
meters, 15 meters, and 5 meters. Kevin,
Rob, Steve, and I all
went diving today saw some of the largest specimens of Leucothea
pulchra that I've ever seen. We also collected some other
animals (salps, jellies, and snails), but the visibility was
only about 10 meters.
We are crossing back and forth over an oceanic front where
the water temperature and salinity are fluctuating by as much
as 3 degrees Celsius and 3 parts per thousand salinity. Once
we recover the ROV (in about an hour) we will start moving
toward our next station and get ready for our fire and boat
drill at 1600 hours. Francisco,
Tim, Atma, Ginger, and
Steve
are getting some well deserved sleep after being up for most
of the night (between 0200 and 0800) sampling the water
column. They will start again tonight and keep going
throughout the night into the early morning hours. Hope that
you are enjoying the updates and come back for more tomorrow.
—George
Matsumoto
Here is
the plankton net that collects samples during our midwater transects. The net
empties into one of 12 collection samplers.
 Kevin Raskoff
(standing) and George Matsumoto (sitting) are suited up and
ready to go diving, but take a few minutes to send an update
to you using a satellite uplink.
 George Matsumoto
standing beside a CTD rosette to give you an idea of the size
of this instrument which is lowered down to 1000 meters to
take water samples and measure salinity, temperature, and
density of the water.
 Captain
Ian
Young (in the background) and Second Mate Brian Ackerman on
the bridge of the Western Flyer during ROV operations.
 Here is a
view of the moonpool (in the middle of the ship) during ROV
operations. The ROV Tiburon is launched and recovered through
this opening.
|
Here is a six day composite image
(this is a thumbnail, so just click on the image to the right to see a
larger view) of the cholorophyll levels in the Equatorial Pacific. 
The key for the colors can be found here
You can get more information about SeaWiFS
if you are curious about how this image was generated.
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Wow, I know it's not
really March 13th as I type this. It is Monday afternoon and the
excitement and stress levels are rising. The Western Flyer is taking on
fuel and is really loaded down. The harbor is relatively shallow due to
the sediments that wash into the harbor from land and we have to move the
Flyer to the outer dock in order to completely fuel her bunkers (see
image). Everybody
is moving fast trying to complete their cruise preparations - we leave on
the high tide a few minutes after midnight. I'll be sending updates daily
(hopefully) that will get posted so that you can keep up with what we are
doing. 