The Calm After the Storm…

The Delaware II has made remarkable progress in the Gulf of Maine since our last update.  Given some all-too-brief windows of opportunity we have traveled from the Northeast Channel up to the Bay of Fundy, then west and back south again into the central Gulf of Maine, making stops at Georges and Jordan Basins along the way.  The Bay of Fundy greeted us with a wallop, as a fast moving storm hit the vessel with 30-40 knot winds and huge waves that were gone twelve hours later, replaced by a gorgeous sunset.

Delaware II plows through storm waves in the Bay of Fundy. (Photo by Richard Logan, NOAA)

Sunset after the storm. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

After a dismal forecast predicted strong winds for Saturday, we headed inshore to the western Gulf of Maine to continue working in an area sheltered from gale force winds.  Sunday, the day before the end of this cruise, turned out to have light winds, and given this opportunity we snagged samples from a couple of stations on Georges Bank before turning west for home.

Our plankton tows from the deep Gulf of Maine stations have consisted largely of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus, a deep red from the oil stored in their bodies, along with a few euphausiids by day and greater numbers of them at night.  We’ve seen very few fish larvae in these tows.  Fortunately we’ve been able to undertake plankton sampling at all our stations since our gear is so rugged.  Our colleagues from NASA and ODU have resorted to getting water from the flow through seawater system when it was too rough to deploy the rosette sampler.   Even our bird and marine mammal observer, Mike Sylvia, continued his observations from the bridge when it was too dangerous to be outside.  Sunday however has given us enough relief from the weather to deploy the rosette sampler and for our bird observer to return to his usual observation post, outside on the flying bridge.

Night bongo operations. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

Mike Sylvia observing birds from a safe vantage point on the Delaware II bridge during rough weather. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

Since the Delaware II is docking in Woods Hole early on Monday morning, this will be the last update from this leg of the November EcoMon cruise.  We’ll resume communicating about our work, along with photographs, on the next leg,  which is going out the week after Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Jerry Prezioso
Chief Scientist

Science, Art and Styrofoam Cups

Most New Englanders know the saying: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change!”   At sea it sometimes takes longer than five minutes, but the weather does change eventually.  Our break from the bad weather that has plagued us from the beginning of this cruise came on Monday, November 15.  We started deploying our rosette sampler that day and have been carrying on full sampling operations as the calm, and even mild, weather has continued.  Of course Murphy’s Law always steps in when things are going smoothly.  We’ve had to re-splice and re-terminate our conductive towing cable when we lost the real-time signal to our CTD (Conductivity-Temperature-Depth) unit yesterday.  Our electronics technician, Ed Morse, got the job done quickly and we were back to sampling with only a couple of hours lost.

Ed Morse working on the retermination of our conductor cable with help from technician Tamara Holzwarth-Davis of the Oceanography Branch. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

The good weather allowed us to make great progress once the seas calmed down after we left our Fire Island anchorage.  We’ve sampled the southern half and the northeast peak of Georges Bank and have crossed over into Canadian waters and the eastern Gulf of Maine.  We’re sampling in deeper water now, and stations are taking a little longer to get done, but being able to steam at full speed between stations means that we are still covering a lot of area fairly quickly.

Our boatswain, Adrian Martyn-Fisher, even tacked an additional experiment on to one of our rosette casts by placing a mesh bag full of Styrofoam coffee cups onto the bottom of the rosette.  These cups, decorated by students from the Lisbon Community School in Lisbon, Maine, come up from our deep-water cast substantially reduced in size, graphically demonstrating to the students the pressures that exist at depth in the ocean.

Decorated styrofoam cups from the Lisbon Community School in Lisbon, Maine. (Photo by Adrian Martyn-Fisher, NOAA)

The decorated cups were placed in a mesh bag attached to the rosette sampler for a deep cast. (Photo by Adrian Martyn-Fisher, NOAA)

As all good things come to an end eventually, so will our stretch of good weather.  The latest forecast shows a low-pressure front coming our way tonight.  It should be on us by Wednesday night and into Thursday.  Hopefully it will be fast moving and won’t force us to stop working altogether.

The Seawater Flow-through Monitoring System. (Photo by Adrian Martyn-Fisher, NOAA)

Our sampling operations may be curtailed somewhat, but we have our sturdy bongo samplers to put over the side, and the flow-through sampling system which is constantly monitoring the surface water we sail through, to enable us to continue gathering some data and samples. Hopefulness and optimism remain our mantra for this cruise!

Jerry Prezioso
Chief Scientist

Winter cruises, and a healthy dose of optimism

Our window of opportunity for operations started closing late on Tuesday, November 9, as winds and seas started picking up. By Wednesday morning we were again relegated to doing only bongo tows and surface water sampling with our flow-through seawater system. By midday on Wednesday even putting bongo nets over the side was becoming difficult as the seas and winds continued rising. Accordingly our Commanding Officer,  Steve Wagner,  headed for the shores of Fire Island, N.Y., where the Delaware II anchored from late Wednesday afternoon until Friday morning while we waited for the worst of the storm to retreat to the east.

We used our time on Veterans Day for small chores that are a big deal in rough seas, such as refilling 20 liter carboys, changing ethanol on our plankton samples, and even trying to get a good night’s sleep. The sleeping was more of a challenge than I expected as we were rocked by large swells rolling in from the offshore storm activity, something everyone was glad we were missing!

Friday morning was bright, clear and brisk as the Delaware II made preparations to weigh anchor and return to sea. Operations Officer Fionna Matheson lowered our at-anchor day-shape, the deck crew hoisted the anchor, and the ship’s officers guided the vessel back onto our cruise track.

Operations Officer Fionna Matheson lowered the day-shape that indicated we were anchored. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

Crewman Richard Logan stowing the anchor chain in the ship's chain locker. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

Boatswain Adrian Martyn-Fisher maintains a lookout as we leave anchorage and head back to sea. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

Scientist Robin Jolley hosing down a plankton net to obtain a sample. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

Scientist Harvey Walsh processing data from one of the bongo tows. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

As I am writing this at 1800 Eastern Standard Time we have already completed five stations and are working our way to the east behind the retreating storm into very large and very slowly diminishing seas. We are hoping they’ll diminish enough by tomorrow to allow deployment of our Niskin bottle rosette.  A healthy dose of optimism is always needed for these winter cruises!

Jerry Prezioso
Chief Scientist

Appreciating the Small Things

The Delaware II set sail from Woods Hole on Friday morning, November 5, to embark on the fifth in a series of collaborative cruises with NASA and Old Dominion University, as part of the Climate Variability on the East Coast (CliVEC) program.  Partnering with them allows us to “ground truth” the data obtained from the SeaWiFS and MODIA-Aqua  satellites by making ship-based water column measurements throughout the survey, especially when we can time our gear deployments with satellite overpasses on clear days.

We weren’t blessed with many clear days at the start of this trip.  Sailing was delayed by a day to avoid the brunt of a large coastal storm that pummeled Cape Cod on Thursday, but even the diminishing seas on Friday gave us a rough ride to our first stations inshore along the coast from Southern New England down to New Jersey.  We took advantage of the first break in the weather to head offshore and continue south, saving our inshore stations for possibly worse weather on the way back.

Delaware II crew member Jim Pontz brings in a CTD 911 and rosette sampler. The CTD measures conductivity, temperature, and depth, while the Niskin bottles (top) arranged in a rosette pattern collect water samples from various depths. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

Large seas hampered deployment of our CTD 911 and rosette water sampler, limiting us to using a smaller and more durable Seacat CTD, our rugged aluminum bongo frame plankton nets, and the flow-through seawater system to get water samples.  Ironically the winds and seas that have stymied our rosette deployments have mixed the water to a point where our water samples from the surface are often good representatives of the entire water column where the depths are not too great.

Many of our plankton catches have been graced with glass-clear ribbed jellyfish.  Harvey Walsh, our fishery biologist, has also spotted juvenile menhaden and hake, and some flatfish larvae in several of the samples as we proceeded south along our cruise track.

A ribbed jellyfish in a plankton sieve just before preservation. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

Two juvenile hake on a fingertip. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

By Monday we had reached the southernmost point of this cruise. We turned inshore and then headed northward off the coast of North Carolina.  It was at this point in the trip that we started to obtain a real break in the weather and could enjoy the comforts of life that we take for granted ashore, like a good night’s sleep!

NASA scientists Mike Novak (left) and Veronica Lance filter water collected from different depths. (Photo by Jerry Prezioso, NOAA)

We have even been able to start using our rosette water sampler on a regular basis, so the NASA and ODU scientists are now very busy filtering many water samples with all the equipment that they’ve filled the wet lab of the Delaware II with.  Hopefully this nice weather will last, but for an 18-day trip in November we’ve learned not to expect too much of it!

 

Jerry Prezioso
Chief Scientist