Wecoma report, 6 June

As windy and rainy as yesterday was, today was picture perfect. Sunny skies and little wind as we did CTD+nutrients+iron profiling, MOCNESS zooplankton sampling and TAPS bio-acoustics profiles along the CH line from CH-7 to CH-1. At the deep station (CH-7) a large number of euphausiids were caught at a depth of around 280m. Stations closer to shore had copepods in the nets and a large amount of jellies were present at the inner stations. The TAPS profiler was deployed in both "cast" and "sounder" modes. At CH-1 we enjoyed a "green flash" and a ruby red sunset.

We deployed two guard buoys around the north shelfbreak mooring. Locations were 45 0.20'N, 124 12.66'W (130m) and 44 59.62'N, 124 12.64'W (128m). We confirmed the presence of the midshelf mooring and the met mooring. The inner shelf mooring spar buoy was present, but it appears that the flasher on that mooring is not working. It was dusk when we passed by. The solar panels appear to be damaged. The lack of the flasher is consistent with my inability to see it at night on other occupations of the inshore end of the CH line.

After completing station work, we deployed the SeaSoar, HTI and iron sampler and are completing one last butterfly pattern anchored on the CH line to complete our fine-scale study in this region. We will begin a bigbox survey at 1E at around 0700 Thursday 6/7.

Written 11:30pm, 6/6/01

Jack Barth