Wecoma daily report, 22 August 2001

Wecoma is holding up well in this storm, but maintaining 7 knots towing speed and avoiding high tensions on the SeaSoar tow cable has been challenging. Winds from the south have been up to 30 knots with gusts to 35-50. Seas arenow about 10 feet. At around 1700 the wind has dropped to < 20 knots and isturning to come more out of the west. Maybe the storm is passing. We can't tow directly south, so we are sampling on a "zigzag" pattern from line 1 (Cape Kiwanda) to line 6 (Cape Perpetua). This involves sampling E-W on the inshore ends of lines 1, 2, 4, "5.5" and 6 and connecting the lines with NE-SW lines which quarter the seas. So far so good. Some spectacular waves crashing over the bow of Wecoma as we climb up and over the seas. The science party and crew are all doing well.

We're seeing some nice changes nearshore in response to the southerly winds.Currents are to the north near the coast and the jet still exists but is farther offshore. Both temperature and chlorophyll exhibit downwelling nearshore, but as during previous surveys (e.g., May-June '01) the deep density structure which supports the jet is still in place.

We will start sampling offshore on line 6 at 2100 tonite. We will turn south at the 100-fm curve to avoid the black cod gear and go down to our line F ("6.5", 44 6.6'N) before turning east again. We'll be at the east end of line F at ~0900 and will re-evaluate the weather for doing a set of CTD/net stations along the CP line on Thursday. Sometime late Thursday we'll start our last Bigbox at 8E and work north.

Submitted at 1730 on 22 August 2001 by Jack Barth, Chief Scientist, R/V Wecoma