Wecoma report, 25-26 May

We completed the Bigbox 1 survey grid around 1am Sat morning. Winds were out of the north at around 20-25 kts the entire survey. We encountered the coldest water (< 9.5C) inshore on lines 6-8 (see bb1mapsst.jpg on COAST realtime web site). The surface front generally follows the isobaths until crossing them on the south end of the Bank. Chlorophyll fluorescence (in volts until we calibrate post-cruise with filtered surface chl samples) inshore on line 2 (CH line) maxed out around 0.6V (see bb1mapchl.jpg). On line 6 (CP line) on the Bank, values were 3x bigger reaching around 2V. On line 8 the chl has two maxima: one inshore, presumably from local upwelling and one brought off the Bank by the jet (see bb1line8.chl.jpg). The equatorward upwelling jet was near the coast north of Newport, but followed the isobaths to the SW over the Bank. On line 8, the jet was located over the 150m isobath at 124.55W (see bb1line8.uv.jpg). We intend to investigate the offbank flow during our fine-resolution studies on the CP line in conjuction with Thompson.

Mid-morning on Saturday we launched SeaSoar, HTI and the iron sampler on a line 10km to the south of the CH line. We will do a small grid on this line, the CH line and a line 10km to the north of the CH line. The survey extends from CH7 to the 45m isobath and will take about 8 hours. We should pass the Thompson doing pumped profiling and microstructure profiling on the CH line. After completing the SeaSoar grid, we will conduct CTD (w/ iron samples), zooplankton vertical net tows and some TAPS (bio-acoustics pkg) profiles from CH-1 to CH-7.

Winds are down to 15 knots out of the north and the ride is noticeably better! We will confer with the Thompson scientists at 7pm today to plan tomorrow's (Sun) activities. Likely choice is both vessels going to the southern line for joint sampling on Sunday and Monday. Since the dye release is scheduled for Tuesday mid-day, we may aim to begin our second Bigbox survey working from N to S starting on Tuesday.

---jack