Cups for the kids!!!!!!!!!!!!

          So a fun activity often associated with Research cruises that use CTD's or other equipment capable reaching the deeper depths of the oceans is the shrinking of Styrofoam cups. ( A CTD is a combination of sensors attached to a winch and profiles the water column as it descends as well as collects water using niskin bottles at three specified depths. The CTD allows us to record the temperature, salinity, and a sensor which determines chl_a concentrations in the water, so we can determine the chl max and capture a sample of water at that depth. )  Nooooo, this is not magic but simple science, as the pressure increases with depth that pressure forces the air out of the spaces between the Styrofoam causing the cups to be crushed to about 1/8th of their original size.
            The routine sampling during SEAMAP cruises only requires sampling of the CTD down to depths of about 200 m which is not deep enough to shrink the cups to the full 1/8th of their size.  However this year we have added a few deep water CTD sampling stations in order to provide some scientists at RSMAS at the University of Miami a profile of the water column at certain points in the Caribbean. Given these sampling requirements Dr. John Lamkin the Chief Scientist for the cruise, has participated in a bit of science outreach with the Mrs. Leslie Lamkin's class at The Corporate Academy South Senior High School. Corporate Academy South is a school of choice for at risk low income students, with about 90 students and 7 teachers, located in Homestead, Florida. The The children of the class were provided with Styrofoam cups which they decorated and Dr. Lamkin then traveled with, to send down 2,000 meters on the CTD.... I gotta say I was pretty impressed with some of the artwork.

Full sized Styrofoam cups ready to be shrunk at depth

Cups before and after

          These cups are a fun and exciting way to hopefully link  to the exciting work we do out here in the gulf, hopefully helping to engage these high school students into a side of Marine research which they had not seen before. Also it got a lot of people on the ship interested in shrinking Styrofoam cups so after our port time in Grand Cayman a package of the 10 oz Styrofoam cups was picked up at the local grocery store Kirk's, and we found that a 500 meter CTD cast works just as well for shrinking the cups.
          Well it seemed like the cups we're such fun among the scientists and we hope among Mrs. Lamkin's class at Corporate Academy South, that if the opportunity for deeper CTD casts present themselves on future cruises, I'm sure we will repeat the exercise.
Keep posted
Sennai

We may have found Bluefin..... finally!

       Well we have made a lot of progress up the Caribbean coastline of Central America, following some of the more interesting physical features northward along the coast and eastward off the shelf. As we found Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Larvae during last year's cruises along the Mexican coast, this year's cruise involved an extend period during the first two legs for exploratory sampling in the Caribbean. The purpose of Legs 1 and 2 were used to sample as much of the Caribbean indicated as positive and negative habitat by the larval ABT (Atlantic Bluefin Tuna) created by the NOAA SEFSC Early Life History Lab.

       The sampling routine is maximized to cover as much area as possible using Neuston nets to sample the surface, and fish another Neuston net with slightly larger mesh up and down between the surface and 10 meters, and in areas that show the promise of ABT larvae using a MOCNESS to get depth stratified samples to give us an idea of where in the water column we are finding ABT. To give you an idea above is an image of a larval scombrid, taken through the microscope. This is not a Bluefin larva but it is similar to what we are looking for.
        Although chances are that there may have been ABT larvae present in our samples during leg 1, the scientists from ECOSUR and the ELH at SEFSC, had not found any scombrid larvae that could positively be identified as ABT. It may be that some of the scombrid larvae found during the first leg were simply to small and the samples too large for positive identification to be made at Sea. However as we moved farther north and crossed into Mexican waters we have tentatively found positive stations for ABT again. Though not unexpected this provides positive reinforcement of last years results and the possibility of depth stratified sampling, with the MOCNESS, in the areas where we find the larvae. But getting a sample with a small larval ABT in it is something of a reason for celebration, only for a couple minutes though then we get back to work as the clock is ticking towards the end of leg 2!!!!!!!
     Next stop Key West, Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!

     For any confused about the sampling terminology used in this post see, the early post about the MOCNESS, and last years post about sampling gear.
Sennai
      

Oh the places you'll go.....'er, well.... pass by anyway!

          Well since the only time we'll step foot on land after leaving Pascagoula are Georgetown, Grand Cayman which we just left and Key West, Florida, which we will be heading to shortly after we finish sampling along the Caribbean Coast of Mexico the boat usually doesn't get that close to the coast for much of the cruise. This year however we have been lucky/unlucky enough (depending upon how you look at it) to see the coastlines of a lot of Caribbean Islands and Central American Countries. Some inhabited some not, and thanks to the operations officer on board, we have learned a lot, he'll post a little about each island on the plan of the day after we pass them, and our Field Party Chief, Denice, has been able to document the occasions with the pictures posted for you below.

    Anyway thought you guys might be interested in seeing some of the coastlines, seen here in pictures from the back deck, which have delighted some and tortured others so far on the cruise. Enjoy!!!

 Sennai

Haiti

Haiti

Navassa

Waterspout off Navassa

Georgetown , Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

Isla Guanaja, Honduras

Belize

Mexico at night

The End......... of Leg 1!

Well Leg 1 of this year's cruise came to an end on April,10 as we pulled into port in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. I could think of much worse places to spend what initially was to be 3 days. It has been a very interesting cruise so far, as we have gone from Pascagoula Mississippi, to as far east as the western tip of Haiti. As I mentioned in my last post we had just begun sampling off Jamaica.

From what we saw in satellite imagery of SST and CHL, the water between Jamaica and Haiti upward into the Windward Passage, but more so around Cuba, provided some very interesting physical features possibly concentrating fish larvae and eggs, making it interesting for us to sample.
     Alas however we do not have access to Cuban waters again this year and some interesting features will have to remain un-sampled.

   However our survey limited to Jamaican and Haitian though we did have some stations with scombrid (tuna) larvae we did not have any that were determined to be bluefin. We did however notice large shifts in the larval assemblages over very short distances(< 10 miles between stations),  off the coast of Haiti. Anyway we continued to sample the upward to through the Windward Passage, and then turned around and went along the northside of Jamaica heading towards the Cayman Islands. We were close enough to Jamaica at one point while trying to test out the ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler - An instrument that we use to measure currents)  that we could pick up Jamaican reggae stations, "Come Down Selecta!!!!!!!!!!."  Pretty awesome you don't hear true reggae dj's like that anywhere else.
               But beyond that we headed into Grand Cayman on April 9th due to a concrete barge in our spot on the pier we were unable to pull in. So we had the view below teasing us for about a day, before coming into port on Sunday, April 10th... Unfortunately most things in Georgetown, the main town on Grand Cayman are closed on Sunday. But I was able to find a few places to go. Mainly I was just hoping to find a good dive shop and schedule a dive for the three days we were to be in port.....

     

Open House aboard the ship in Georgetown, CI

We are News-worthy in Grand Cayman!

A Tour of the ship's bridge by Officer Helker

Survival suit race!

We had a great time hosting the kids and enjoyed the DoE's hospitality!
For more information about the Department of the Environement's work in the Cayman Islands, please check out their website at http://www.doe.ky/about/

Finding the way to get on George Town

We are so close to George Town, I am in the bridge. I'll find the way to move this ship to the coast.

more pictures

I am sure you want to see more pictures, so here are a few more (Thank you LULU for sharing some of them with the group). Click here to see album, here is the link: http:  Estrella's GU1101 pics (you can see the captions there, enjoy!

Need a napkin?

Oh yes!, I found my way to the the dinning room...

Does anyone need a napkin?

Kenenth Esquivel

Hi am Kenneth Esquivel Iam a part of this year's Spring Plankton Cruise on the Gordon Gunter. Iam an Assistant Fisheries Officer from the country of Belize, in representation of the Belize Fisheries Department. This is something new for me but geeez iam enoying every second of it learning and seeing new stuff for the first time. Presently iam working in the night shift "also" with Estrella and Sennai who have been teaching me the methodologies and protocols of plankton collection and i think aim getting pretty well at it. Thanks guys hope to learn more as we go along.

Where is Ayla today?

Hey, have you meet me?

I will present a new post everyday showing a location where you can find me onboard of the Gordon Gunter. By the way, my name is Ayla and I am Laura's little dog.

Guess where am I today?

My current nightmare!!!

There are several factors that can modify the transport of eggs and fish larvae, ocean currents and circulation are on the top list. By learning about the currents and circulation, we can estimate where the larvae came from and where they could go to.

One way to measure the actual water currents is by using an ADCP. What is an ADCP/ well, an ADCP is lovely instrument installed on the haul of the ship that sends acoustic signals into the water column and "profiles" the currents. The ADCp is connected to the storage data system of the ship to record all the information and we are able to watch the currents in real time (live) on a screen.

As an oceanographer, my sweet dream is to collect good data of currents. but one day, checking on the ADCP screen something happened, the currents seemed to go so wrong!, What todo ?, well checking everything (even going into small and dark confined places), super Ryan Smith from AOML gave us a piece of advice and in a calm voice from the phone he said to John, "no worries" the data is coming ok, it is just a display problem. After that, I felt some peace of mind, the terrible nightmare vanished becasue we have GOOD DATA OF THE OCEAN CURRENTS, it just means we have to do additional processing of the data, but good data nonetheless. So, I am looking into the ADCP screen and praying for collecting current data that could help to explain why the larvae are there and where they could go.

MOCNESS, oh dear MOCNESS

Welcome to another beautiful day aboard the Spring SEAMAP 2011 cruise aboard the NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter. We have been quite busy so we haven't had a lot of free time to blog it up! My name is Estrella and I am on the night watch with Sennai on this leg of the cruise.




"Larger" fishes collected, including some Jacks and
a large bucket full of plankton on the right (Photo: NOAA)



So, what is plankton and why do we care about it? Well without going into much detail:  Plankton is made up of a mixture of invertebrates (baby crab, shrimp), plants, bacteria, fish (eggs, larvae) that drift in the upper layer of the ocean and serve as food for larger fishes and adult fish as well. We collect plankton to find larval or baby fishes in particular larval Bluefin Tuna! I am sure a lot of you had some kind of tuna in your lifetime - that's a pretty important fish if you ask me!



Bluefin Tuna (larval specimen ~7 mm long = tiny!!) Photo: NOAA, SP



For yesterday's station, we were using a MOCNESS which is a Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System. This equipment has many nets and can collect plankton from discrete depths (ex. 25 meters 'bins' = we'll start at 100 meters and close it at 75 meters). It is connected to a computer inside the ship and the operator can control when to close the nets. We also have other instruments attached to the frame to measure salinity, depth and temperature. Its important to know at what depths you collect your organisms because we can then combine that information with oceanographic information collected during each station and throughout the cruise.

MOCNESS coming out of the water - this one has 6 nets attached (Photo: NOAA)

One of the many challenges of executing research projects is gather the data. "Data" is collected in many ways, sometimes instruments record temperature or wind data; sometimes its as simple as dipping a net in the water and catching whatever is swimming around at the time. Although there are quite a lot of scientific and sophisticated experiments carried out every day all over the world, most of us that have been out on a boat/ship/field station and are trying to do some kind of 'work' - know that Murphy's Law is the law of the land out here. For instance, our net played some tricks on us yesterday when the MOCNESS (aka "Olivia") decided to trick us into thinking it worked properly when it actually failed miserably and after about an hour spent in the water... no plankton was collected :(  We were very dissapointed because we had calm weather and an opportunity to capture our targeted species (BFT). Luckily we were able to get it to cooperate after some TLC from our Field Party Chief Denise, our ET Patrick, watch leader Andy and our Chief Scientist Dr. Lamkin. I got to test it out last night and it worked! hooray! I was glad that Olivia worked last night and it successfully collected lots of plankton! Hopefully, there are some Bluefin tuna in our samples ... next is sorting all those jars full of plankton!!! (but we'll leave that for another post).



many, many boxes full of sample jars with ... yes you guessed, PLANKTON!



PS: I will try to translate this blog into spanish after lunch since we are a 'multinational' effort!  

Spring SEAMAP Plankton Cruise blog is Back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello All,
       I'd just like to take the time and welcome everyone to, and thank you for taking interest in this blog. As stated above the whole purpose of this blog is to give you a little idea about what goes on here on the R/V Gordon Gunter during the Spring SEAMAP cruises. Take a look back at the post from April, 14 from last year; This should give those of you who are unfamiliar with this cruise a little history and background into the type of research being done out here.
       Well this years research cruise began on Thursday, March 24th as we departed lovely Pascagoula, MS for open water, adventure and lot's and lot's of larval fish....  As we did last year the first leg of the cruise will be targeted sampling using satellite imagery to identify Sea Surface Temperature and Chlorophyll fronts in the ocean that correspond to regions of high larval ABT (Atlantic Bluefin Tuna) abundance from a habitat preference model.
       However different from last years cruise this year we are including the northern Caribbean into the sampling area, precipitated by the appearance of ABT larvae in Caribbean waters off the Yucatan Peninsula during the previous year's sampling. So despite a 7 day transit that included stopping in Cozumel to pick up some of the other members of the Science party including researcher's joining us from the Mexican fisheries agency INAPESCA, ECOSUR, and another from Belize. And the celebration of my 30th birthday somewhere north of Grand Cayman... Don't worry we had a cake. We are now sampling just North of Jamaica, and are about halfway through the first leg of the cruise. So far we have had some scombrid (tuna) larvae but nothing confirmed as ABT. The weather has been fair, and despite covering a lot of ground we still have a ways to go before our first stop back on land again.
      Anyway my hope for this years blog is to get a variety of people posting to give views from all aspects of what goes on during the cruise, I'm hoping to have even a couple posts in Spanish from some of our Spanish speaking colleagues here on the ship. Anyway enjoy and please feel free to post comments. If you have questions about anything feel free to ask, and I or another member of the science party will try to answer you as soon as possible.
    Well take care for now
Sennai

      Me looking out over the fantail as we pass by the tiny island of Navassa.