Results of June27-28 Trip
Full report coming soon, but here are some highlights:
Our view as we approached Maine at the end of our 24-hour trip....
in case you forgot our nice stormy weather on June 28th!
in case you forgot our nice stormy weather on June 28th!
Here is our round trip route, Portland, ME to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and back to Portland, 210miles each way....
Depths are in meters (although upland contours are in feet)...
BAD NEWS:
1. A front with lots of rain timed itself perfectly to hit us on Sunday morning, and all day long, although at the last minute it turned slightly north which reduced the full impact on us.
2. There was just enough cold rain increasing throughout Sunday to make outdoor observing, whale-watching & bird-watching on the upper decks unpleasant, and prohibited for any general passengers. The weather worsened in the afternoon, which led unfortunately to cancellation of the two planned outdoor viewings for passengers in the ECO-program.
3. These weather disruptions prevented us from doing the full continuous 210 mile disciplined survey of birds, whales, SST water temp, weather, etc., although we were able to do spotty observations for perhaps half of those miles, largely by doing inside observations from the main deck (level #7), looking out at all four quadrants, but not simultaneously. The front windows and those on the restaurant side of the ship could be useful for birding in rough weather. We were able to do some observing from restaurant window-side tables while we ate, and those tables could be used all day long. The stern also has OK viewing areas at the corners of decks 7 and 9. But unfortunately, our observations on June 28 are not comparable to any other survey, except in the most approximate qualitative way.
GOOD NEWS:
4. The MV Nova Star was amazingly stable, even though we had up to 2-3 meter seas (5 meter swells were predicted but never materialized).
5. The Nova Star's food, accommodations, hospitality and generosity were world-class and unforgettable.
6. As always, the Nova Star Cruise people were all wonderful, including Pam Bragdon (special Thanks to Pam!), Steve Weber, Jordan Killkelley, Eloi, plus the guys in the flying bridge who keep us safe: Domingo and of course Captain Mikka!
7. Although the weather greatly reduced the whales and birds (and our ability to see them), we were able to see small numbers of Great Shearwaters, Sooty Shearwaters, Cory's Shearwaters, Wilson's Storm-petrel, Leach's Storm-petrel (perhaps 1), Northern Gannets, Northern Fulmars (ten?), and one Skua (spp?) clearly seen by a few of us at 11:17am as it flashed by and rapidly disappeared into the storm. The skua showed no warm coloration of any kind, so probably a South Polar Skua, but not 100% sure.
8. Regarding the microscopic world of plankton, we had some success with our two samples, taken from the right/starboard rear deck #5, from a port opening about 30 feet above the waves. We took a one-bottle sample at the Yarmouth dock, and were able to see a few large zooplankton jumping around with the naked eye. We also took a mid-GOM sample at 4:15pm at 20knots successfully with our new improvised plankton net (really a 2.5 inch diameter flow-through heavy braided vinyl pipe with a nylon filter at the end, all held together with aircraft/hose clamps at both ends), and Les took that back to BU for analysis of that sample. That "plankton pipe" was heavy and after bounding along the white-caps it sank low enough to be pulled for 60-seconds under the surface (at 20 knots!) and filter a considerable volume of water through the nylon netting (which was strong and did not break open).
9. At 2pm our team gave a one-hour presentation in the Aqua area to about 25 very attentive and interested audience of passengers. Tom kicked off and wrapped up the presentations, but more importantly Dave, Les and Kevin each gave talks, including slides and videos projected through a very large LED display screen on the wall (after we got the HDMI cabling to work). Throughout this hour there were multiple Q&A's with the passengers. We got some excellent feedback from several of those passengers, and the dialog with some of them (including fishermen) went on in the front bar area of the ship for another hour! The level of interest shown by the passengers in the presentation topic and material was intense, confirming what we thought, that many in the general public are taking the issues of marine and climate science very seriously, and that now could be a good time for us to develop and deploy this "ECO-program", for science to communicate directly with the general public, not only through the media or other translators. It seemed as though the audience wanted to hear directly from scientists, so that they could challenge the facts and decide for themselves whether real planetary changes were happening or not.
10. Many thanks to our team: Dave Drapeau (Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences), Les Kaufman (Boston Univ), Frank Mantlik (COA Connecticut Ornithological Association), Eric Mills (Dalhousie Univ), Kevin Powers (Stellwagen Advisory Committee), Tom Robben (COA), plus Nova Star's Pam Bragdon. All of whom gave generously of their time and best creative thoughts. Our presentation to passengers on Sunday afternoon was a combined team product, which reflected essential suggestions of every team member! THANK YOU ALL!
11. Based upon the encouraging feedback from the audience, there will be some kind of followup, plus new opportunities, and the discussion about all that will start this week. But for the moment, I am still basking in the delicious memories of this trip! (-: THANK YOU AGAIN.
SATURDAY NIGHT:
Planning in the ship's 9th floor conference room for Sunday and the presentations... showing Les, Kevin and Frank...
BREAKFAST SUNDAY:
Here is Sunday breakfast, where Les explains to Frank Mantlik why he recommends small meals before the predicted 5 meter swells! As you can see by my plate, in the left rear, I did not agree with Les (not that Les' plate is such a great example of a small meal!). Meanwhile, as revealed by later magnification of this photo, we were surprised that we had not noticed a rare Yellow-nosed Albatross 200 feet out, flying by our breakfast table... (-: [okay, that albatross was a joke, but everything else was true, well, more or less]...
And the weather did start kicking up, later that morning (this is looking down from 60 feet high)....
LUNCH SUNDAY:
We continued "roughing it" in the excellent restaurant on board....
This was a spartan trip, as you can see from three of our hardy team (Eric Mills, Les Kaufman and Kevin Powers) suffering through some of the most challenging parts of our dangerously stormy Sunday... trying to decide which options to choose for a light meal while we watch for Skuas and whales just outside our window (unfortunately we only had one Skua fly by -- TRUE).... and as you can see from my plate, the weather was so rough that I needed at least one dose of blueberry cheesecake to calm down my stomach...... (-:
In addition to Bigelow Labs taking monthly trips on the Nova Star to collect water samples, Bigelow also has a new AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) which covers most of this ferry route, although much more slowly. Here is part of Dave's presentation, showing the route of this AUV, following approximately the same track as we took on June 27-28...
Here are some of its results of one of the AUV crossings, the Chlorophyll recordings, being a pretty good indication of where the most phytoplankton is positioned and doing its photosynthesis, not too far below the surface (but not at the surface)....
Anyway, in spite of it being such a "rough trip", we all survived (see end-of-trip portraits below).
Thank you Pam for making this trip possible.
Kevin, Frank, Pam, Eric, Les and Dave...
Kevin, Frank, Tom, Eric, Les and Dave...
