We left port the morning of August 22 heading down the Columbia River and then out to sea. It took a day to transit to the site during which time we had a sighting of some short-finned pilot whales, (Globicephalus macrorhynchus) which I missed because I wasn’t on watch, and some Pacific White Sided Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens).
Above 2 photos: heading to sea down the Columbia River
During our day of transit I helped with some work on the streamer deck, we had an emergency/lifeboat drill, and then the MMOs had an afternoon meeting. Fortunately, I felt pretty good most of the day because I was on deck but during the MMO meeting in the mess I started to feel a little queasy with the smells of the food, looking at computer screens and not seeing the horizon. I was fine during the meeting but when I went down to my cabin, which was small, at the bow and had no porthole, suddenly I was sick! I was lucky though because quite a few of the science crew were already in their bunks with seasickness. After dealing with my first bout of seasickness I made myself go to the mess for dinner and then afterwards, because I was still feeling poor, I sat on deck for a while. Unfortunately, as soon as I went back to my cabin I was sick again! I went to bed at 6:30 and slept through until the next morning.
Releasing the Scripps L-CHEAPO Ocean Bottom Seismometers
Once we arrived on site the Woods Hole and Scripps science crew did release tests on the OBSs (Ocean Bottom Seismometers), which record the seismic data, to ensure that after they were dropped to the seafloor they would later return to the surface when signalled to. After completion of the release tests we spent the next four days dropping the OBSs in various locations around the site. During this time we started our visual rotations and attended the daily meetings with the science crew to discuss and finalize the mitigation measures before the airguns would be turned on. Due to poor sea states, which were mostly between Beaufort 4 and 6, we spent most of this time on the bridge and not on the MMO tower. An exciting sighting for me was a sea spout. I had seen what appeared to be a blow on the horizon but it didn’t look right to be a whale blow; as the ship drew closer and upon better inspection we realized it was a small sea spout! I was quite excited as it was my first seaspout sighting. We got pretty close to it but it dissipated just as it was coming along our port side.
Above 2 photos: Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) at the study site: Endeavour MPA
August 25 was our last day of OBS deployments and the night before was one of the roughest nights we had during the survey. That morning I woke about every fifteen minutes to the sound of things crashing around the boat. My cabin is at the bow of the boat so every time we went over a big swell I felt the bow drop and my bed come out from under me! Fortunately, the next morning the seas came down quite a bit and we were able to start doing our watches from the MMO tower and we finally had a sighting; one of the MMOs spotted the group of Pacific White Sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) crossing the bow of the ship. We also saw Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) which was also an interesting sighting for me as the first and only time I’ve seen Mola was in 2005 when I was helping on a survey off the coast of Spain in the Straits of Gibraltar.
Above 2 photos: The MMO tower with our 'office'
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