Day 6 - "On-Effort" and Collecting Data

We started our survey! After an uneventful overnight and morning transit to the area of our survey, we finally began our data collection. Prior to beginning, we deployed a couple of sonobuoys to ensure that our receivers were working properly. Then we conducted our initial CTD stations and followed that with the deployment of the passive acoustic monitoring equipment along with the Scanfish which will collect underway CTD information near the surface.

Since sunrise, the visual crew has been looking for whales up on the Flying Bridge (known by sailors at “Monkey Island”, although members of our visual crew don’t appreciate that name for some reason). They have sighted numerous Fin Whales and dolphins throughout the day, most of them quite a distance from the ship. We will continue on our transect route until late tomorrow morning when we will stop again for our oceanographic data collection session.