After a two day stop over in Woods Hole, we’re back on the proverbial road!
Leg 1 concluded on Wednesday the 23rd with a stop over in Woods Hole to provision, re-fuel, and bring new scientists and volunteers onboard. After a busy day making preparations (with an evening off so the techs could flex their bowling skills) we were on deck at 0500 Friday morning for departure. We headed offshore through Nantucket sound and began dredging to the South of Cape Cod, gradually working North towards Provincetown. When my watch took over deck ops at 0530, we were greeted on deck by the greatest whale show I’ve ever seen in my entire life. There was no wrong direction to look in as humpbacks breached all around us with several pods of dolphins thrown in for good measure. Upon recovering our first dredge the large ammount of krill in it was a good indication as to why we got such a show! As we sailed into the night the fog rolled in so thick that you could not see the top of the Sharp’s VHF antenna and the temperature continued to drop.
We spent three days dredging hard around the clock. The area we were in was far more rocky than our southerly tracks. Having to roll large rocks, fix busted rock chains, and even swaping out a damaged dredge at one point slowed our progress. While further south we may have been averaging 4-5 dredges per watch, now we were only managing 3-4. After three days as sea conditions deterioarated we had to shut down night time deck ops as it was too dangerous to safely work with the prevailing sea state in the dark. We picked it up the following morning and the next day switched over to the HABCAM. A very welcome break after three days of hard work. We’re currently finishing up our HABCAM tracks on the Northern edge of Georges Bank and expect to return to dredging early tomorrow morning until we return to Woods Hole on Sunday night. Looking forward to another busy few days!
Signing off for now,
Charlie
42 06.50 N, 67 25.11 W
