Its been another busy week on the Sharp during the first half of leg 3! We left Woods Hole last week and headed back to Georges Bank, but to the southern end this time. Whereas leg one and two were extremely dredge heavy, with over 80 dredges during leg two, this leg has been primarily HABCAM oriented. We conducted maybe a dozen dredges once we reached our survey area, and then the HABCAM went into the water for over five days. This definitely slowed things down for the techs, but allowed me to focus my learning elsewhere for a few days. I have gotten more familiar with the Sharp’s systems and have been in charge of doing daily data backups, system checks, and processing winch data into plots. The thing I’ve most enjoyed in this down time has been learning more about the CTD! My watch partner Drew has walked me through the carrousel, helping me visually identify all the sensors and instruments and we’ve discussed common issues and troubleshooting. He also helped me delve into the software where I learned how to do my own CONFILE, the file that contains all the calibration info for the sensors, and setup my own PSA, which displays a wealth of information/tools for use during CTD deployments.
We pulled the HABCAM out of the water this morning and switched back over to dredging for 12 hours before we return to Woods Hole for a brief fuel stop. We secured the dredge within the last hour and have turned towards land! After arriving tomorrow morning we will be briefly refueling before departing for a final four days on George’s Bank later that same day.
I’m already looking forward to getting back offshore for our final days!
