NOAA Teacher at Sea: Karen Rasmussen
Ship: R/V Tatoosh
Geographical area of the cruise: Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
Date: July 9, 2011
Cruise to: Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
Crew: Rick Fletcher, Nancy Wright, Michael Barbero, and Karen Rasmussen
Time: Start 9:12 a.m.
Mission
The first part of mission is to conduct Multibeam mapping and to collect ground-truthings at the LaPush/Teahwhit areas of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. We will also service the OCNM buoy, Cape Alava 42 (CA42). The second week of this mission is to explore the Teahwhit Head moorings, ChaBa and sunken ships, and North and South moorings.
Weather Data from the Bridge
3’ swells and light breeze.
Risk factor 18
Science and Technology Log
Today we gassed up the generator in Forks, WA. Once at the boat we completed a safety drill, and then left port at 09:12. We completed a patch test at TH015, one of the OCNMS oceanographic moorings near Teahwhit Head. The patch test was completed to calculate roll, pitch, and yaw as part of a greater suite of error measurement used in multibeam data processing. We conducted a full multibeam survey and CTD cast at TH042. We also moved approximately 5 miles offshore to survey the area around the Milky Way wreck, a purse seiner that sank in the Sanctuary in 1995 hauling a catch of sardines. Although we searched around the last known site of the vessel, we did not find any indication of its existence. We hypothesized that the vessel had been buried by sand.
We docked at 3:30 because we had several hours of data to interpret.
Personal Log
We had calm seas today–absolutely the best I have seen. We saw dozens of sea lions, one otter, many pelicans and several bald eagles. I drove the boat during part of the multibeam testing and I conducted data acquisition using Hypack software. I am getting the hang of controlling the boat. It is quite a skill. I can understand how long it takes to become a true skipper/captain of a vessel.
It is so wonderful that all equipment was working and we were actually able to collect “real” data. It has been a frustration for me and all of the scientists involved when the equipment was working properly.
