Today we had stormy weather around us during the night. This caused the moon, if any, and the stars to be obscured and increased the intensity of darkness both above and below the surface. This may have been a factor which contributed to the amazing catch we made shortly after sunrise.
When the net was pulled in, it was obvious that it was very full. As it was lifted out of the water, it became clear that it contained many small fish, mostly Croker, approximately 4-5 inches in length. The unloaded catch was too much to be held in the fish box on deck. When they came along the conveyor belt, there were no snapper to be seen and very few shrimp. It appeared as if we had captured an entire school of fish. The final catch weight was 985 Kilos. Out of this, there were approximately four gallons of shrimp, all varieties included.
Interview
Alonzo Hamilton: Watch Leader for the Midnight to Noon scientific watch on the OREGON II summer fisheries survey of the Gulf of Mexico.
What is the title of your position?
Research Fishery Biologist
Were you a good student in school?
Average
In what school year did you make up your mind to become serious?
Community College
Did you go to College?
Yes.
What kind?
Two years at Community College then a BS in Biology at Jackson State University, Jackson Mississippi
Do you have any scientific degrees?
Masters Degree in Marine Environmental Science
Why do you enjoy about this work?
I like everything about it. I like the freedom of being out in the field and then I like the finished product that comes from what we do, in terms of data analysis.
What percentage of your work year is spent at sea?
125 days per year
When you are ashore, what kind of work do you do?
I’m analyzing data, editing data and being the Safety Officer at the laboratory. It’s a desk job
Is your family comfortable with this lifestyle?
They’re more comfortable with it than I thought they would be. Do they like when I’m away, no. But they also don’t like the disruption that I cause when I’m at home. So it’s a trade-off. I think they’ve adjusted to the lifestyle itself. They know that when I’m home I’m there and they know that when I’m away, I’m at work and they accept that.
If you could be anything you want, what would you be?
A fishery biologist.
What advice would you give to young people who are interested in this career path?
Do it because you enjoy it. Don’t do it for any other reason. Regardless of what you are doing, do it because you enjoy it.
Personal Log
Today I worked at the beginning of the line instead of the end. All this time I have been primarily looking for shrimp and the select species which, on this cruise, is mainly red snapper. However, when I dug into the sample rather than the full catch, I had a great time. There were lots of terrific looking crabs that I’ve never seen. There were some interesting fish. I was surprised that I am actually able to decipher the differences between the species.
Question of the Day
Why are the conductivity, temperature and depth measurements important?
Answer: These pieces of data are used to compute salinity.
NOAA Teacher at Sea
Brenton Burnett
Onboard NOAA Ship David Starr Jordan June 26 – July 6, 2006
Mission: Shark Abundance Survey Geographical Area: California Coast Date: June 26, 2006
Weather Data from Bridge
Visibility: 10 nautical miles (nm)
Wind direction: 350 degrees
Wind speed: 9 kts
Sea wave height: 1’
Swell wave height: 2-3’
Seawater temperature: 20.0 degrees C
Sea level pressure: 1010.2 mb
Cloud cover: 7/8 Altocumulus, Altostratus
The DAVID STARR JORDAN awaits final fueling and preparation for our cruise.
Science and Technology Log
The DAVID STARR JORDAN was first commissioned by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, which later became part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Since its commission, it has logged over a million miles studying the biological and physical oceanography of the southwestern U.S. coast and eastern tropical Pacific. While it has a range of 7500 nautical miles (nm) and can be out to sea for 30 days, our cruise will last for 10 days and cover only a few hundred nm. It can berth up to 33 people, but on board this cruise are 12 officers, engineers and crew, and 12 scientists including myself. In ideal conditions, the top cruising speed of the DAVID STARR JORDAN is 10 knots (about 12 mi/hr).
This mission’s goals are to assess shark abundance in the Pacific off the coast of California. This is done through long line fishing. At 1800 hours and approximately 20 nm out from San Diego, we made our first “set”. Making a set is truly a team effort involving no fewer than five of the ship’s crew and eight scientists. The crew run the winches and navigate the ship, while the science team baits and sets the line. Two people ready the “gangions”—a gangion consists of a 4” J-hook, an 8’ wire lead and a “tuna clip”. These two pass the gangions on to two others who bait each hook with a whole mackerel, which is about a 10” fish. The baited gangions are then given to the “hooker” who clips them to the line that is running along the side of the ship and then back beyond the stern. Two others are readying balloon buoys that are attached between every five hooks. The length of the lead on the buoys, which is about 7 meters, plus the length of the gangions, about 3 meters, determines the depth of the baited hooks.
We baited 113 hooks along about 1.5 nm of line and let it soak for one hour. At dusk we began to “haul” the line in. This, too, requires a team effort. Tasks include removing the gangion from the line, “de-baiting” the hook, and stowing the gangion. Of course, if there’s a catch, then it’s really exciting. The shark, still in the water on a hook, is walked to the stern to the shark platform. There, senior scientists, Russ Vetter and Rand Rasmussen, and chief scientist Suzanne Kohin slide the shark into the shark trough, which is then quickly raised just above the water. While two of them hold the shark, they remove the hook, measure and determine the sex of the shark. All mako shark and thresher sharks will get a tag of one variety or another. Though, most of our catches will be blue sharks, other researchers, specifically those at the Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), are tagging blue sharks.
Oxytetracycline is injected to some specimens, too. OTC dyes the vertebra of the sharks. The vertebra, like the rings of a tree grow layers over time. It is not certain how often these layers form, one study suggests two in a year. Injected sharks that are recaught later will help to answer this question, and ultimately help scientists understand how quickly sharks age and reach maturity. Incidentally, recatches of this sort are typically done by fisherman who are given $100 for recording the shark’s length, the date it was caught, and for returning four to five vertebrae.
Our first set of the trip was a practice run of about 1.5 nm and 113 hooks. The haul brought in four blue sharks and one mako. From here on out, we’ll be making 2 two mile long sets a day with 200 or so hooks.
Personal Log
Though we had a delayed start to our cruise—the two diesel trucks to fuel up the ship were late—there has been very little down time! Now that I’ve been able to check email, I’ll get to questions next time! Until then… Brenton
NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jessica Schwarz
Onboard NOAA Ship Rainier June 19 – July 1, 2006
Mission: Hydrographic Survey Geographical Area: Alaska Date: June 26, 2006
Rock hunters: SS Corey Muzzey and ENS Sam Greenaway after a productive morning of investigations. Corey, Sam and Jamie have been very giving of their time and are excellent at explaining data acquisition and processing!
Science and Technology Log
So I hope everyone remembers what RAINIER’s Captain, Guy Noll, told me last week before I went out on a launch: “We hit rocks so that you don’t have to.” When I first heard him say this, I kind of laughed, figuring it was somewhat of an exaggeration, he was only kidding with me. I found out this morning he actually wasn’t.
An added component to running lines and collecting sonar data is doing nearshore feature investigation. If you are involved in feature investigation, your job is to either prove or disprove whether or not a feature (rock, ledge, islet, wreck, etc.) actually exists in the position it’s been historically claimed to be. When I say “historically” I mean some of these features were last charted based on data collected in the 1940s or earlier. Therefore, NOAA needs to update the data used in developing their charts and resurvey various areas with updated technology.
For the last several years, NOAA has been augmenting its ship-based sonar surveys with airborne bathymetric LIDAR (LIght Detection and Ranging) data. LIDAR uses high powered laser pulses (invented in 1962!) transmitted from aircraft. The laser sweeps back and forth across the earth’s surface, and the reflections are detected by a receiver. Much like sonar, the distance to the ground can be inferred from the amount of time required for the light to travel from the airplane, to the earth, and back. If the position and altitude of the airplane are measured very accurately, the height and shape of features on the earth’s surface can be determined.
ENS Jamie Wasser, monitoring the Echosounder onboard RA1 during investigative surveys.
NASA and the U.S. Navy were among the first to use airborne LIDAR. Later, with the involvement of NOAA, Airborne Oceanographic LIDAR was developed for use in the marine environment. After continued progress in development and technology, Airborne Hydrographic LIDAR (AHL) was invented. AHL uses a wavelength of light which penetrates the water rather than reflecting off the surface, allowing for measurement of water depths in addition to land topography. Keep in mind that although ALH was first developed in the mid 80s it was not practical for utilization on the Alaska Peninsula until the 90s. Although an exciting new addition to NOAA’s hydrographic survey “toolbox”, LIDAR is not able to run nearly as deep as sonar. In shallow water close to shore, however, it can reduce the need for inefficient and potentially unsafe small boat operations. Both LIDAR and sonar are used to assist in determining what features are navigationally significant to those at sea and essentially what features will end up being charted.
RAINIER receives a list of questionable sea features based on information collected from LIDAR, past hydrographic data, and in some cases reports made by mariners. Based on this collection of data, they are asked by the Pacific Hydrography Branch (the folks in Seattle who compile RAINIER’s data for addition to the charts) to investigate certain features (i.e. rock, ledge, islet etc.) that cannot be resolved with certainty based on the LIDAR or other.
After finishing investigations, TAS Jessica Schwarz is getting a feel for steering a jet-propelled boat!
So, today, ENS Sam Greenaway, ENS Jamie Wasser, Seamen Surveyor (SS) Corey Muzzey, and I went out looking for rocks☺. That doesn’t sound nearly scientific enough does it? There’s a lot involved in looking for rocks actually, and it’s not nearly as easy as it might sound. For me, as someone new to hydrographic surveying, my big question was, “Okay, and then what happens when we find one?” What’s this whole, “hitting rocks so you don’t have to” idea? Do we really hit the rocks? I rode today in launch RA1 to do investigations. RA1 is unique because it is a jet propelled boat. This means it does not use a rudder and propeller, like you would expect to find on most power boats. Instead, RA1 is propelled (and steered) using water that is sucked in through a grill in the hull of the boat, accelerated by an impeller driven by a diesel engine, and expelled out a nozzle in the boat’s transom. Changing the direction of the discharge nozzle is what steers the boat. This allows RA1 to go into much shallower water. In fact it only needs 1 foot of water to stay afloat and move around. Also, don’t be fooled by me saying “jet propelled”. That might give someone the impression these boats are extremely fast. RA1 is actually quite slow, with a cruising speed of 12 kts, which I figure was good for the crew while I was at the helm.
There are different ways of investigating features and doing a disproval (determining if a feature is there or not). One is to use RA1’s single-beam sonar. This is different from multi-beam sonar (like what I’ve discussed before) because instead of sending out between 140-250 pings of sound over an area of between 120°-150° from the boat, single-beam sonar sends only one ping directly beneath the hull to the ocean floor. While single-beam sonar is running, the echosounder printer draws an outline of the sea floor features. Check out the picture of ENS Jamie Wasser with the echosounder to get an idea of what it might look like.
If you’re wondering why they aren’t using multi-beam instead, it’s because they’re in shallow water, extremely close to rocks, and it would be much too easy to knock off the multi-beam transducer attached to the hull. Multi-beam sonars cost around $300,000 so it wouldn’t be very cost effective for NOAA to lose or damage one. The single-beam sonar is imbedded in the hull and won’t be knocked off if the boat does happen to hit a rock.
Not all survey boats were running item investigations today. In fact today three survey boats were launched, two launches were running main scheme lines with multi-beam sonar (what I’ve participated in on past days) and one, the launch I was involved with today, was running investigations.
In order to do this, the launches need to get extremely close to shore and extremely close to these “hypothesized” features, often times physically nosing the boat up to them to check the positions (remember, “we hit rocks so you don’t have to”). Depending on the sea conditions, this can be a very difficult process.
Personal Log
Today was an excellent day. It was beautiful and sunny all day. We stopped the launch and had lunch in one of the little bays. On our way home, SS Corey Muzzey let me drive. The jet drive boats drive much differently than the boats with rudders and propellers. The helm didn’t feel nearly as touchy and seemed more forgiving of my exaggerated turns of the wheel ☺. We saw several humpbacks out there today…around the time whales started showing up near the boat was when I lost interest in driving.
The landscape here is so incredible. I keep trying to take digital pictures of it and am always disappointed by what little justice the pictures serve. Tonight is a crew beach party. Everyone on the ship who wants to go can get a ride to a nearby beach to spend some time on land for a change. I’m looking forward to it!
Soon we’ll be crossing the Gulf. I’ve been hearing some horror stories about this crossing, not just from the crew, but also from some of the people I met while I was in Sitka before I came onboard RAINIER. I’m actually looking forward to being on the open ocean. We’ve spent a lot of time anchored and well protected in the bay. Crossing the Gulf will be a new experience. I’m excited!
Calling All Middle Schoolers-We Need Help Answering a Few Questions!
Sonar technology wasn’t utilized for hydrographic purposes until the 1940s. Before this, how did surveyors chart the sea floor? Remember, hydrographic surveying and the development of nautical charts, dates all the way back to 1807 with Thomas Jefferson. So, how did they do it back then? Let me know what think!
At this point in the survey, the stations are not far apart but they are up, down, in and out. We are actually steaming back to one of the day stations in order to do the same area as a night station. All of this activity is taking place in the general vicinity of Corpus Christi. This area receives a great deal of fishing pressure year around, both commercially and recreationally.
Our last night catch pulled in a beautiful collection of shrimp. The total for the catch was about 25 Kilos and we ended up with more than 18 Kilos of shrimp. When you account for the trash that was included, that left a very small volume of fish other than the shrimp. When the net came up and spilled out into the baskets it was a lovely golden color.
NOAA Teacher at Sea
Chris Harvey
Onboard NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette June 5 – July 4, 2006
Mission: Lobster Survey Geographical Area: Central Pacific Ocean, Hawaii Date: June 25, 2006
Crew Interview: Huntley Brownell, Deckhand
“Rather than defining my life by working a job, what will define me is the relationships I form along the way.”
The most remarkable thing about Huntley is that he was born in the backseat of a Greyhound bus heading down Highway 41. Since then it seems he has been on the move, discovering this world one place at a time. Originally from Charleston, South Carolina, Huntley left home after a year in college and set out to explore the world. Although his mother was not in full approval of his decision to leave, his father–a biologist working for NOAA–knew that he needed a bit of time out in the world before attending college.
After working several small jobs, Huntley put in his application with NOAA and then forgot about it for several months until one day he received a call asking if he was still interested. “Can you start work in 2 days,” the voice on the other end asked. Huntley accepted the offer and was at sea on the COBB between Seattle and Alaska almost immediately. After 3 months of working, he found out about an opening on the SETTE, based out of the tropics instead of the arctic, and has been working onboard the SETTE for the last two years.
Only planning on spending a summer or so working on the SETTE, Huntley found himself quickly addicted to the fix that traveling to remote parts of the world offered. “It is a good way to travel and see places you wouldn’t normally see as a tourist.” And sure enough, one cruise to Samoa turned into another to Marianas. Like most travelers, it was always the thought of the next trip that kept him going cruise after cruise.
While at sea, Huntley is an avid reader, crediting The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, as one of his favorite, life-changing books. (I also agree, as a fellow journeyman, that this is one book not to be missed.) He is also teaching himself guitar and studying for his private pilot’s license. Flying when back in Oahu is one of the things that have opened Huntley’s perspective of life.
Although he cannot recall his favorite memory onboard the SETTE, as he says there have been so many, he narrowed down the years of past experience to two: the time that the fishermen were catching big tuna right and left and it was fun to be a part of that, even though he hadn’t earned his fishing spot yet, and the first time he came to the Northwest Hawaiian Islands and saw a part of the islands that most people never get to see.
Huntley loves the sea, but senses the urge inside of him to travel again. He has no immediate plans of where he might move on to, but with a strong feeling that it is nearing time, his options are unlimited: “The older I get, the less I know what I want to do. The more you travel, the more open doors you see. And you know you can walk through any one of them.”
