Journals 2005/2006

Denis Costello
North High School, Torrance, California

"The Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms" R/V Atlantis July 6 - 26

Journal Index: July 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13       14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20       21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27

July 20, 2005
Making Our Way to Vancouver Island

Although the schedule of sampling has not changed, we are making our way toward the Canadian lines. From our earlier survey, we noticed a lot of fish and whale activity. We have been told to expect periodic appearances by humpback whales.

From left: Andy Ohana-Richardson, me, Sean Doran and Julia Betts. Andy and I are filtering samples while Sean and Julia take a break before they have to sample. View full version pop-up.

We finished the CF line and are now working on the LA (La Perouse A) line. Sampling along the Canadian lines means more stations to sample from and deeper water. Deeper water samples take longer for the CTD to be recovered, which means more time in-between casts. I used the extra time to perform needed fluorometer readings.

An albatross flies in front of the bow during a sunset off the coast of Washington. View full version pop-up.

By the end of today, we had conducted 150 CTD casts. I finished my filtering for the day and prepped my workstation for Brian to take over. I concluded my workday by reviewing my photos for my journal entries. The best news of all was that the Lachat was back up and running again. The bad news was that the broken water bath could not be repaired.

Amy MacFadyen is about to replace the ISUS sensor on the CTD. The ISUS allows onboard monitoring of nitrate concentrations while the CTD is lowered in the water column. View full version pop-up.