Update

Last Friday we launched the SEACOOS instrumented buoy 20 miles off of Cape Lookout. We had a pretty good day for it and things went relatively smoothly. The swell had picked up by the afternoon, so there were some interesting moments once we got it in the water while it was still attached to the relatively small (48') boat. I took some photos and video and should post some soon.

Tuesday I helped out another graduate student, May, with her project in the Cape Fear river estuary. We had to get on the road at 5:00 AM in order to be down there (near Wilmington) early, due to the tides. We spent the whole day doing transects, very boring work, with an ADCP (acoustic doppler current profiler) and a CTD (conductivity/temperature/depth) instrument. Unfortunately, about 7:00 PM, on one of the final CTD casts, the (extremely expensive) instrument was no longer attached to the end of the cable when I brought it up. So now the thing is sitting in about 47 feet of tannic water, probably buried in a lot of gunk. Along with all the data it logged. We got back to IMS around 10:00 PM, exhausted and depressed.

We talked about diving for it, but it wouldn't be too likely to succeed due to near-zero visibility, and possibly hazardous as well, due to visibility, possible entanglements and the fact that it's in a busy shipping channel. Hence, we've decided to drag our sorry asses down there again tomorrow and try to dredge it up with a grapnel anchor.

Ah the glamorous life of an oceanographer. When do I get to ride Shamu?

On the subject of sharks again, yesterday the institute was doing its monthly shark trip, run by an emeritus faculty member, Dr Schwartz, a shark biologist. Long lines are set and sharks tagged and released. I decided to go along, but we got out and seas were too rough to work on deck, so we turned around and came back in. It just hasn't been my week.