Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Mola mola
It's been a quiet couple of days. The weather is incredible. The sea has barely a ripple on it. This morning, Jimmy spotted the first Mola. I was too late to see it, but fortunately another came along a while later. Then another. Then another! Molas are also called basking sunfish. I had no idea they lived this far north, but it turns out they live all over the world. They like to float around on their sides, flapping their fin tips into and out of the water. At first you think the fin is a shark, but then you see it move left, then right, then left, then right, then... as it lolls around in the water. They eat jellyfish. Here is a photo of one from Google. You can see it is all head, connected to a teeny tail. Here is a second photo (NOAA) showing how it floats around in the water.
I saw one in the Monterrey Bay Aquarium a number of years ago. Never thought I would see one in the wild.I was standing at the edge of the boat, looking in the water when a long red line floated by, about 2 or 3 ft below the surface- very weird. It turns out they were siphonophores- a relative of the Portuguese Man O' War.
Siphonophorae or Siphonophora, the siphonophores, are an order of the Hydrozoa, a class of marine invertebrates belonging to the phylum Cnidaria. They are colonial, but the colonies can superficially resemble jellyfish; although they appear to be a single organism, each specimen is actually a colony of Siphonophora. The best known species is the dangerous Portuguese Man o' War (Physalia physalis).
Photo and text from Siphonophores.org
Friday, August 22, 2008
It's a buoy!
Today has been busy. We actually did some work- a vertical cast, baby bongos and the big bongos. But let me tell you about the other things. First of all, Alison and I deployed my very own buoy. NOAA has an Adopt-A-Drifter (buoy) program. Jerry, our Chief Scientist, thoughtfully signed me up for it before we sailed. We deployed it today at George's Bank, the deepest station we will reach. Here are pictures of the deployment, which consisted of picking it up and throwing it over the side. There is a transmitter in the black float which will allow us to track the buoy's motion for years. NOAA uses these buoys to assemble weather reports, monitor climate changes, etc. The buoy consists of the round ball with the transmiter and a "drogue" a long "tube" of cloth that fills with water. The purpose of the tube is to make sure it is the ocean current that moves the buoy, not wind. There is a diagram on the Adopt-A-Drifter site http://www.adp.noaa.gov/. The ball and drogue (sounds like an English pub) are attached to a metal ring which anchors the drogue and the ball. Here I am with the MSDE-decorated buoy. You can barely see the metal ring. The drogue is the green thing- folded up. You throw the whole thing overboard. The paper and tape dissolve and the drogue unfurls. It has to be kept tied up so you don't go overboard with the drifter.
Deployment Floating away
Look closely! Further still! There is a sea bird (Shearwater) to the buoy's left- the little white dot.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
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