NOAA Ship MILLER FREEMAN

Mission: Fisheries Oceanography Coordinated Investigations

Day 5: May 23, 2007

Weather Data from the Bridge:
Visibility: 4 Miles

Wind Speed: 12 Kts.
Sea Wave Height: 2 Feet

Water Temperature: 4 Degrees Celsius

Air Temperature: 6.8 Degrees Celsius

Pressure: 1002 Mbs.

Personal Log

The weather cleared today. The sea had mercy on us. We are backing under way after taking shelter behind Jacob Island for most of yesterday. The seas are still high but are much calmer and there is almost no wind, so deploying bongo nets has been fairly routine.

I spend much of the morning working on Excalibur. I had to finish reassembling and sealing it up. We plan to deploy the buoy later today at around 4:00 AM New York Time. Right now it is on the back deck strapped down waiting for deployment,

We had a visit today from a land bird. We think it is some kind of plover, which is a bird that lives by the shore. It was probably blown our to sea by one of those 55 mile per hour gusts we had yesterday. It took some time to rest on our ship. I hope it stays for a while. Right now we are headed towards some land and if it stays long enough it will see the land and get back to shore. I’ll let you know what happens.


Science Log:

We spent our day today moving from place to place along our route deploying bongo nets. You saw how that was done in our video yesterday. Now lets take a look at what happens when the bongo nets come back up to the ship. The bottom of the net, called the cod end, contains a sample of plankton from the ocean below us. The scientists are looking for the larvae, or babies, of the fish called Pollock. This fish is the largest commercial catch in the world, and scientists from NOAA monitor the population of this fish very carefully. The bongo has two nets and each one contains a sample. The samples are processed differently.

The contents of the first net are preserved and sent back to the NOAA lab in Seattle, Washington. Some of our samples from this cruise will actually be processed in the country in Europe called Poland. The scientists record the number and type of all the fish larvae (babies) in the entire sample. Some samples will checked for the number and type of zooplankton, such as copepods – the character from Sponge Bob.

The second sample is sorted through right here on the ship. All the Pollock babies are photographed under the microscope and measured. For this sample, just the Pollock babies are preserved and sent back to the lab. The rest of the sample goes back into the sea. Back in the lab in Seattle, the scientists can tell how many days old the babies. Other scientists may use those samples for other studies as well.

Want to learn more? Click here for a video.

Tomorrow we will get to look in the microscope and see pictures of what is there.

Question of the Day:

The ship travels at 12.5 kts. per hour. At that speed, how far can it travel in a single day?

Answers To Your Questions:

Thanks all of you for writing. You are right about the function of the suit. It keeps me warm and dry as well as easy to see and safe. We even have one coat that will keep us on the surface of the water if we fall in.

Lets see: I’m letting Excalibur go tonight. The water is COLD, There are about 25 people on board right now, and no animals. It is cold and we have seen one long storm.

Ryan, some plankton are plants. They get their energy from the sun. Zooplankton, which are animals either eat the plants or other plankton.
Dan, I get wet a lot, but we take great care not to fall. The boots I wear keep me standing upright, or at least, they have so far.

A plover from the deck of NOAA Ship MILLER FREEMAN

Excalibur on the fan tail awaiting deployment later tonight

The bongo nets reach the surface.