3/27/13 update from Endeavor:
Today the weather was perfect. No wind, glassy smooth ocean, sunny but not hot, beautiful sunrise and sunset, then a full moon. And there are hurricane force winds in a huge low pressure system far to
the north. We certainly chose the right spot to do oceanography!
Today we recovered a wayward Seaglider (at breakfast), a mixed layer float (at lunch) and the wandering NOAA mooring (at dinner). Perfect conditions for finding small targets, for small boat operations, and easy recovery of all instruments. Only downside was a few folks missing meals because of the timing of the recoveries, but nobody is going hungry on this ship, Archie serves up great food every day.
Tonight we will do Underway CTDs back to the north, then we will spend Wednesday collecting microstructure profiles near ASIP and the two micro-gliders Helo and Saul, which have been following ASIP as it is carried west of the WHOI mooring.
There was strong surface diurnal warming of about 4 degrees C, and a surface salinification of about 0.1 psu was indicated by the "Salinity Snake" rigged up by Julian Schanze (SSS>37.5). Hopefully tomorrow will have similar conditions for the VMP work.
We also managed to collect a bit of Sargassum weed, and photograph some of the inhabitants. Lots of Trichodesmium around as well, looking like sawdust on the water.
A great day to be an oceanographer!
Ray Schmitt
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