Date 05/02/2011 Time: 2319 hrs (UTC)
Position: 48 deg 22 N 47 deg 58 W, Speed 10.5 Knots
196 miles to go to St Johns
Nearly there! We are due to arrive in St John’s
The XBT transect of the Atlantic has gone very well and only two stations are left to go at this stage. We are now into almost uniform cold water (<4 degrees) with little temperate gradient down to 2000metres.
We are about to go over the North Cape of the Grand Banks and Dr George Rose is monitoring the EK 60 echo sounder as we are running along close to one of the planned transect lines for the following over wintering cod survey.
George has been exploring and mapping the deep scattering layer which is present across the entire extent of the Atlantic transect from 400-600metres water depth , this layer is thought to be formed by Myctophidies (Lantern Fish) and Euphasids (shrimp species) .
The vessel will leave St John’s on Tuesday the 8th to begin this survey starting with a survey in picturesque Smith Sound in the north of the Avalon Peninsula .
Lots of birds seen today and a much greater diversity of species including Razorbill, Herring gull, Dovekie also known as Little Auk, (alle alle) and Glaucus Gulls.
Acoustic cetacean monitoring resumed today to the delight of Alessandro and common dolphins and a sperm whale was located and recorded today, its clicks are illustrated below . .
Spectrogram of common dolphin whistle seen earlier
Now that the weather has settled and we are nearing port the serious activities such as knitting lessons have commenced ….
Aodhan Fitzgerald
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