8:30 a.m.:   With the extra long survey of line four complete the Revelle this morning is moving north toward the west end of line one called the Newport hydrographic line.  The final run of the SeaSoar will take the Revelle to Newport and a planned docking at 8:00 a.m.  The science team is spending the day making final measurements and preparing to pack up all the computers and lab equipment by early in the morning.

Chief Scientist report for 18 August 2002

On Saturday morning, the Roger Revelle emerged from the coastal fog headed
west on line 4 along 44 0.0'N. There was high chlorophyll over Heceta
Bank out to 125 18' W. As we passed over "Humpback Hollow", the top
trophic observers reported seeing some humpback whales. We did a HTI
bio-acoustics flyby of the New Horizon as they MOCNESSed at HH-5 (125
0'W). We then continued west in search of the equator ward jet that had
transported one of our drifters in a large counter-clockwise loop around
Heceta Bank (the green drifter launched off Newport in our SST+cruise
track image). We found evidence of a strong (> 60 cm/s) southwestward jet
at 126 30'W, offshore of which we finally reached warm (17+ degrees C)
oceanic water, albeit influenced by Columbia River outflow
(salinity < 32.5). Elevated chlorophyll was found at 30-50 m on the
western side of the sloping isopycnals which support the jet.

At 0240 PDT on Sunday morning we turned back east along and into the jet
waters. The top trophic observers reported seeing many (~50) fin whales
in this area (~126, 44 15'N). We're heading up to line 1 (NH line) now
and expect to start sampling inbound on that line starting from around
NH-85 at about 1400 PDT. We'll endeavor to do another bio-acoustics
"fly by" of the New Horizon as they do MOCNESS work on the NH line.

Channel fever is high here on Revelle. Almost done! We'll take a group
photo just after dinner tonight. As Simon and Garfunkel sing on the last
track of the soon-to-be-famous R/V Roger Revelle GLOBEC 2002 music CD,
we're "homeward bound."

Some preliminary cruise statistics:

18 CTDs
410 discrete chlorophyll samples
209 discrete HPLC (pigment) samples
214 discrete samples for absorbance spectra
409 nutrient samples
217 discrete sample for flow cytometry
83 Coulter counter samples
9 C14 stations for P vs I curves
3 surface drifters deployed
7 bio-optics drifters deployed
38 bio-optics casts
3 Tethered Spectral Radiometer Buoy deployments
370+ cetacean sightings
3000+ bird sightings
7 HTI bio-acoustics "fly by"s with New Horizon
7 Gigabytes of HTI bio-acoustics data
0.7 Gigabytes ADCP velocity data
10,550 SeaSoar CTD/bio-optics/OPC profiles


---Jack Barth, Chief Scientist R/V Roger Revelle
filed 1315 PDT August 18 2002

7:00 p.m.:  While the Revelle is headed back to Newport, Bill French launched an XBT at several different points along the route as he did before on August 6.  The XBT is able to create a temperature profile down to 1,000 meters even while the ship is moving.  The hair-thin copper wire is actually made of a copper core and an outer core that is separated by a plastic insulator.

Chief scientist Jack Barth gets a tour of the engine room.

Chief Scientist final report:

It's 2100 PDT and we're inbound on line 1 (Newport Hydrographic), still
about 50 miles offshore. We'll recover the SeaSoar and HTI bioacoustics
instrument at about 0330 PDT on Monday morning. We'll then head for the
whistle buoy outside the Newport jetty to meet the pilot at 0645. ETA at
the OSU ShipOps dock is 0730.

It's been an extremely successful cruise. We've accomplished all of our
pre-cruise objectives including extensive mapping of mesoscale variability
in the coastal ocean starting with the large-area Mesoscale 1 survey (1-7
Aug), followed by two small-area, fine-resolution studies (in the north
from 9-11 Aug; in the south from 14-15 Aug) and finishing with a second
Mesoscale 2 survey (15-19 Aug) during which we investigated some of the
far offshore structure. In between these activities we launched surface
drifters and did bio-optical sampling near them.

Thanks to all the scientists for the highly successful operations!
Their dedication and skill make this program possible. All of the
scientists, technicians and graduate students worked long days and
responded to the challenges of working at sea with professionalism and
good cheer. I couldn't imagine a better group to sail with.

It's been a pleasure to sail aboard the R/V Roger Revelle. What a great
vessel and crew! The Captain and deck officers handled the ship well and
were very responsive as we made last-minute changes in our cruise plans to
investigate several intriguing oceanographic features. They and the ABs
on the bridge were ever-vigilant in our efforts to avoid fishing gear and
we came through in great shape. The Chief Engineer and the engine-room
crew kept Revelle operating in top condition. Thanks again to them for
fabricating some new OPC weights when we needed replacements on the
SeaSoar. Ed and Stacey, we appreciate the long and hard days you put in
to keep us well fed. The various albacore tuna dishes were outstanding!
Thanks, Captain Dave for sharing the bounty from your fishing. Both Tammy
and Bill provided excellent technical support for our science.

Lastly, thanks to John Hercher for a great job with our cruise web page.
It provided a new window on the work we do at sea to understand the
ever-changing coastal ocean. We hope those of you following our cruise
got a sense of the science activities we employ to further understand
coastal ocean ecosystem dynamics. Oceanography is an interdisciplinary
science and one of continued exploration of our natural world. Thanks for
following along and asking questions.

We'll be busy for years to come analyzing the great data sets we collected
during this cruise and during similar cruises in May-June 2002 and
May-June and July-Aug 2000. We'll start with a data workshop in Corvallis
in November, followed by further analysis and presentation of our results
at national meetings and publication in various science journals. Stay
tuned for our results!

---Jack Barth, Chief Scientist R/V Roger Revelle
filed 2115 PDT August 18 2002

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