The second float has begun its journey! The SSSGs Ella and Catie oversaw a smooth deployment in less-than-smooth seas. The weather is definitely gathering as we continue our march north. But float #4013, better known as Go-Owl, splashed down just before dinner time and is off on its important mission of gathering data. I loved drawing the mascot for Charter School of Educational Excellence in Yonkers, New York. I mean, look at that wise old owl! I may not be the best artist, but it was fun to try and recreate that on the float and on the box. I made sure to get my owl tattoo in the picture just before deployment as well.
Ella, Catie, and Melissa with the float GO-OWL in its box ready for deployment.
The Solo float before being boxed up – it shows the Go-Owl decoration and the Charter School of Educational Excellence that adopted the float.
And that’s not the only other owl onboard. In his downtime, second mate Kenny Beaver is working on a gorgeous drawing of three inquisitive owls. I’ve enjoyed watching him work on it each evening; his use of color brightens more than just the page. I’m hoping I get to find out what each owl is saying before I have to leave the ship, which is in only a few days.
Some artwork that second mate Kenny Beaver is working on during the cruise. Photo by Melissa Miller.
The GO-BGC team is excited about these new SOLO floats and it’s great to have a couple in the water. They have six sensors on them, including a multispectral radiometer that measures how certain wavelengths of light (380, 435, 490 and 555nm) travel through the water. As you can see from the plot, this value drops off to essentially zero after about 50 or 100 meters. Deeper than that, only higher wavelength red light is visible. These optical measurements can give us a better estimate of phytoplankton concentrations. The SOLO floats I’ve deployed join only a handful among the hundreds that make up GO-BGC and SOCCOM with this sensor.
This was the final float I’ll be deploying before the science party of the next cruise takes over the work. They will deploy two more SOLO floats along the Aleutian Islands and then one more will go in the water as the ship transits back to the lower 48.
Irradiance plot for the float Go-Owl.