CRUISE REPORT

Cruise Number: MF-9805B
FOCI Number: FOCI 9803
NOAA Ship: Miller Freeman

Area of Operations:

Bering Sea

Itinerary:

Departed Dutch Harbor , Alaska April 14, 1998
Arrive Dutch Harbor, April 29, 1998

Participating Organizations:

NOAA PMEL, AFSC, Univ. Of Alaska

Personnel:

Objectives of Cruise:

1. Recover and deploy moorings at the FOCI study areas of Nunivak Island, St. George Island, site #2, site #3, site #4, and site #6.
2 Recover and deploy AFSC moorings at the Bristol Bay study areas.
3. Conduct biological sampling in project areas.
4. Complete CTD lines between mooring sites

Summary of Operations:

On April 14th. the Miller Freeman departed Dutch Harbor, Alaska in route to Bristol Bay to begin Cruise MF-9805B with the recovery and deployment of two temperature moorings for the Kodiak CRAB Program. After completing the CRAB CTD and mooring operations, the Miller Freeman transited to mooring site #2 and began sampling the five station grid around and at the mooring site. The three February current meter and biological subsurface moorings were recovered and replaced with a weather, current meter, temperature and bio-logical surface and a subsurface moorings. The site #2 operations were completed in 25 hours. The CTD line from site #2 to site #4 was competed. The five sampling station grid at mooring site #4 and recovery of the September 1996 mooring was completed in 20 hours. On the April 19th. CTD and mooring operations started for the deployment of the Interfront weather/current meter/temperature moorings south of Nunivak Island. Eight moorings (one surface, seven subsurface) were deployed. Moving south to the St. George Island area, CTDs and net tows were conducted before the recovery of the current meter mooring and ADP mooring. One current meter and two ADP moorings were deployed before leaving St. George. The transit to mooring site #6 took about a day. The recovery and deployment of the subsurface current meter mooring were completed on the 23rd. The CTD line from mooring 6 toward mooring site #3 was completed. The five station grid around site #3 was completed and one subsurface current meter/temperature mooring was deployed. The CTD line between site #3 and #2 was completed before attempting to collect an egg samples at site #2. Other attempts to collect the samples were conducted during the transit from site #2 to the Unimak Pass CTD lines. Two of the four CTD/ Bongo lines (A and D) at Unimak Pass were occupied with the exception of the northern CTD on line A before returning to Dutch Harbor on the 29th. of April. Details and the order of these operations is listed in the attachment.

Operations:

Mooring recoveries : 9
KC-97-1 SS,T
KC-97-2 SS,T
BS-98-2A SS,B,T
BSM-98-2B SS,B,C,T
BSP-98-2S SS,C
BS-96-4 SS,C,T
SGP-97-2F SS,C
SG-97-1 SS,C,T
BS-97-6 SS,C,T

Mooring deployments : 17
KC-98-1 SS,T
KC-98-2 SS,T
BSM-98-2 SM,B,C,T,W
BSP-98-2S2 SS,C
IFM-98-1 SM,C,T,W
IF-98-8 SS,C,T
IF-98-9 SS,C,T
IF-98-4 SS,C,T
IF-98-5 SS,C,T
IF-98-6 SS,C,T
IF-98-7 SS,C,T
IFP-98-2 SS,C
SGP-98-3S SS,C
SGP-98-2S SS,C
SG-98-1 SS,C,T
BS-98-6 SS,C,T
BS-98-3 SS,C,T
( SS= Subsurface mooring, SM=Surface mooring, B=Biophysical inst., C= Current inst., T= Temperature inst., W= Weather inst.)

CTD casts : 94
CTD casts with nutrients:74
Bongo net tows: 40
CalVET net samples: 14
Ring net tows: 15
Tucker net tows: 4

Acknowledgements:

We would like to thank the C.O. Gary Petrae and the officers and crew of the Miller Freeman for their cooperation and assistance in meeting the cruise objectives. Special thanks to Chief Survey Tech Bill Floering, for his help and assistance.

 

APPENDICES

1. CTD and mooring plot

2. Cruise Itinerary