Today started off with gales and a large swell but the conditions improved slowly as the day progressed. We are heading along north of the Grand Banks but are still off the shelf over the abyssal plain. The sea temperature plummeted from 13C to just 4 or 5C today as we went from the warm Gulf Stream to the Labrador Current.
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| Snow Clouds at Dusk |
There were no cetaceans seen but the seabird activity was much higher than previous days, particularly for gulls: Glaucous gull, kittiwake, herring gull, lesser black-backed gull . There were many auks too: razorbill (c.100), little auk (or 'dovekie' as they're known in Canada (c.50), puffin and possible guillemot.
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| Immature Glaucous Gull |
The hydrophone has just been deployed, just in time for us to enter Canadian waters (in about 30nm or so) and for crossing the shelf-break tonight which will bring us up onto the famously productive Grand Banks. No acoustic detections so far but we are getting a good clean signal. Fingers crossed for some cetacean sightings tomorrow for our last day of the survey. Current ETA for St. John's is 1600 tomorrow.
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| Crew deploying the hydrophone on its 200m long cable. It is deployed from the beam to avoid the noise of the ship's wake. |
Some of today's salty trivia from the bridge - A vessel is making way, but is not underway, how is this possible?!
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