The
acoustic team monitored for sperm whales during the night as we
crossed the cyclone from its northwest to its eastern side. About
08:00 UTC, whales were heard, and acoustics stayed with the animals
the remainder of the night. The visual team was on watch by 12:00
UTC, and the tag boats were deployed by about 13:30 UTC. We were
located approximately on the east side of the cyclone, and the
currents were northward at under 1 knot. Seas were the calmest we
have seen them so far.
The
RHIBs were deployed with a group of four sperm whales. These whales
were tracked for much of the day. At 14:52 UTC, an S-tag was
deployed. It was the first ever depth recording S-tag to be
deployed! A biopsy sample and photo-id also were taken of this
whale. Of the remaining three whales in the group, one had both a
biopsy sample and photo-id taken, one had a biopsy only, and one had
a photo-id only. One animal was too small to tag.
See the Figure 1
for one of today's photo-id pictures showing the unique shape of the
whale's fluke. During the afternoon, the skies clouded up, and we
had a few rainstorms in the area. A waterspout was spotted in the
distance behind RHIB-1.
This scene was captured in a photo taken from
RHIB-2 (Figure 2). At no time was
RHIB-1 in the path of the waterspout. At approximately 21:00 UTC the
tag boats were recovered, and we resumed our survey into a different
area. Figure 3 shows the recovery of
RHIB-1.
Four
XBTs were taken across the cyclone during the night and today. The
15C isotherm was at 170 m on the NW, 164 meters near the eastern side,
and 197 meters when we left the group of four whales. At 16:05 UTC, the
38 kHz ADCP was turned off, and the 38 kHz fishery echo sounder was
deployed to monitor the deep backscatter layer since we were with
whales again. The echo sounder was operational throughout the day
and for about an hour after we left whales to give us data where
whales were not present. We plan to continue to collect data with
and without whales. The 38 kHz fishery echo sounder was recovered,
and the ADCP was turned back on about 23:00 UTC. The 3-D array was
redeployed at approximately 01:45 UTC on 16 June 2005.
Our position at 02:00 UTC on 16 June 2005 is
27 06.174'N 95 01.034'W.
