Trawling went smoothly last night.  John and Steve made three IKMT trawls,
to a) 600 m, b) 800m, and c) 400 m between 20:30 Thursday evening and 04:45
this morning.  We then deployed the two hydrophone arrays and headed SW
along the 800 m isobath for our final day of survey.   Nathalie deployed in
the avon a little after breakfast and soon picked up clicks on the
omni-directional hydrophone.  Gyre followed the avon and by mid-morning the
visual and acoustic teams on the mother ship were acquiring the  whales, as
well.  We followed a group of about 6 whales in the basins 90.3 - 90.9 W .
Jonathan switched out with Natalie at lunchtime and by 14:30 the two of them
had shot half a dozen sequences of fluke-out pictures.  We recovered the
avon just after 14:30, pulled in the arrays, and are now dead-heading for
Galveston.  At 15:00 we are underway at 27 46'N, 90 54'W.  We will come up
on the shelf break shortly and at that time visuals will go off effort.  We
have about a 30 hour run back to Galveston, so we should arrive back at
TAMUG dock about 10 PM tomorrow night (Saturday 21 June).

Today was a pleasant final day of survey efforts.  The various teams are
working now on their parts of the cruise report, which we plan to have ready
in draft form by Monday (23 June).  All of the teams have interacted
smoothly with one another, and because of this team spirit the cruise has
gone very well.  As for summary statistics:  We've done a total of 8 CTDs,
89 XBTs, made 25 IKMT trawls, and collected many recordings of clicks and
codas from the small boats and many fluke-out sequences for photo-ID.  We're
plotting up our data using Surfer to show when/where we saw and heard
animals, and where/when we crossed temperature, salinity, or ocean color
fronts.  It remains however to determine the total number of individual
sperm whales that we've identified during this cruise 03G06, and Nathalie
and Jonathan are working on that at the moment.

We wish our colleagues on Ewing, Kondor Explorer, and Gordon Gunter fair
seas and following winds, and send our hopes that D-Tagging and CEE work
will be successful in the remaining days of the Ewing/Kondor field program.
We'll look for you in Galveston, on 24 June.

-doug sends

We towed hydrophones and dropped XBTs as we moved SW over water depths of
750-900 m today. We finally encountered whales near 90 27W and deployed avon
to try for photo-ID.  Jonathan Gordon also made some recordings of rig
noise.  At 18:30 CDT we are at 27 47'N, 90 46'W.  We will trawl here
tonight.
-doug sends

Subject:   summary of GYRE photo-ID work yesterday 18 June
   Date:  Thu, 19 Jun 2003 13:21:47 -0500
  From: Sea-Mail

We're surveying SW today along the margin west of Mississippi Canyon, in
water depths of 650-800.  It's been raining on and off today, so visual
observers aren't able to get continuous effort today, but neither are we
hearing any whales on the towed arrays.  At 12:45 PM we are at 27 49'N, 90
11'W.  We anticipate reaching a position near 27 40'N, 91 00'W by 9 PM
tonight, when we will stop to trawl.

Nathalie offers the following summary of photo-ID and photogrammetry for
yesterday 18 June:  the small boat teams got fluke-out sequences on 16
different individuals.  Four of the individuals matched those in the group
of 7 individuals that were identified 11 June 03, and one of these
individuals was the S-tagged animal that was also photographed one week ago
on this cruise, on 11 June.  This is same animal for which Nathalie has a
fluke-out ID when it was tagged 3 July 2002, so we know this is OSU #5719.
The teams got pictures of the tag attachment site as well as the fluke-out
ID picture.  The small boat teams also saw and photographed a second
S-tagged individual yesterday.  Unfortunately it did only a very shallow
fluke and thus there are no good quality ID picture for this second tag
whale.  The small boat teams think there was a 3rd S-tagged individual in
the mix yesterday, as well, although this animal did not fluke up and so
there is no fluke-out shot for it.

Of the 16 individuals photographed yesterday, there are 5 matches with
individuals photographed last summer on 3 July 2002.  Of the 7 individuals
photographed one week ago 11 June, there are 3 matches with individuals
photographed last summer on 3 July 2002.

-doug sends

Hello All,

As sun is setting today, Ewing and Kondor have reached us at 28 43'N, 88
58'W.  We are handing off a large number of whales here to our colleagues on
Ewing, in hopes that Ewing's small boat team can D-Tag some of these animals
tomorrow.  We heard some seismic survey noise today from Western Neptune,
but that seismic survey sound  is intermittent since that vessel is working
NW-SE lines well to the east, and we only heard its survey noise along some
but apparently not all of each 5-6 hr survey line.  For most of the day
today, we could not detect any seismic survey noise.
After an almost flat calm day today in which Jonathan and Nathalie got many
photo-ID sequences and recordings of initial clicks, we have recovered our
two small boats and at 8:30 PM we are making some final 4-channel recordings
of click trains on our matched hydrophone arrays.  We will get underway soon
to depart this area in which we've been following whales for several days
now and transit SW tonight, dropping XBTs every 10 miles as we follow the
upper slope.  The goal of this XBT transit is to determine how far up on to
the slope the northern perimeter of Eddy Sargassum has pushed, in the area
89W to 91W.  We plan to deadhead across the Mississippi Canyon tonight,
since Ewing had worked this area for the last 2 days and did not find any
whales there.  By dawn tomorrow, we should have crossed the canyon so we
will deploy our arrays on the western side and then begin our search to
hear/see whales upslope along the margin 90-91W that we passed by when we
did a "leap-frog" to the east on our way to DeSoto Canyon.

Animals today did not appear to be bothered by Gyre or its small boats.
Some surfaced quite close by the Gyre, while others surfaced in the far
field.  Some dived and others socialized throughout the day. At one point in
the afternoon today, the view from the flying bridge was of 10 whales all up
on surface, in socializing behavior.  The animals were not side-by-side in
"chorus line" but were stretched out in roughly semicircular pattern that
covered a distance of about 1 km.  We received 18 June (current) position
from OSU today of S-tag whale #5709 that showed this animal was in the
region we worked today.  As luck would have it, one of the animals
photographed today had an S-tag attached, and after following this animal
for several dive cycles we believe our small boat teams obtained a good
fluke-out ID picture of it.  It will take some time tonight, though, to
review all the photos shot by the 2 small boats today.

We will not trawl tonight, so that we can cover as much ground as possible
before dawn tomorrow.  John and Steve would like to trawl to the west of
Mississippi Canyon tomorrow night, and possibly during the day on Friday as
well, before we have to break off our survey to deadhead back to Galveston.
Our ETA Galveston remains 10 PM Saturday night.

-doug sends

Hello All,
We spent another day tracking whales in the canyons close off the mouth of
Mississippi River.  Jonathan and Nathalie did rotations in the ship's avon
to get fluke-out photo-ID and record initial clicks and coda exchanges, in
between the rainsqualls and thunderstorms we had today.  There are a large
number of whales here, but we can hear seismic noise from Western Neptune
survey which is running seismic lines NW to SE across the 1000 m isobath a
little to the east of where we are.  Our search area today was in the
northern periphery of Eddy Sargassum, so it was perhaps noteable that most
of the whales we saw were in water depths of 600-850 m (higher up on the
slope) rather than farther seaward and deeper into the eddy.  Currents at
the surface were running 2-3 knots, out of the west (which is what we
expected given the clockwise circulation around the northern periphery of
this big, strong anticyclonic warm-core Loop Current Eddy).  Among the
animals of interest seen today were a large-sized male, and a whale with an
S-Tag clearly visible forward of the dorsal hump.  Unfortunately, we were
unable to get fluke-out photo ID pictures of either of these animals,
because of the squalls today.  Our plan is to work this area again tomorrow,
after John and Steve do MOCNESS trawls tonight.  Jon Vallarta is making
4-channel recordings of the whales now, at 20:30 CDT, before we bring in the
arrays and begin the MOCNESS work.  We will stand by to talk with Ewing and
Kondor at 21:00 CDT tonight, in hopes of learning their plans for the next
1-3 days.
-doug send

Hello All,

We arrived in canyons area close off mouth of Mississippi River at 6 AM this
morning and spent the day searching for and then following 4 whales here.
At 18:00 CDT we are at 28 45'N, 88 57'W following animals in water depths of
650-700 m.  Nathalie and Jonathan have swapped out several times in Puffin
today and by dusk they expect to have fluke-out photos and recordings of
initial clicks of all in this group of animals.  A group of pilot whales
were also seen today.  Current here is from the west, and it is stronger
here today than it was when we were in this area last Wednesday.  Today the
current has been steady at about 2 knots from the WSW.    So this seems to
indicate that LC Eddy Sargassum has moved further on margin than it had been
last Wednesday.  Perhaps this is why the group of animals we finally located
were encountered higher up on the slope; we searched in vain in water depths
1000-1200 m for most of the day, then finally located whales in water depths
of 700-800 m.  Water color in this area within 30 miles from the mouth of
the Mississippi River is aqua blue (salinity > 35.5, and low chlorophyll),
so the canyons area is definitely influenced by Eddy Sargassum.  As we were
arriving here this morning after our deadhead from DeSoto Canyon, we quite
literally saw "a line in the ocean".  The line was a sharply defined surface
confluence separating the cyclonic circulation to the NE from the
anticyclonic LCE circulation to the south.  This suface confluence was
manifest as a sharp (just a few meters wide) boundary between aqua blue
water on south side and green-brown water on north side; sargassum had
accumulated along the boundary and stretched as far as the horizon.
Our plan for tonite is to do 2 trawls here in the canyons region where
whales have been diving, and then to put the arrays back in and search for
more animals.  We will work tomorrow either here or head SW along isobaths
towards the eastern side of Mississippi Canyon.  From my sat phone calls
today to Ewing and Kondor Explorer, I learned that these vessels were today
operating about 30 miles SW of the western side of Mississippi Canyon, so we
will keep our distance from them when we get to Mississippi Canyon to avoid
over-exposing animals which they may wish to tag later this week.  When I
phoned Kondor, I was able to talk with Aaron Thode.  Aaron confirmed he
seeks to transfer to Ewing, hopefully sometime tomorrow 17 June.
-doug sends

Hello All,
We followed whales today on the eastern
side of DeSoto Canyon.  We acquired a group of 6-7 animals around noon and
got fluke-out ID on most of the animals in the group, and then we continued
on to the north and acquired acoustic contacts with a 2nd group of animals
late in the day.  Unfortunately, we were unable to reach this 2nd group of
animals before dusk fell.  We recovered our small boat to end the day at 29
06N, 87 07W and we have pulled in our arrays and are deadheading now (21:30
local) west to 28 50'N, 88 30'W.  When we reach that position
we will put in arrays and try to acquire animals.  We plan to follow animals
in this area near the mouth of the Mississippi River.
-doug sends

Hello everyone,
We spent the day pulling the hydrophone arrays and dropping XBTs every 10
miles as we headed SE along the eastern side of DeSoto Canyon.  We came upon
one whale and visual and acoustic teams coordinated to allow us to follow it
SE for several dive cycles to 28 19N, 86 46W.  Small boat teams got
fluke-out photos and recorded initial clicks each time this animal dived.
We don't yet have the final photogrammetry results, but to the small boat
teams this animal seemed to be larger in size than others we've seen this
trip.

As sunset approaches, we are at 28 21'N, 86 48'W and headed NW to
take us out into slightly deeper water where we will trawl tonight.  The
environment tonight, like last night, is cyclonic (upwelling); 15C depths
have been ranging 155-165 m in XBTs dropped today.  Salinity in the
uppermost 10 m of the water column is 31-33 psu, so there is still green
(high chlorophyll, low salinity) color to the surface water from the
Mississippi River water that is being wrapped anti-clockwise around this
cyclone in DeSoto Canyon.

Visual observers have seen a variety of petrels,
shearwaters, and other birds here that are chasing lots of baitfish.  They
and the bridge watch have reported seeing wahoo and tuna jumping, a marlin
chasing schoolie-dolphins, etc, etc.  At lunchtime today we passed a mixed
species group of 200-300 animals of melonhead whales, Frashers dolphins, and
rough-toothed dolphins, and as sunset approaches the visual team has
reported seeing a  large group of Clymene dolphins out near the horizon.  So
there are a wide variety of higher trophic level predators here!  Just not
many (i.e., only 1 today) sperm whales.  The pair of trawls last night
collected a diverse array of fish, shrimp, and the trawl catch also included
a cookie-cutter shark.  After the trawls tonight, we will redeploy our
hydrophone arrays as we continue north tomorrow towards the head of DeSoto
Canyon.  Unless we divert to follow animals, we should end up at dusk
tomorrow at or near 29 10'N, 87 30'W.
-doug sends

Hello All,

Today we worked SSE along the eastern side of DeSoto Canyon, dropping XBTs
every 10 n miles and towing hydrophone arrays to listen for whales.  Morning
was breezy but Jonathan deployed in the ship's avon after lunch to listen
with directional hydrophone from the small boat, as well. We crossed out of
low salinity green water into 34 psu water by 2 PM.  About 5 PM, visual
observers and acoustics team acquired 2 whales, and Nathalie deployed in the
OSU small boat to supplement Jonathan's effort in the ship's avon.  No fluke
photos were obtained today and both small boats were recovered about an hour
before dusk. We then recovered our hydrophone arrays, did a CTD in the area
where the whales had been acquired, and we are now trawling in this same
area.  After the trawling we will re-deploy the hydrophone arrays and
continue our zig-zag survey.  During the day on Saturday we intend to work
back again to the north along the eastern side towards the head of DeSoto
Canyon, so that by Saturday evening we should be back up at the head of the
canyon.  At 10:45 PM we are at 28 41'N, 86 59'W.
-doug sends

At 8 AM we're at 29 07N, 87 28W and headed SSE towing arrays as we proceed
to survey the eastern margin of DeSoto Canyon.  Seas are up again this
morning but we're hopeful the breeze will drop as the day proceeds and we'll
be able to deploy the ship's avon when/if we acquire whales acoustically.
Trawls last night went well; CTD cast confirmed that freshwater lens of
green water is only about 10 m thick.

-doug sends

Hello everyone,

We spent Thursday 12 June following a group of whales we acquired this
morning in the low salinity green water near the head of DeSoto Canyon.
Although the weather was marginal (3-4 ft seas with whitecaps) for most of
the day, we deployed the ship's avon for photo-ID and recording of initial
clicks.  The sea state was too rough to try to launch the larger, OSU boat
'Puffin'.  Happily, the breeze dropped by mid-afternoon which made the small
boat work much less bruising for the boaters.  Nathalie and Jonathan took
turns going out for shifts of 4 hours each in the avon today, with rotation
by Will and Christoph as drivers.  They haven't yet reviewed the photo-ID
data for today but Nathalie and Jonathan say that together they probably got
a dozen or more photo sequences of perhaps 6 or so individuals.  Yesterday,
near the mouth of the Mississippi River, in a similar rotation using the
ship's avon, they shot 11 sequences or so, corresponding to 7 different
individuals.  We're not sure, yet, whether one of these individuals was an
S-tagged whale.  Nevertheless, photo-ID of
7 different individuals ties our record for best photo-ID day of the trip.
Cumulatively, the photo-ID team has shot 73 sequences through yesterday,
corresponding to 37 individuals.  We're proud of this record since for S-Tag
last year the 3-week photo-ID tally was 43 individuals (and we still have
one more week to go on this year's 3-week survey cruise).  For the Gulf of
Mexico all together, the fluke photo-ID catalog stood at 96 individuals thru
last summer 2002; 43 of these came from S-Tag 2002 and 1 from D-Tag 2003.
So, by the end of this cruise, we hope to have been able to increase the
catalog from 96 individuals to 150 or more.

As for other programs:  We've now dropped a total of 56 XBTs.  We've spaced
these about every 10 miles along the cruise track we've followed from 95W to
87.5W.  We've supplemented the XBT drops with 5 CTDs so far.  The XBT and
CTD stations have allowed us to map the northern periphery of LC Eddy
Sargassum,and to confirm there is cyclonic circulation at the head of DeSoto
Canyon as shown by the 8 June SSH altimetry map.  The trawl winch has been
repaired and the first of tonight's IKMT trawls is in the water.  We will
fish two IKMT trawls tonight in this area where we followed whales at the
head of DeSoto Canyon, the first to 800 m and the second to 600 m.  We will
also do a CTD here to measure the thickness of the freshwater Mississippi
River water lens in DeSoto Canyon.  This low salinity water is about 0.5C
warmer than adjacent slope water, so from the XBT drops it looks like this
freshwater lens is no more than 10 m thick.

At 9:30 PM we are at 28 55'N, 87 47'W and trawling at a speed of 4 knots
toward the north.  After we recover the trawls tonight, we plan to head
south following the eastern margin of DeSoto Canyon tomorrow Friday 13 June,
dropping XBTs every 10 miles and towing both arrays to listen for whales.
We will stop to follow whales when/if we acquire animals tomorrow.  Assuming
we have no further winch problems, we plan to trawl and do a CTD at our
southernmost survey point tomorrow night, and then on Saturday 14 June we
plan to head back again along the eastern side to the head of the canyon.

-doug sends

At 7 AM we're at 29 10'N, 87 43'W.  We deadheaded all night and have just
put in the two hydrophone arrays to see if we can hear any sperm whales.
Water depth is 1100 m but the surface water color here looks like Galveston
Bay:  it's green-brown in color and the surface salinity is 21.7 psu.  What
we're seeing here, of course, is the freshwater outflow from the Mississippi
River that has been forced to the east by the clockwise circulation around
the big Loop Current Eddy Sargassum to the south.  A look back at the data
sheets from last night's deadhead shows that we crossed the boundary between
oceanic water (35 psu) and river water (26 psu) near 28 53'N, 88 22'W.

Seas are running 2 feet today and breeze is about 15 knots so we've got
whitecaps on top of the 2 foot seas but the visual team is on watch and
looking for marine mammals.  We're anxious to find out whether there are any
whales in this head-of-DeSoto Canyon region as we zig-zag back and forth
along the 800-1000 m water depth range today.

We learned from sideband call at 9 PM last night that Ewing had gotten a
D-Tag on a whale in MRC area.  Everyone on Gyre sends our sincere congrats
to Ewing and Kondor science teams, and our best wishes that they be able to
tag additional animals today and hopefully do a CEE today as well!

-doug sends

At 1:45 PM today we're at 28 39'N, 88 41'W which is near the most recent
position of one of the 2 remaining whales that Bruce Mate tagged last
summer.  We are trying to acquire this animal and other whales that we are
hearing clicking and we have our small boat in the water (ship's avon).  But
the breeze is up today and seas are running 2 ft with light whitecaps, so we
probably won't deploy the larger rhib. In spite of breezy weather, photo-id
work is going well as, unlike on other days, the whales are continuing to
feed and fluke up through the day.

I spoke by sat phone with Ewing at 10
AM this morning and learned they are still in Mississippi Canyon.  At 10 AM
their position was 48 miles to the SW of where we are today.  They were
following whales but at least at 10 AM they reported the weather was too
breezy (14 knots, and hence whitecaps there) for them to launch tag boat and
do D-Tag or CEE work.  Our plan aboard Gyre is to continue photo-ID and
initial clicks recordings of the group of whales we've acquired here today,
then do one trawl this evening after we recover the avon, and then deadhead
during the rest of the night NE to the head of DeSoto Canyon.  We are 67 n
miles from waypoint of 29 15'N, 87 30'W at the head of the DeSoto Canyon,
and Captain Dyer thinks we can make this distance in about 7-8 hrs.  So if
we finish up trawling by 1 AM tonite, we should be at head of canyon
tomorrow morning by about 8-9 AM.  In order to stay as far as practical from
Ewing to allow them lots of area to pick whales for D-Tag and CEE work, we
will then work SE along the eastern side of the DeSoto Canyon from
tomorrow's waypoint at head of canyon.

-doug and jonathan send

Hello All,
  We had a successful day following whales on the eastern side of
Mississippi Canyon today.  We arrived here just after 7 AM and acquired
whales acoustically shortly after arrival.  At 7 PM we are at 28 16'N, 89
07'W and both small boats are still out.  They have been following a group
of perhaps 6-9 whales today.  Goal today was to get fluke photo-ID and
record initial clicks and coda exchanges.  As they did yesterday, both small
boats are keeping > 50 m behind whales now that we are no longer doing
biopsy sampling.  Our transit last night took us across the NW (leading)
edge of the big new Loop Current Eddy that has recently separated from the
Loop Current, and this eddy has been the source of the strong west-to-east
current we re experiencing here.  The CTD cast last night documented
subsurface salinity > 36.7 at depths 100-200 m, which is diagnostic of a
fresh LC Eddy.  Trawl winch was repaired today and we will trawl tonite to
600 m and again to 800 m in this area where during the day we've been
following whales.  John Wormuth dip netted a very large (1 m long, 15 cm in
diameter) gelatinous egg case full of larval squid while we were stopped on
station for last night's CTD.

After we finish the trawls tonight, we will continue working our way east
along the 800-1000 m topography.  We look forward to learning whether Ewing
and Kondor to our west had a successful D-Tag and CEE day today.

-doug sends

Hello All,
We steamed NE last evening to get clear of the field area for CEE work that
we expect Ewing/Kondor will begin today.At 7 AM we are at 28 10'N, 89 11'W,
on the eastern side of Mississippi Canyon close off production platform
Mars.  I phoned Ewing on Inmarsat and learned they are at 27 34'N, 90 06'W,
or about 61 n miles away from us.  So we're good to go listening/looking for
whales here.  Arrays went in just after 7 AM and by 7:30 AM we had acoustic
contact with at least one animal.  We will deploy small boats and see what
we can see/hear.  Weather is fine; no whitecaps and seas only about 1 foot.
-doug sends

After our rendevous with Ewing this morning, we continued along our Western
Gulf Line Transect #5 and as we moved away from the Ewing and Kondor ops
area we deployed Jonathan Gordon in the ship's avon.  About mid-morning,
Jonathan heard distant whales when dipping the  directional hydrophone from
the avon, and so his avon team directed the Gyre in the direction of this
acoustic contact.  The contact turned out to be a group of animals which
were then acquired with Gyre's towed hydrophones and seen through BigEyes by
the visual team on the flying bridge.  We followed this group of animals
throughout the afternoon taking photo-id images and making recordings of
initial clicks.  (As we are no longer attempting biopsy whales are no longer
approached closely, most images being taken at ranges of 60-70m.) We
deployed the other rhib in the afternoon, and Nathalie Jaquet teamed with
Jonathan to use both small boats to follow several animals in the group.
The animals moved generally WSW so that by dusk we were some 30 nautical
miles SW of where we had left the Ewing this morning.  We did a CTD cast
before departing this area but we were unable to trawl here because of trawl
winch problems.  We talked with Mark Johnson aboard Ewing by sat phone
shortly after 9 PM and learned that Ewing was following whales with plans to
do D-Tag work with them tomorrow.  So Gyre will deadhead tonite to leapfrog
east of Ewing's planned work area, so that we are away from any D-tag and
CEE work that Ewing may be able to do tomorrow.  Our way point to start
survey tomorrow is 28 10'N, 89 12'W, in deepwater to the east of Mississippi
Canyon.  This is about an 80 mile run from where we ended up today (27 31'N,
90 28'W) and if we average 8 knots this leap-frog run should take us about
10 hours to complete.
-doug sends

We're following whales again today Monday 9 June, but I thought you might
like to have some summary stats for the cruise so far:

Dan took biopsy samples from 10 different whales as they fluked up to dive.
He also collected pieces of sloughed skin at 3 different locations near
where whales had breached, for genetics work.

Nathalie and Jonathan have taken 40 sequences of 20 different whales as they
fluked up to dive.  Yesterday, the two small boats working in tandem got 17
of these sequences which they matched to 5 different animals.  We have not
had any (re)sightings of the same animal on different days; in other words,
we're seeing different animals each day.

John and Steve have done 12 IKMT trawls so far, and we've dropped 39 XBTs
and done 3 CTD casts.  Including several boxes of T7 probes not used on
GulfCet2 cruises, which we've brought along with us, we still have about 60
probes remaining and we plan to drop these XBTs every 10-20 nautical miles
as we go and do more CTDs as we head east of 90W.  We're collecting 4-8
calibration samples each day for chlorophyll fluorescence. So far we have
not encountered much low salinity green water out along the 800-1000 m
isobath.  Water has been > 33 psu and mostly gray-blue to azure blue in
color.
-doug sends

At 9:30 this morning Dan Engelhaupt transferred over the R/V Ewing.  Ewing
and Kondor were working together near 27 40N, 90 22W and as we passed this
location Ewing sent R2 over to Gyre to pick up Dan.  Transfer went smoothly;
Dan carried plots of where we'd seen whales in the western Gulf, along with
example of our acoustic backscatter data that Amanda Olson has been
processing to show diel vertical migration of deep scattering layers.
Trawls last night went smoothly; both caught several large (10-12" long) big
black fang-tooth fish along with the usual red shrimp and medusae.  No big
squid but several examples of squid in the 2-4 inch size range.  We will
continue our line transect work today and do photo-ID of whales we may
encounter. Weather forecast is for good weather in central Gulf for today
through at least Wednesday, so if/when we acquire whales we will be able to
deploy small boats.
-doug sends

Acoustics teams successfully tracked the whales encountered at dusk
yesterday all through the night and we spent today getting photo-ID and
acoustic recordings of some half a dozen animals.  Sea state today was the
best we've had for the trip so far; no waves and only a low swell.
Visual observers could see animals at the surface easily and coordination
between acoustics team and visual team was very effective.  We deployed both
small boats and by the end of the day had  biopsy samples and  photo-ID
sequences.  When we recover the small boats at dusk tonight, we will then
trawl tonight back over the track we followed the whales.  When trawling
finishes, we'll redeploy the arrays and head out of this area to finish our
final Line Transect in the area west of 90W.  Tomorrow we will work our way
east from 90W and will be in side-band and/or radio contact with Ewing to
learn when/where they suggest we rendevous.  Weather forecast is good for
the next few days, so we ought to be able to transfer Dan Engelhaupt to
Ewing if he is still needed.  My sat phone call to the Ewing this morning
told me that our location at 9 AM today was 80 nautical miles from where
Ewing had deployed their tag boat.  Since Ewing is not doing CEE work, yet,
we will continue to work animals we encounter by deploying our small boats
as we head east tomorrow.
-doug sends

Subject: GYRE report for Saturday 7 June
   Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2003 07:00:44 -0500
  From: Sea-Mail

 At 06:00 CDT we're at 27 26'N, 91 33'W and still in the western Gulf
running line transects. We've decided not to deadhead to the eastern Gulf
because the offshore weather forecast for late yesterday 6 June is now
predicting winds will be only max 15 knots and seas max 4-6 ft west of 90W.
Previously, prediction had been for winds to 20 knots plus, and seas > 6 ft.
So we're going to ride out the bumpy weather that we think we'll get west of
90W today in hopes that by Sunday and on into the coming Mon-Tues we'll have
small-boat favorable conditions again.  Way points for line transects we are
running are:  1) upslope end of present line = 27 44'N, 91 18'W; 2)
downslope end of next line = 27 21'N, 90 49'W; 3) upslope end of following
line = 27 51'N, 90 08'W; 4) start of our Centre-West transect = 28 00'N, 89
59'W.  We didn't see or hear whales last night but did a trawl last night to
800 m to see whether there may be any noticeable differences in critters in
area of no whales.

We spent the day running line transects, working our way east from 92W to 90
45'W.  Sea state wasn't too bad here in the western Gulf so we were able to
survey with visual observers as well as acoustic teams.  We deployed the
ship's avon to help us listen, as well.  But all we heard today was one
whale, very erratic and far off, which we were unable to reacquire.  Until 8
PM, that is, for as we were recovering the avon, acoustics started hearing
lots of whales.  They are also hearing seismics in the distance.  At 9 PM
tonite we're at 27 26'N, 90 35W and we're going to keep hydrophone arrays in
all night (no trawling tonite) in attempt to stay with this group of animals
so we can get out and do photo-ID and biopsy some of them from the small
boats in the morning.

-doug sends

Subject: GYRE rpt Friday 6 June
   Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 16:48:46 -0500
  From: Sea-Mail

We're running line transects today, as we zig-zag east along the 800-1000 m
bathymetry.  At 16:45 CDT we are at 27 17'N, 92 12'W.  We're in high
salinity (>36 psu) very low CHL blue water; our ADCPs say current is
on-margin and our XBTs tell us we're in the northern part of anticyclonic
(warm) filament.  No sperm whales have been seen or heard today, although
visual team reported seeing several areas of fish activity at the surface.
The trawling last night collected very little biomass of critters in the
trawl to 800 m as we trawled back over the track where we had seen whales
yesterday.  We got no collection from the follow-up trawl to 600 m, though,
because the collecting end of the net came unclipped in heavy seas as
trawling team got ready to recover the trawl.

Weather today is not very good.  While we don't have whitecaps (except
during passage of local squalls), we are running through a very confused sea
with seas averaging 2-3 ft.  From the offshore forecast we expect the wind
to pick up later today or tonight, as we continue to head east.  We expect
this will raise the seas and create whitecap conditions.  When this occurs,
we will pull in the arrays and deadhead to the east as described in
yesterday's report.  By Sunday, after we will have moved from 92W to near
85W, we should be experiencing lighter breezes than we would have had if we
had stayed in the area 92W-90W.  We then expect to be able to survey west
from 85W, as described in yesterday's report.  If we find sperm whales in
the eastern Gulf and if sea state conditions allow us to deploy small
boat(s),  this we hope should allow Dan Engelhaupt to get biopsy samples
from the eastern as well as western Gulf on this cruise.  When we meet up
with Ewing mid-June or so, assuming that weather allows small-boat work at
that time Dan will transfer from Gyre to Ewing.

-doug sends

Subject: GYRE 5 June
   Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 17:21:12 -0500
  From: Sea-Mail

Trawls last night were done back over the ground we had covered following
sperm whales yesterday, and these two trawls both went smoothly.  John and
Steve repot that in addition to the midwater fish, red shrimp, medusae, etc,
etc that they've been seeing were several larger-than-usual examples of
black viperfish. One of them is a foot long (unusually large for this kind
of fish).  So at its tow speed of 4-5 knots the 15 m^2 IKMT is obviously
capable of catching large nekton.  These big things are however
few-and-far-between at the depths they're fishing, since a typical trawl
fishes hundreds of thousands of  m^3 of water.  No big squids, yet, but we
keep hoping we'll get some.  We're still fishing one trawl to 800 m and the
other to 600 m, in expectation that the whales are diving to these depths
when water depths where we are finding whales are 800-1000 m.  It will be
useful to learn from the D-Tag group whether this is the case for the whales
that Ewing is working near 88W, and from Aaron Thode aboard Kondor (when
Kondor is near whales) whether his passive 3D data show if the whales are
diving to these depths.

Visual observers saw a group of pilot whales this morning as we progressed
along our line transects and just west of 93 W, acoustics acquired and then
visual observers saw a group of sperm whales.  We have deployed both small
boats today and we have been following these whales since 9 AM.  The whales
are not staying in one place but are moving more or less to the east.  Goal
of the small boat teams today is to get more biopsy and photo-ID fluke
shots, as well as to make recordings of the click record of individual known
animals, starting as they fluke up (and get photo-ID) and begin a dive.
After we recover the small boats, we'll trawl tonight back over the ground
we are covering today following the whales.

At 16:30 CDT we are at 27 26'N, 93 00'W in water depth of 1000 m.  Seas here
are as lumpy again as they were yesterday, but by afternoon today at least
the wind has dropped and we've lost the whitecaps that were present in the
morning.  Judging from the offshore weather forecast, we expect to have
another day of weather tomorrow that allows small boat deployment, but the
forecast for the weekend is for 4-6 ft seas.  Tomorrow we will survey the
slope between 93W and 92W and deploy small boats if/when we acquire whales
there but we will then probably deadhead from there (during the weekend bad
weather) to 26 46'N, 85 07'W on the slope off Naples FL, so that by Sunday
as the weekend blow is ending we will be surveying for whales from
south-to-north along the east side of DeSoto Canyon and the area of cyclonic
circulation that the SSH maps show to be present along the eastern periphery
of the warm eddy that has just been shed by the Loop Current.  We will work
our way north, then west, to the area 88W-90W where we will rendevous with
Ewing.

-doug sends

We followed a group of 6-9 whales for most of the day, tracking them acoustically and visually as these animals headed generally eastward over water depths of 800-1000 m from 94W to 93 45W.  Seas were lumpy today with something like a 2 ft chop on top of a 3 ft long swell, but Dan managed to get biopsies of 3 animals and Jonathan got the companion photo-ID shots of the fluke as the animal dived.  Jonathan also got photo-ID shots of several additional animals (probably 6 animals in all) and recorded the clicks of each animal as it dived.  So we think we have a fairly good profile of the animals in this group, and we'll move on to survey eastward from 93 45W tomorrow.  So far for this cruise, Dan now has half a dozen biopsy samples of animals from the western Gulf, and Nathalie and Jonathan have 13 photo-ID sequences.

The small boat had to return at 16:00 CDT because of incoming rain squall and thunderstorm.  Because of the squall, visual obs then shut down for the day and we pulled in hydrophone arrays and are now in the process of trawling back over the ground we covered today.  John Wormuth will trawl 1st to 800 m, and then go back in with 2nd IKMT to 600 m.  When we finish trawling, we will redeploy the arrays and tow them toward line transect way point in water depth of 500 m at 27 27N, 93 12W.  We'll then head SE from there to 3rd line transect way point in water depth of 1000 m, at 27 09N, 92 32W.
-doug sends

Subject: GYRE report for 3 June
   Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 21:46:23 -0500
  From:  Sea-Mail

We acquired and followed whales again near 94W during a day of nice weather.We chose to deploy the  OSU rhib today, since the seas were calmer than yesterday.   The OSU rhib had been bay-tested before we left Galveston, and the engine performed fine today.  Working from this bigger boat, Dan got a biopsy sample and Nathalie took the companion photo-ID picture of the tail fluke as the whale fluked up and dived.  Nathalie also got photo-ID pictures of the flukes of 3 (maybe 4) other whales today.  Trawling last evening went smoothly; John fished the 15 m^2 IKMT first to 600 m for 2 hours, and then went back in to trawl to 700 m for another 1.5 hours.  Both trawls collected a diverse catch of pelagic fauna, including several types of small-size squid.  Sonia took samples from both trawl collections for her C and N isotope measurements.

Subject:  GYRE work w whales later in the day on 2 June
   Date:  Tue, 03 Jun 2003 09:30:37 -0500
  From:  Sea-Mail

Just after I sent my report for today 2 June, we decided to put the ship's avon in the water and try to get biopsy and photo-ID.  We lucked out, for the breeze dropped off after 16:30 CDT and the small boat was able to approach several whales.  Dan got a biopsy sample as one whale fluked up and Jonathan got the photo-ID to match.  Dan later got a biopsy from a 2nd animal and some dipnetted some sloughed skin floating at the surface in the area where one of the whales breached, as well.  As sunset approached, some of the whales were socializing at the surface, so the acoustic team was able to get clear recordings of codas. We recovered the ship's avon at 20:15 CDT and started the first trawl at 22:00 CDT. We will try to reacquire the whales tomorrow and continue the biopsy and photo-ID effort here (27 16'N, 93 49'W).
-doug sends

Subject: 2 June report from GYRE
   Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 16:51:37 -0500
  From: Sea-Mail

At 16:30 CDT today we're at 27 21'N, 93 58'W over the middle slope in water depth of 900 m.  We've had acoustic contacts with sperm whales most of the afternoon, and presently the acoustic team has contacts with up to 8 whales at a time.  We have not launched small boats, though, because of the weather.  A strong breeze from the south has raised the seas here to about Beaufort State 4.  Visual observers have seen some of the whales blow when animals have surfaced close to the ship, but spouts of whales that may be surfacing farther out are difficult to pick out among the seas and whitecaps.  We'll continue to follow this group of whales through the rest of the afternoon, and this evening we'll trawl in this area where the whales have been diving.

The trawl last night was fished to 730 m, and because the trawl was outfitted with an internally-recording time-depth(and temperature) recorder, John Wormuth now can estimate trawl depth from wire out.  Tonight he will fish one trawl to 600 m and compare the catch with the 2nd trawl he plans to fish to 800 m.  Last night's trawl to 730 m collected about a gallon of biomass in 3 hours.  Denizens included midwater fish, red shrimp, coronate medusae, and leptocephalus eel larvae.  No squid, however.  The XBT data we collected yesterday showed that last night's trawling was within the warm eddy described in yesterday's report.  The whales we're seeing today are on the eastern periphery of this warm eddy, so we're interested to see whether the trawl collections we get here are appreciably different.

In addition to the whales we're seeing this afternoon, the visual observers this morning also saw a group of about 4 dozen melon-head whales and another group of about a dozen pan-tropical spotted dolphins.  The surface water here today where we're seeing these marine mammals is high salinity (> 35) and low in chlorophyll, indistinguishable from the surface water in the warm eddy we were in yesterday.  Because we're also collecting subsurface temperature data (from XBTs and a CTD done yesterday), though, we know we are on the eastern periphery of a warm eddy.  The remote sensing altimetry we get from CCAR is also helpful to show us where we are in relation to mesoscale warm and cold eddies.  Moreover, the SeaWiFS ocean color maps that were available before we sailed indicate there is a region of off-margin flow to our east, so we expect to encounter lower salinity, higher CHL water when we move east fom 94W following the 800-1000 m bathymetry.

Everyone is in good spirits but we certainly wish the seas would lay down enough to allow us to get out there among the whales!  Biopsy samples and photo-ID will be our priority as soon as the weather allows.

-doug sends

Subject: GYRE report for Sunday 1 June
   Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 18:48:58 -0500
  From:  Sea-Mail

During the evening of 31 May - 1 June, we lost acoustic contact with sperm whales heard 31 May.  Despite several course changes done in attempt to acoustically reacquire the whales, they remained elusive.  Today, we've been running a pair of "mow-the-lawn" survey lines south-to-north and then back north-to-south in the vicinity of deepwater platform Diana-Hoover.  We've been "on effort" all day and visual observers and acoustic team have not seen or heard sperm whales, although a group of six pilot whales was sighted.  All of the area searched today has been high salinity low chlorophyll "blue water". This was expected based on the blended altimetry for 28 May, which shows a warm slope eddy is here in the "eddy graveyard" in the NW corner of the GOM continental margin.  XBT drops today showed 15C depths ranged from 216 m in water depths of 800 m to deeper than 248 m in water depths > 1200 m.  We plan to trawl tonight in the deepwater to the NE of the platform.  Our next waypoint after the trawling will be 27.5N, 94.0W, and when we arrive there we will begin our zig-zag sweep from west to east along the 800-1000 m depth zone.
-doug sends

We're experiencing a breeze which has created 2-ft sea conditions with some whitecaps here at 27.5N, 94.6W.  We reached this location (water depth 850 m) mid-afternoon today and stopped to do a SeaCat CTD.  We then deployed th two Ecologic hydrophone arrays and Jonathan Gordon and his acoustics team had both of them up and running by late afternoon.  We will to continue to tow hydrophone arrays tonight to survey for whales and to evaluate hydrophone characteristics.  Jonathan Gordon has heard some distant seismic survey noise so the arrays seem to have very good LF response.  We had both visual and acoustic contacts with sperm whales today (our 1st day at sea) so we will stay in this area throughout the night tonite and the day tomorrowto try to get an idea of how many animals may be here.  We will deploy small boats tomorrow if sea conditions allow.
-doug biggs sends

Hello all,
We sailed for sea at 23:00 CDT today.  We'll steam south from Galveston tonight and should be in deepwater by tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon. Bigeyes are set up on flying bridge underneath the canvas sun-shade canopy. Visual observers will begin to look for whales tomorrow when we reach the shelf break.  We'll stop to do a CTD when we reach 1000 m water depth tomorrow, and then deploy the two new Ecologic hydrophone arrays to begin our acoustic search for whales.  Everyone is eager to begin this visual+acoustic survey, and the offshore marine forecast is for good weather for the next few days.
-doug sends