Mooring Recovery

Everyone on board has been busy collecting, processing and analyzing their samples – we’ve just completed the first ¼ of our research stations! In addition to collecting water and plankton we occasionally recover moorings for an oceanographer who is not on board. These moorings are long ropes, weighted at the bottom and with buoys on their top. At various points along the line there are data collectors which record information about the current, temperature, and pressure of the water. Having these spaced out throughout the water column vertically gives physical oceanographers the information to understand how various water masses are moving. Having multiple moorings spaced out at various locations around the Western peninsula gives a more complete (vertical and horizontal) picture of how water moves in this region.

These moorings aren’t able to send their data back to us from their deep location within the ocean, so once a year during this research trip they are collected. The ship has the coordinates of where the moorings were deployed 1 year prior; we return to the site and send an acoustic signal to the mooring which then releases itself from the weight anchoring it to the ocean floor. The buoy at the top of the line drags the whole thing to the surface. Then the competition begins on board to see who can spot the buoys first. Despite having detailed coordinates, the ocean is a huge place. With the waves heaving up and down it can be difficult to spot the buoy!

Once spotted the ship maneuvers close by and someone tosses a hook and line to snag the buoy. The buoy, line and sensors are then hauled on board. Here on the ship the information is downloaded for use.

Second mate Greg helps spot the buoy

Naomi Shelton (Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory) tosses the line and hook to catch the mooring

  Oscar Schofield (Rutgers U.) walks 1 of 15 sensors (still attached to the line) inside as others continue to haul in the line

Oscar Schofield and Filipa Carvalho (both Rutgers U.) haul in the acoustic sensor (yellow) and floats (orange) which were attached to the line and help make it buoyant