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40.22N, 70.11W

It’s the first day of summer, but strangely it’s the first cool, foggy day we’ve experienced on this otherwise pleasant cruise. We can see evidence of rain that fell overnight and lightning-inflected patches of storms all around us as we steam over the continental shelf.

Yesterday, the ship transformed into a fishing vessel, outfitted with a small mid-water trawl that took some effort from the science party and crew to set up. A test trawl at about 40 meters (120 feet) netted a dozen starfish. But by following the zooplankton on the EK-80, then turning around to capture them, much more came in from three times that depth. As National Marine Fisheries Service biologist Mike Jech explained, the net opening is too small and was dragged too slow to catch fish. But that wasn’t our intention—we’re looking for what the fish eat.

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We’ve reached the southernmost point of the Pioneer Array, a milestone that’s not at all obvious to the naked eye. Aside from the occasional cruiser, the only people who purposely venture out to 70N 39W are fishermen (whose gear dots the endless blue) and scientists on research ships like these.

We’re doing a transect down the middle of the array area to track the movement of the front, or the interface at the continental shelf where relatively fresh water mixes with saltier water. Though we’re “in” the array, we’re still miles away from the moorings that make up this outpost in the global Ocean Observatories Initiative. After making our southernmost CTD cast, chief scientist Gareth Lawson kindly allowed us to go slightly off course to get a glimpse of the actual moorings.
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Lat: 39.48 Long: 70.47

It’s weekend on land, but it’s a busy workday on board the R/V Neil Armstrong. I’ve joined the science party and crew on the vessel’s sixth science verification cruise intended to test its capabilities and capacity to handle various science objectives. Now on day two of six, we’re settling into a comfortable rhythm of sampling, assessing, and troubleshooting.

The ship aside, we’ve got a real cross-section of talent on board, including acousticians, biologists, and chemical and physical oceanographers all working toward a common goal: to characterize the waters along the continental shelf. Though very different from one another, each of the disciplines represented on board is complementary on this cruise. Physical oceanographers are following the interface between the water on the continental shelf (relatively warm and fresh “onshore” water) and offshore water, which is dotted with eddies spinning off from the Gulf Stream.
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