The 2024 Cascadia Expedition left the port of Astoria, Oregon this morning aboard the R/V Atlantis after a fun July 4th in Astoria including watching fireworks from the ship's bow.
As is often the case at sea, our plans were immediately shuffled around by the weather. We're having somewhat odd weather for the Cascadia region, with beautifully clear and sunny skies. Unfortunately, those sunny skies come with too much wind to safely deploy the ROV Jason. Based on the weather forecast, the winds should improve and we hope to be able to deploy Jason tomorrow. Therefore, we shuffled around the order of operations for our cruise, and we are using our first day to complete our longest transit to GNSS-A site NCB1 where will plan to deploy a waveglider and reoccupy existing GNSS-A benchmarks with new transponders. Schedules at sea are always subject to changes such as this, so our apply-to-sail participants and graduate students are getting an authentic sea-going experience!
After leaving port, our first order of business was a safety briefing, during which we all had the experience of donning our "gumby suits" also known as "immersion suits" or "survival suits". It is quite a challenge but also a bonding experience for the group to struggle with the suits together!
The long transit at the beginning of the voyage has turned out to be a great opportunity to give everyone tours of the scientific equipment on board - including the Seafloor Optical Fiber Strainmeter (SOFS) Replaceable Electronics Module (REM), the fetch transponders strapped to the elevator, the Wave Glider, and the ROV Jason.
Noel Jackson explaining the SOFS REM. Photo credit: Raul Mendoza
John DeSanto explaining the Wave Glider. Photo credit: David Schmidt
Tito Collasius explaining features of the ROV Jason. Photo credit: Raul Mendoza
Look for more blog posts soon as we commence science operations in Cascadia!
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