Chasing the rainbow on our way north

My fish friends are back!

We headed back into the Mexican Gulf again with a new mission and a new science crew. We are transiting the ship from Pascagoula to Rhode Island, where we will arrive on the 28th of September. During that transect we have some specific target areas where we will do more detailed surveys.

Our current position outside North Carolinas coast
http://www.ncddc.noaa.gov/website/google_maps/OkeanosExplorer/mapsOkeanos.htm

We now have Frank, a marine archeologist from OER onboard. He have helped planning the route to include some interesting wreck sites. Apparently quite a few ships were sunken outside the US East coast during the second world war. We have already found one big wreck, and we are currently doing a small survey outside North Carolinas coast where a battle took place and 4-5 ship were sunk. One of them is supposedly a german submarine which sank a few cargo ships before it was bombed.

Marine archeologist Frank looking for treasure at sunset a few hours ago

We stopped the ship a few hours so that 5 Crew members could go diving on the marine reserve Dry Tortuges off Key West for training. I was happy for them but it was hard not to be a little jealous...

In addition to the wrecks, the seafloor along the way have been really interesting, in the Florida straight we saw big sinkholes and pinnacles that according to previous studies are filled with lots of life and deep water corals, I have also seen some massive schools with fish in the water column in Hemingways favorite fishing water outside Key West which have spurred my imagination...

Fishing for tuna in the rich waters off the North Carolina shelf this evening,
while killing time with the guitar - who says guys cant multitask :)

 My shift is from 0000 to 0800, I am still jet lagged but its been going quite well with the new routine. I sleep in the morning until late afternoon, wake up to eat dinner, then try and get an hour or two of daylight before the vampires comes out. The nice part of it is that its quite a social time to be awake, aka I have spend plenty of time playing xbox with the crew, which is the main event of the day here aside of work. 

Okeanos Explorer (xbox) battle field.

Evening jam session on deck with Dr. Mike.

Florida Disney land not far away. 

Miami about to fall off the earth. 

Only one week to go before we arrive in Rhode Island. Hopefully I will find that submarine tonight (but if I do find it I cannot tell you unless I kill you).