Journals 2004/2005

Aimee Gauthier
Brockton High School, Brockton, Massachusetts

"Late summer ecosystems monitoring survey" NOAA Ship Albatross August 16-23, 2004

Journal Index: August 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23

August 19, 2004 - Day 4
Watch: 6am - 12pm

Although a little groggy this morning the cold water waves that were continuously hitting the sides of the ship woke me up. The waves drenched me because of the winds. It was 16 knots, which is not gale winds but it was strong enough to soak me.

I was able to determine the number of nautical miles, by using the latitude and longitude scales and the cruise charts. I was able to take this information and determine our next stations estimated time of arrival watch. Yeah!

At the last station in the 61 cm bongo nets the sample pulled in 4 moon jellies, Aurelia aurita. These moon jellies belong to Animalia, Cnidaria, Schyphozoa, Semacestomaea, Ulmaridae, Aurelia aurita.
The characteristics are as follows:

• Up to 25cm or 10" in diameter
• Can be pale pink, orange or a milky white
• Are free floating
• Have four gonads
• Radial symmetry
• Float as an umbrella shape saucer
• Has many tentacles hanging from the stomach
• Found in late spring in the New England area

August 19, 2004 - Day 4
Watch: 6pm - 12am

After dinner, we had to do our 27th station of the cruise, I believe we were 25 miles off of Cape May in New Jersey (38° 53' .75 lat and 74° 40' .75 lon). There was so much in the sample in the nets that we needed to split the sample. When preserving the sample from each net, I had to put it in two jars. With in this sample there were approximately 6 moon jellies and lots of ctenophores or acorn jellies. They are small gelatinous masses with the diameter of 1 cm.

We will have two more stations tonight and then to bed I go!