21 July 2008 R/V Wecoma cruise - Estuary North Channel

Today we attempted to follow an intermediate bottom salinity as it moved up estuary on the flood and down estuary on the ebb. We waited until the strong ebb settled down at about 10:00 pdt and moved to station NC-7, which lies 7 miles up estuary from the mouth. We established a set of stations at half-mile increments from NC-7 to NC-11 near the bridge, including 3 stations spanning the channel at each point. We then worked our way up the estuary with the flood casting the CTD at several of these stations. During slack tide we continued to cast the CTD at the three NC-11 stations because our ship does not fit under the bridge. We found, however, that the weaker ebb did not change the bottom salinity very much. At 2100 we returned to the North Channel anchor station.