Byron Crump's blog

There were concerns about traveling to the North Channel - rumor had it that the sand flats had shifted, making the channel inaccessible. Thankfully, these rumors were false. We sampled water six times during the day - three at ebb slack in the morning, and three at flood slack in the evening. We did not get freshwater samples, but surface salinity was 4.1 at the end of the ebb in the morning. Bottom salinities were high.

[img_assist|nid=776|title=Research technician Matt Kalisz preserving DNA samples|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=113|height=150] I forgot to post this one. Here are my notes from Aug 22.

[img_assist|nid=766|title=R/V Clifford Barnes|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=200|height=150] In the morning we traveled up to River Mile 23 to take freshwater samples near the end of the Ebb tide. We sampled a little down-estuary from our pre-selected site where the channel was a little wider and straighter. We then moved down-estuary to Tongue point at river mile 19, did a CTD cast, and continued to Buoy-39 at River mile 15 where we took our second set of samples. We continued down-estuary to river mile 8 off of the town of Hammond and collected a third set of samples.

[img_assist|nid=775|title=Chief Scientist Byron Crump blogging in the dry lab|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=200|height=150] We waited for sunrise before sampling at WB-50 and continuing along the Willipa Bay line going east. We visited nine stations, collecting water at four (WB-50, WB-35, WB-19, WB-9). We then transited to the estuary, crossing the bar at around 2200. We traveled up the estuary and anchored for the night near Tongue Point at river mile 19. Note that we had no cell phone or internet connectivity during our time on the Washington coast.

[img_assist|nid=774|title=Graduate student Caroline Fortunato collecting DNA & RNA samples|desc=|link=popup|align=right|width=200|height=150] We left the dock at 1200 and transited to station GH-3 on the Gray's Harbor line. Overnight we visited 10 stations for CTD casts and then traveled to station WB-50 on the Willipa Bay line to collect water samples on 25-Aug.

Antonio Baptista provided another set of plume way-points, but this set included CTD-only points between the water sampling points. Sites were adjusted to allow time to get to the dock in Astoria that evening. The captain estimated 3.5 hours to get from near the estuary mouth to the dock. We collected samples at five stations, 2 depths each for a total of 10 samples. We completed our final cast near the estuary mouth at 1610, motored into the estuary, and docked at Pier 2 in Astoria.

Feature Tracking exercises filled the day. We received 15 way-points in and around the Columbia River plume from Antonio Baptista, and visited these waypoints at specific times during the day for CTD casts. Stations were named P-1 to P-15. We e-mailed information about surface salinity and temperature from the CTD and the surface water flow through system back to the modeling team at OHSU, who used the information to compare with model predictions. The last cast was at 2100.

Night shift ran CTD casts going west along the Queets River line, ending at about 0430. We then sailed to station LP-52, and began sampling along the LaPush line. We sampled at nine sites including a site over the canyon formed by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and took water samples at four stations (LP-52, LP-32, LP-17, and LP-6). We found high surface water fluorescence close to the coast. The evening was spent motoring back to the estuary mouth

Night shift ran eight CTD casts going east along the Columbia River line, and then waited several hours before heading into the Columbia R. estuary. At 0800 we pulled into port in Astoria at pier 2. Michael Wilkin met the ship and drove with Byron Crump to the Fred Meyer store to buy a small cooler and 15lbs of dry ice. We transported all DNA/RNA and core samples on dry ice to a -80 freezer at the OSU extension facility in Astoria. We then gave the dry ice to Lisa Zeigler for transporting her samples back to JCVI in California.

Night shift ran six CTD casts going east along the Cape Falcon line, and finished early enough for us to arrive at the first Columbia River line station at 0630. We visited nine stations, and took water samples at four stations (CR-7, CR-15, CR-25, CR-40). At station CR-7 we collected 12 10-liter niskin bottles at the chlorophyll maximum for Lisa Zeigler. We collected core samples at two stations (CR-15, CR-35). Rachel Schneider subsampled from the multicorer with cut-of 60-cc syringes, and froze the sediment at -80. We completed the final cast at about 2000 hours.