Highlights From TC 01-11 Reef Resotoration
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Aloha from the Townsend Cromwell!
11/15/01
The NOAAS TOWNSEND CROMWELL is currently anchored near Tern Island on French Frigate Shoal. We have been surveying reef and removing debris along the Northwest Hawaiian Island chain. After a week and a half of rough weather, the winds and seas have calmed making everything we do a little easier. The Marine Debris cruise is going well. We have nearly filled six dumpsters chained to the working deck of our ship with debris. Removing this debris is important because it is a danger to the wildlife of these island refuges.
We have been at French Frigate Shoal for a few
days surveying the reef by towing snorkelers behind small boats so we can cover a lot of ground in a shorter period of
time. As the snorkelers discover debris, the location is marked by a buoy or it's coordinates are noted. The snorkelers
come back to the debris to remove it after finishing a section of the survey area. The snorkelers carefully remove the
debris, which is usually old discarded fishing net or synthetic rope, and haul it up to the surface and load it into the
small
boats. Some debris is too deep to be removed by snorkelers, and the ship's scuba divers pitch in. The removal
can be tricky and even dangerous. Once the net and the bottom is disturbed you are engulfed in a cloud of silt. The net
is an entanglement hazard for divers as well as seals and birds.
During the rough weather we were still able to accomplish a lot. We loaded debris onboard
from the islands that has been gathered and stored by field biologists. These field biologists camp for months at a time
on the remote islands to study seals, birds, and vegetation and add collecting marine debris to their daily work. At
night we have been conducting acoustic benthic classification surveys of the deeper parts of the reef with the ship while
the snorkelers sleep. Sound waves are emitted by the ship's echo sounder. The sound bounces off the bottom and is
received and analyzed by computer. The character of the echo gives clues to whether the there is sand or seaweed or coral
below the ship. We sometimes tow a small camera sled behind the ship to get visual confirmation of the echosounder's
results.
We will be heading toward Honolulu in a few days but the work will continue as we do more
surveys and a few CTD's along the way.
Previous update: October 31, 2001
The TOWNSEND CROMWELL is currently working in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands removing marine debris from the islands and their surrounding reef. We embark on this important and gratifying mission once every year as a part of a multi-institutional cleanup effort headed up by researchers from the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Honolulu Laboratory. We also have representatives from the State of Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, and The Ocean Conservancy aboard contributing to the effort. The crew of the TOWNSEND CROMWELL are working as divers, small boat drivers and in other support capacities.
Marine debris is anything man-made that ends up floating around in the ocean. Almost all of it is plastic, and most of it is fishing net and synthetic line, or rope. The currents of the North Pacific Ocean carry debris as they stream past the Hawaiian Islands. The debris gets caught in the coral or washes up on the beaches. The Northwest Hawaiian Islands end up acting like a comb or filter that catches the debris of the North Pacific.
The debris is an entanglement hazard and very
dangerous to the wildlife of these remote island refuges. This project began in the late 1990's because the derelict
fishing nets and plastic trash were found to be responsible for deaths of many juvenile Hawaiian Monk Seals and seabird
fledglings. The dangerous nature of the debris fuels our enthusiasm for this arduous, but rewarding work.