Townsend Cromwell
Student Connection
Just in from the Ship
TC-99-08 Marine Mammal Research Camp Disbandment
July 15-August 2, 1999
July 20, 1999 The TOWNSEND CROMWELL departed Honolulu on July 15 and headed
northwest (NW) for the NW Chain of Hawaiian Islands. The
main goal of this cruise is
to transport supplies to the field camps (right)
operated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service
(NMFS) on Tern Island (French Frigate Shoals) and the USFWS camp on Laysan Island. In
addition, we are to load personnel and equipment from the NMFS camps on Laysan, Lisianski,
Pearl and Hermes, and Kure and transport their personnel and equipment back to Honolulu.
As there are too many people for us to berth aboard the ship, we plan to stop at Midway
Island to drop off the first half of scientists so they can fly back to Honolulu. In 
addition, some of the camps
have marine debris (below left) which they would like us
to haul away. Also, Kure had a lobster boat run aground and lose 400 lobster traps, which
we are going to try to collect and haul to Midway for future retrieval and transport to
Honolulu. In amongst all these various island stops, we are stopping at various deep water
stations and lowering our CTD (Oceanographic sensor array) to a depth of 500 meters to
gather oceanographic data. All and all, there are a lot of projects to do. By July 17, we
had traveled the 500 nautical miles (NM) to Tern Island where we anchored and delivered 13
boatloads of supplies. We departed that evening and steamed 329 NM to Laysan where we
anchored on July 19 and transported 11 boatloads of supplies and equipment. Four hours
later, we departed and steamed 249 NM to Pearl and Hermes Reef to break the camp there and
assist with moving some net from one of the seal pupping beaches to a more secluded area.
We are now almost finished with the camp. Tomorrow we'll take the three boats we have and
run to North Island to remove the net there. We won't have enough room aboard ship to
transport the net for disposal to Honolulu, but at least we can move it to a more secluded
area. The weather has been absolutely beautiful as we have had clear skies, gentle winds
and calm seas. If all goes well, we should leave Pearl and Hermes for Kure atoll on the
evening of the 21st.
Other cruise write-ups for TC-99-08
Last modified July 30, 1999