Student Connection

Just in from the Ship

TC-99-10 Reef Restoration / Marine Debris Survey & Removal
October 6 - November 4, 1999

November 01, 1999  The Marine Debris / Reef Restoration cruise is coming to a close. The NOAA Ship TOWNSEND CROMWELL and USCG Cutter WALNUT are headed for homeport: Honolulu HI. On the way home the scientific party is sorting out their data and entering it into computers for further processing. The crew are standing watches on the bridge and engine-room and doing maintenance. The weather is unusually nice. Light winds and calm seas are a welcome sight when it takes you 5 days to get home. We expect to arrive in Honolulu on November 4.

The last update described how we surveyed for and recovered debris and how we hauled it to the WALNUT. Here is what happens next. After the tangled masses were dumped on the deck, a crowd of researchers and Coast Guard deck hands would attack it with knives and cut and pull out the rope and individual pieces of net so that each could be weighed and measured and described and sampled. It is an interesting process that has a lot in common with just about all other kinds of field science. Things that you can hold in your hand and describe get turned into numbers and entered into computers where the numbers turn into graphs and statistics. For a hunk of net, the description is something like this: green, trawl net, weighs 7.2 kg, 115mm opening, 3mm diameter twine, twisted-knotted construction, Z twist, polyethylene, 1 - 40% encrusted by marine organisms. All of these separate pieces of information have number codes that are entered into computers so that scientists can organize the information to answer questions like, "How much of what kind do you find in this or that area?".

One of the real questions that they hope to answer is where all of this net comes from. By knowing more about the net that is here and what kind of net different fishing boats use, they may be able to say what kind of fishing contributes the most abandoned net. Why all this interest in fishing net? The small islands along the Northwest Hawaiian Island Chain are very important breeding grounds for the endangered Hawaiian Monk seal and many species of rare seabirds. Seals and birds are very curious can easily become entangled in the net and die. By removing the nets from the marine environment we can help protect the monk seals and seabirds from becoming entangled.

Other Reports From Cruise 99-10

• October 14
• October 26
• November 01

Last modified November 02, 1999