The Cook has just sailed under the Bridge of the Americas and safely docked in Balboa, drawing to a close three hugely successful cruises for the OSCAR project.
On JC114 alone we’ve built up some impressive statistics, with:5280 nautical miles sailed,83 OBS’s deployed and recovered (plus two vertical arrays),95,500 airguns shots fired,11 billion cubic inches of air pumped through our airguns,1830 swath files processed,80 (at least) red-footed boobies adorning the ship at one time,234 whales and dolphins sighted, and2 sea creatures boarding the ship via OBSs (a starfish and a crab) .
For the whole project we’ve completed three cruises on two ships for a total of 112 days at sea, and are incredibly grateful for the help we’ve received from all the scientists, technicians, crew and captains on board the James Cook and Sonne.
Although it’s sad that the cruise has come to an end- this is just the beginning, as soon we’ll be heading back to our respective institutions to begin analysing our fantastic data!
Finally, a thank you to our cruise blog contributors:Gavin Haughton, Matt Funnell, Jowan Barnes, Richard Hobbs, Rob Harris, Christine Peirce, Dean Wilson, Emma Gregory and all contibutors of photographs.
Thank you all for reading, we hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about our science at sea!
