The field work for NEGOM is over. (1000 this date) We just finished the last station on line 11.  We have completed 9 cruises with more than  16,000 nautical miles of trackline, with 900 ctd's, about 700 xbt's, approximately 50 plankton net tows, mooring deployment and recoveries, about 180 argos drifter deployments, about  25 palace drifters deployments, about  100 light meter casts, plus 2 days of coordinated flyovers by NASA science plane, hundreds of sightings of whales and dolphins, and 36 gravity cores and 48 box cores. There were zero days lost to weather and no  accidents of any kind. The government and scientific community received  their money's worth from this program. We are headed to Coastal System Station, Panama City.........eta 0800 the 8th.
dana, norman, and doug

We worked our way seaward along Line 11 last night and at 9:00 local time we are on our last station (S18C).  Weather has been very pleasant so we've been able to stay on our pre-planned time/distance projection for the entire trip; if weather continues to cooperate, we'll have a 21-22 hour run to Panama City and we'll end the trip there about 8 AM tomorrrow morning.
-doug sends

Subject: NEGOM-9 science rpt for Sunday 6 August
   Date:  Sun, 6 Aug 2000 17:56:46 -0500 (CDT)
   From: R/V GYRE Science Operations <guest@gergl1.gerg.tamu.edu>

We finished Line 10 at 05:30 local time this morning and at 9 AM we are underway on the inner shelf transit to Line 11.  We expect to start Line 11 about 13:00 local time today and finish this last line of stations by 10:00local time tomorrow Monday 7 August.  This will complete our scheduled NEGOM-9 science plan and then we'll steam for Panama City.  Our ETA Panama City is 8:00 local time on Tuesday morning.  Frank, FYI, the sun finally came out yesterday and Bisman and Lucia were able to do 3 MER casts yesterday and 1 so far today.  They will do more this afternoon and tomorrow as clear skies allow.
-doug sends

We finished Line 9 last night and are today working upslope on Line 10. We're on schedule for time/distance and so should be transiting inshore off StPete and within cell phone range again on Sunday morning.  Equipment and people are working well but fishing so far has yielded only bonita.  Bottom trawl yesterday on Florida Middle Ground brought up a catch of sponges and
some live rock, with interesting crabs and starfish in association.  No one has sent us update Topex SSH scenes (hey, we haven't heard anything from NEGOM Data Office!), so we logged on to CCAR website yesterday and downloaded scene for 3 Aug that shows the warm eddy we're surveying has changed shape from elliptical to figure-eight. Our lines 9 done yesterday & 10 in progress today should allow us to confirm this shape. -doug sends

We finished Line 87 at midnight last night and today we are running south on Line 9.  Bisman and Lucia wish the sun would come out but other than being unable to do MER casts because it's overcast, everything is going OK and we're right on schedule for time/distance.  Our bottom trawl last evening captured 5 dozen rock shrimp so it was a culinary as well as scientific success.
-doug sends

 We finished Line 7 just after midnite last night and we're today working north on Line 8.  No problems; people and equipment working well but overcast sky will again prevent USF from doing MER casts (urgh: today is the 4th day in a row that it's been cloudy or rainy).  We documented green color, low salinity river water at the deep end of this Line 8 (sfc salinity = 32 psu in 1000 m water depth) but SSS had increased to 35 psu when we got to 500 m water depth.  So we hope for better success today in fishing hand lines off the stern during our transit north.  So far, only bonita have been caught on the hand lines that we've been pulling in mostly green water. We'll bottom trawl again today as we come up on the mid shelf south of Apalachicola, in an area that Capn Dyer says is trawled by commercial boats seeking rock shrimp.
-doug sends

We finished Line 6 last night and at breakfast time today we were headed south on Line 7 (S01C).  The bottom trawl we fished last night for 30 min in water depth of 50 m captured a large variety of species; the catch completely filled a pickle bucket with fish and crabs.  We only got about 2 dozen rock shrimp in the trawl but they were all large-size.  People and equipment working well; it's overcast again today but breeze is light so seas are low.
-doug sends

Hello all,
 We finished Line 5 at 06:25 CDT this morning and are now headed toward Line 6.  Surface salinity as we steam the 1000 m isobath interline transit has been running 31-32 psu, so we're still seeing some entrained river water here in deepwater in the axis of DeSoto Canyon.  We diverted for about an hour and a half last night to give assistance to a disabled 32 ft fishing boat that had developed engine trouble and was drifting seaward into deep water of DeSoto Canyon. We gave them a charged battery, supplies and enough line to allow them to anchor up until others could give them a tow into shore this morning. Dana Dyer coordinated this assistance with the Coast Guard.  A side effect was that the fisherman gave us a nice size grouper and some tilefish which we will have for lunch today.  Weather today is overcast but seas are low.  We started Line 6 at 09:00 CDT and we expect to finish this line and end up close off the beach a Panama City before dawn tomorrow Wed 2 August.

We finished station L06SS19 at 10:00CDT.
-doug and norman send (10:10 CDT)

Subject: NEGOM-9 science rpt for Mon 31 July
   Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 11:15:32 -0500 (CDT)
   From: R/V GYRE Science Operations <guest@gergl1.gerg.tamu.edu>

Hello all,
 We're working our way north along Line 4 this morning.  We finished S03C at 07:20 CDT so we will finish this Line 4 just off Pensacola by mid  morning.  We documented lots of green color river water along southern part of Line 3 (salinity as low as 29 psu at sfc in water depth 1000 m) but less low salinity water along this Line 4 so we expect to be east of most of theentrained river flow as we do Lines 5 and 6. Weather has been good since Friday and seas low so far and we'll hope that the tropical wave that is predicted to move into SE Gulf tomorrow stays well to our south.  No problems to report; people and equipment working smoothly.  After just under 60 h at sea we're only 1.5 h behind our initial projected time/distance schedule.  If weather holds today and tomorrow we will make this time up on the between-line transits.
-doug sends (composed 07:45 CDT)

Subject: NEGOM-9 science report for Sunday 30 July
   Date:  Sun, 30 Jul 2000 14:21:33 -0500 (CDT)
   From: R/V GYRE Science Operations <guest@gergl1.gerg.tamu.edu>

We started Line 3 off Dauphin Island AL at 9:00 CDT this morning.  Equipment and people are working well.  Topex and SeaWiFS images we got for 25 July both showed a warm slope eddy to the ESE of the mouth of the Miss River. Our survey so far has confirmed that this slope eddy has entrained low salinity green-color water from the Miss River and wrapped this water seaward around its periphery so that it extends out to the 1000 m water depth along both Lines 1 and 2 (and probably along Lines 3 and 4 as well; we'll find out as we survey today and tomorrow).  Surface salinity along Line 1 was low throughout (31.3 to 31.6); along Line 2 the surface salinity was 32.0 offshore, dropping to as low as 28.1 as we crossed the core of MR water entrained to the east from SE Pass, and then increasing a bit to 33.7 over the inner shelf at the north end of the line.  Surface salinity inshore at the start of Line 3 off Dauphin Island was 34.7.  So again this summer 2000 like previous summers 1998 and 1999 the NE Gulf is a "backwards ocean" in terms of surface salinity and ocean color. doug sends
Finished L03S03 at 12:00 CDT.

Biggs, Guinasso and 6 science pax departed GERG at 08:45 CDT on Thursday 27 July and we arrived Pascagoula in University Van by 19:30 CDT as planned. Our USF colleagues driving from StPete and the truck driving from GERG arrived shortly afterward.  Friday 28 July was our set up day and set up went smoothly.  Remaining science pax arrived as scheduled and all people and labs were ready shortly after dinnertime on Friday.  We departed Pascagoula at 20:00 CDT Friday evening as planned and ship made good speed on transit of western NEGOM shelf from Pascagoula to mouth of Miss River. We started station work along L01 close off mouth of Miss River at 05:30 CDT Saturday morning and by breakfast time we were at the 3rd CTD station (S04C).  CTD/rosette is working OK but nav string problems caused some dropouts in SAIL and ADCP underway data logging along shallower parts of Line 01.  Eddie and John worked to resolve this problem and an electrical short from the GPS navigator was located and repaired.  By 08:30 CDT all underway data systems were logging data again.  No other problems to report. -doug