Archive | Tracking the Drifter

It appears that College of the Redwoods’ drifter is slowly dying. NOAA’s drifter guru, Jim Manning, feels that the drifter’s flotation may have been damaged. The drifter is probably partially submerged and is no longer transmitting its location. It has been over a week since its last transmission, about 75 miles offshore from San Luis Obispo.

Then, miraculously, the drifter reported its position WNW of San Diego the day before yesterday (http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/drift_redwoods_2010_1.html)! Perhaps a fortuitous wave tipped the GPS unit out of the water for a moment at the precise instance of a position burst.  The drifter may still be in the game! Unfortunately it is unclear if, or when, it may transmit its location again. In any event, Mexican waters appear to be next on the itinerary.

Finally! After a solid week of meandering around in the Gulf of the Farallons dodging tankers, warships, and fishing boats, CR’s drifter has been recaptured by the California Current and is heading south. The drifter has been sailing steadily southward for the last three days, and is now halfway between the Golden Gate and Monterey Bay.

The Monterey Bay, however, presents a new set of challenges. The currents there are notoriously variable as witnessed by Monterey Peninsula College’s two deployments of their drifter over the last seven months (See their posts  from November 17th of last year and February 3rd of this year). The excitement is building here again as the drifter approaches its next aquatic hurdle. Wake up Deidre, there’s some jetsam heading your way!

No, this is not a Country & Western song. College of the Redwoods’ drifter finally escaped the clutches of the Bodega Triangle two days ago under the cover of darkness. In the same bold move, the drifter also slipped past the deadly clutches of Point Reyes. Safe? Not even! The drifter made an initial feint toward the Golden Gate, but then eased southward. Since then the drifter has been ambling through the major shipping lanes approaching the Golden Gate: dangerous waters! ( http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/drift_redwoods_2010_1.html)

The NWS offshore forecast for the next four days calls for more unseasonal southerly winds (is this really MAY?), which could once again subject our valiant drifter to the possibility of being pushed back northward and onshore. Thus the potential for a visit to the Big City still remains a possibility.

Both of our local newspapers published articles on the drifter project (one on the front page), and tracking the drifter has become an obsession for many members of the general public as well as our students. Thanks to each and all of you (especially Jim Manning & Deidre Sullivan) that are responsible for making this project happen!

College of the Redwoods’ drifter continues to wander in a relatively small area that we have dubbed “The Bodega Triangle”.  After charging southward nearly 90 nm in the first 5 days after deployment, the drifter has since been cycling around an area of only a few square miles.  The seasonally unusual southerly winds over the last couple of days have been driving the drifter northward, but the forecast calls for a return of our typically strong northwesterlies today. I’m tempted to suggest that those winds may push the drifter southward again, but I have been surprised so many times over the last 9 days that I think I’ll just say, “Stay tuned for more excitement!” http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/drift_redwoods_2010_1.html

For the first 5 days after deployment, strong NW winds fueled a current that carried College of the Redwoods’ drifter at speeds of well over 1 knot. Those winds died down on Sunday  and postponed our hopes of the drifter making it past Point Reyes. The past 36 hours have becalmed our drifter, and it has become a waiting game.

A weak front is predicted to slip through the area today, and with it will come southerly winds. Southerly winds could produce a northerly current, and more significantly, an onshore flow. The front is predicted to move through quickly, and our usually reliable NW winds should return tomorrow. Today produces another round of anxiety among the students and staff following the journey of the drifter. Will it be driven onshore today, or will tomorrow’s northwesterlies power our drifter past Point Reyers?

Regardless of the drifter’s immediate fate, the drifter has proven to be one of the most dynamic and powerful teaching tools I ever had. Each day’s odyssey has been a string of teaching and learning opportunities for all of us.

The excitement is building in our lab, as our drifter skirted by a major geographic hurdle. In our past studies Point Arena has captured many of our drift bottles. Early this morning the drifter we deployed two days ago ( http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/drift_redwoods_2010_1.html  ) successfully avoided the clutches of the Point and is continuing southward. The excitement is palpable in the lab and classroom. Students and staff are huddled around their computers for the position updates every 4 hours. Cheers actually broke out when the drifter missed Pt. Arena. Now we’re watching its course as it approaches the next big roadblock, Point Reyes.

The students in our Marine Science Technology Program were excited to assemble our new drifter, but their enthusiasm was wavering as we waited weeks for good sea conditions. For those of you unfamiliar with the northern California coast, spring is a rather volatile time. Typically we have strong northwesterly winds at this time of year that fuel the upwelling that sustains an extremely productive marine ecosysytem. The California current (flowing from north to south) sweeps close to shore and gains momentum.  Winter storm winds, on the other hand, approach from the south and often produce a nearshore current (the Davidson Current) that flows from south to north and nudges the California Current offshore. Deploying the drifter involved waiting for the ideal window of opportunity: just after a front, with its southerly winds, sweeps by, and just before the northerly winds reappear to return the ocean surface to chaos.

This spring has been unusually violent and the seesaw of the California and Davidson Currents jockeying for nearshore dominance, and the nearly ceaseless winds, have kept the sea conditions very poor for a deployment.

This is the last week of our spring semester however, and I felt compelled to deploy the drifter before the students dispersed for the summer. We launched yesterday, and the sea conditions were perfect (if you like sea sickness). 10 to 12 foot, short period swells and rather chaotic seas did not, however dim the students’ enthusiasm. The winds (20 to 35 knots) were from the north and the surface flow was strongly southward. We were hopeful that the added influence of upwelling would force our drifter offshore and to the south.

For those of you that have already deployed a drifter, I’m sure you know what the next few hours were like waiting for a satellite fix. By the time our second fix arrived, it appeared our drifter was heading to shore. The students in our program have been conducting cheap, low-tech drift studies for almost 25 years now. We’ve been throwing drift bottles overboard with a printed message asking the finders to mail them back to us. It’s been tremendously successful, and we’ve received bottles from as far away as Alaska and the Philippines. In that time we’ve discovered that certain locations seem to catch more bottles than others.

Last night our drifter was heading for the dreaded Caspar Bay.Check out our Google Map page at: http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/drift_redwoods_2010_1.html . By early this morning it was apparent that the drifter had skirted the foul place and was heading south. Past experience has indicated that we have two more major hurdles to bypass if our drifter is going to be in this for the long haul. The next is Pt. Arena, which the drifter should approach within the next day or two. We’re all holding our collective breath. If the drifter misses that roadblock, the next is Pt. Reyes.

In the past, if our drift bottles skirt Pt. Reyes they tend to travel to locations south of San Francisco or into the open Pacific. You’re all welcome to share our tension and excitement. Follow along on our Goggle Map site along with our students and the local community.

If you are an educator, I must say that this is the most excited I’ve seen my students about a single project in a long time. During yesterday’s deployment, the students were getting soaked by waves breaking over the boat’s bow, and everyone of them sported a grin that was, if possible, larger than their face.

Stay tuned for updates as our drifter approaches the much feared Point Arena.

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