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Charting Our Journey

In the next few days, we will be heading to our southern most line of study - Deep Reef. Fishermen and whale watching boat operators claim this area is an ocean hot spot, where predators aggregate to feed on dense prey concentrations. Deep Reef will be a new addition to the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary's study and sampling sites. We are excited to investigate these waters.

We are now charting our journey north, beyond the sanctuaries' boundaries to "The Football," a popular fishing spot off the Sonoma coast. There is support in local communities and Congress for a sanctuary expansion just north of Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries. The biological data that we find on this leg of our voyage may help to support this proposal.

Passing beneath the Golden Gate. (Photo: Mary Jane Schramm)

We sailed from port at 1400 hours (2pm) under the cover of low-lying fog. San Francisco's famous Golden Gate Bridge was barely visible because it was shrouded in the gray, heavy low-lying fog that makes San Francisco famous. A few miles further west brought us past Point Bonita, its craggy rocks standing sentinel at the gate. We are now officially at sea!

Wind WNW 15-25 kts
Seas NW 7-9 ft.
Precipitation: Areas of patchy dense fog.

Click here for a larger version.

Our objective for the first three days is to cover the first three transect lines parallel to the coast in order to study physical oceanographic features over Cordell Bank and how they correlate with prey and predator distribution. For details, see Science at Sea.