The R.V. Celtic Explorer departs Galway tonight for a trip across the Atlantic to St. Johns in Newfoundland Canada conduct cod surveys for the Canada Marine Institute. A collaboration between the Irish Marine Institute and the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology will see Enda McKeogh and Paddy O'Dwyer (GMIT IWDG) joining the cruise to record marine mammals and bird sightings. We will also be on board for the return leg of the journey in June.
This trip provides an excellent opportunity to observe and record marine mammals in areas where there has not been much survey effort. We will be covering a large
area with many different habitats including shelfedge,
mid-ocean fracture, sea mounts and vast abyssal plains. This follows on from the same trip last year when Conor Ryan, Alessandro Pierini and Emily Wilson joined the cruise and returned with very valuable sound recordings and sightings data even though they faced harsh weather conditions on their trip. At the moment the weather looks favourable for us with easterly winds forecast for the next few days. This trip is expected to last 7 or 8 days depending on the weater we encounter so fingers crossed the weather gods will be our side!
In addition to surveying we will be deploying XBT's and XCTD's which will record water temperature and salinity profiles across the Atlantic this information is being recorded for use by the Irish Marine Institute.
We will try to update this blog as often as possible to keep everyone up to date on the sightings we encounter during the trip. Hopefully the weather will be good and we will have plenty of bird and marine mammal sightings to report.
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