Megastations!

The second portion of our research survey ("Leg 2") is complete! Over the course of ~3 intense days, we worked around the clock and deployed 104 XBTs, conducted 14 CTD casts, and completed 27 MOCNESS, 19 Neuston, and 6 mini-bongo tows - all in order to better understand the mesoscale eddies that had formed in the south of Cuba, and how these dynamic water masses may impact larval zooplankton and fish! (see this post for more about what we were looking for!)

While we are currently enjoying a little break from sampling, we'd love to share with you some images of the last few days....

Planning in the dry lab to discuss our super-intense sampling strategy! Leif leads the discussion in the dry lab!

Left: Ryan carefully plots the next station
Right: Megastations! Our white board gets full, listing all the planned station events

Resultant velocity vectors showing the speed (vector length) and direction of the currents as we traversed
the anticyclonic (rotating clockwise) eddy. Vector colors indicate sea surface temperature. 

Nets! Top: Sr. Survey Tech Samantha supervises the deployment of the MOCNESS
Bottom: Scientists Leif and Jason deploy the  Neuston net

When you've been up all night working, things get a little silly!
Top L: Jason, Aki, and Yoandry celebrate their 5th MOCNESS tow of the day! Top R: Estrella models the new cruise uniform. Bottom: Jason is excited to have run another successful MOCNESS tow! 

We're done! Scientists Jason, Estrella, and Yoandry celebrate the end of Leg 2 with a back deck selfie!