Heading home, sweet home

Hi everyone!

Heather J. here to share that we have successfully finished the fifty first trawl of our Deep Sea Benefits cruise series in the Gulf of Mexico and are on our way back to port in Gufport, MS!

The team got up at 1 am this morning to get to the last sorting of trawl samples for the cruise while other team members worked on disassembling the nets.  People have taken naps and now the ship is bustling with activity as folks work to break down gear and equipment as we head to port.  Once there, unloading and packing the box truck will be the activities for this afternoon!

Figures:  Nets rinsed and drying; lander secured on the 01 deck.

We have had three amazing lander deployments and retrievals which collected hours of video and images from the seafloor near our transects which will be analyzed on land. Andy, Lewis and the Pt. Sur crew handled all the operations smoothly!

Figure: Lander retrieval at Viaosca Knoll Wednesday.

As always, the Pt. Sur crew has been amazing from preparing meals, navigating our transects and deployments and making sure our science was completed safely. We can't thank them enough!  The weather also coorpoerated quite nicely during the entire cruise!

Here are some photos from the DEEPEND Team during our adventure!

Figures: DEEPEND family photos from this trip!

This is the last DSB cruise of our NOAA award and we are so grateful that we've been able to conduct our science and are excited to share our results in the next year.  We have one more DEEPEND RESTORE cruise next spring so stay tuned for another adventure!

Until next time, Heather J.