JC114 in pictures and numbers

A flock of pelicans flying past the ship whilst at anchor in the Gulf of Panama with a fantastic view of Panama City and the Sonne.

The Cook has just sailed under the Bridge of the Americas and safely docked in Balboa, drawing to a close three hugely successful cruises for the OSCAR project.

 

A view over the aft deck on the last day of seismic activities, showing the streamer, the airguns in the water, and the magnetometer cable on the far right

On JC114 alone we've built up some impressive statistics, with:

5280 nautical miles sailed,

83 OBS's deployed and recovered (plus two vertical arrays),

95,500 airguns shots fired,

11 billion cubic inches of air pumped through our airguns,

1830 swath files processed,

80 (at least) red-footed boobies adorning the ship at one time,

234 whales and dolphins sighted, and

2 sea creatures boarding the ship via OBSs (a starfish and a crab) .

For the whole project we've completed three cruises on two ships for a total of 112 days at sea, and are incredibly grateful for the help we've received from all the scientists, technicians, crew and captains on board the James Cook and Sonne.

 

A OBS surfing the waves before recovery.

Although it's sad that the cruise has come to an end- this is just the beginning, as soon we'll be heading back to our respective institutions to begin analysing our fantastic data! 

 

A local fishing boat that brought us two huge dorado in exchange for our technicians fixing their bilge pump.

Finally, a thank you to our cruise blog contributors:

Gavin Haughton, Matt Funnell, Jowan Barnes, Richard Hobbs, Rob Harris, Christine Peirce, Dean Wilson, Emma Gregory and all contibutors of photographs.

 

Scientists on the bridge trying to spot the tailbuoy at the end of the streamer, 4.5 km behind the ship.

Thank you all for reading, we hope you've enjoyed hearing about our science at sea!

Two boobies perching on the A-frame with the Sonne in the background.