The Return to the Foster

It's been a long time since we sailed into port from NF1304 -- nearly two years. The Early Life History lab at NOAA's Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) is back on the Nancy Foster again for cruise NF1502. Last summer, our lab's bluefin tuna research cruise was on the University of Miami's R/V F.G. Walton Smith, and sampling was focused on the northern Gulf of Mexico. This year, we're making up for lost time and have an extra long cruise (~8 weeks) as part of a collaborative effort with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), which is right across the street from the fisheries building.

As part of this collaboration, we're branching out a bit from our usual sampling routine. The first part of the cruise will focus on reef fish surveys around St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands; from there on out, we'll be on the search for bluefin tuna! In doing so, we'll be trekking across a large part of the Caribbean -- the cruise leaves from USVI and is making port stops in Montego Bay (Jamaica), Cozumel (Mexico), and Key West (FL). One of the most exciting opportunities we're getting this year is the chance to sample in new waters!

We'll also be working with a diverse array of local and foreign scientists from such places as:

• University of Miami's Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS)
• Roffer's Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service (ROFFS)
• University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) and Department of Planning and Natural Resources (DPNR) from the US Virgin Islands
• University of the West Indies (UWI) in Jamaica 
• El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) and Instituto Nacional de Pesca (INAPESCA) in Mexico
• Instituto Espanol de Oceanografia (IEO) in Spain
• University of South Florida St. Petersburg (USF)
• University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras (UPR)
• University of Oregon (UO)

We're looking forward to having such esteemed scientists aboard!
 
Today's location is north of St. Croix, USVI near a beautiful marine protected area called Buck Island Reef National Monument.

Our ship track from NOAA's Ship Tracker website

Here is a beautiful panorama taken by one of the scientists on board (panoramas are not easy when the ship and the waves are moving you around!). The lovely island in the background is St. John.

We had quite a lot of bloggin' going on during the 2014 cruise if you want to catch up with last year's cruise in the Gulf of Mexico!
Maury Estes' blog
La Treese Denson's blog
Eric Fortman's tumblr

We'll have more detailed posts on the focus of the cruise in the future -- stay tuned! If you want to follow the ship, you can use this website!

Even though the cruise began on April 11th, our gear was loaded onto the ship in March. This was due to the fact that big nets, crates, ethanol barrels, sampling jars, computers, microscopes, etc are impossible to fly with -- so we took the opportunity to load while the ship was still docked at their home port of beautiful Charleston, SC. Check out a picture of (some) of our equipment stuffed into the Foster's lower deck (half of this room is a gym -- that's why there's a treadmill!)