Finally! The wait is over today at 1:00 pm we gave our buoys their proper goodbye and wished them safe and happy travels. Now we just have to patiently wait and hope that Crystal, Big Boy, and Wilson don’t miss us too much and come straight back to shore within a few hours! The weather conditions weren’t the best but we decided we could not wait any longer for their release. We loaded up three large buoys, 4 passengers, and the Captain on one of Jacksonville University’s 20 foot boats and headed out to sea. Yes, it was a very tight squeeze. Heading down the St. Johns was colder than expected since we did not take into consideration the wind chill factor at 50°F with 20 mph winds, which for us Floridians feels like we’re in the arctic.
It was a decently smooth ride heading east towards the coast but, we weren’t quite ready for what was waiting ahead for us. Our final destination for release was 4 miles off the coast right within the St. Johns Bar, or where the river meets the ocean. Unfortunately for us this collision of waters is known for rough and large swells. Our little boat chugged on taking on 8-foot swells. Swells are mechanical waves driven by oscillating waters that increase along the interface between sea and air. They are formed from distant weather systems where the wind blows for a certain duration of time over a distance of water or a fetch. For those of you who aren’t geeks or surfers, waves are actually considered waves only after the swell breaks.
Between holding on for dear life and holding back our breakfast, we managed to push our buoys overboard and snap a few photos as well. Each buoy reacted differently when getting tossed out of the boat and into the rough seas. Big Boy gave us the most trouble as usual. We
got him halfway out and pushed with all our force to get him overboard, our advisor couldn’t even escape without some minor cuts and scrapes. Big Boy took the longest to stand upright but we were very happy to see that he did, even among all the chaos. Wilson
on the other hand gave us the least fight since he is so light and small. He was easy to toss right out and he stood upright quickly. You would think that Crystal, who is also small and light, would get tossed out with ease just like Wilson but she put up quite the fight when trying to push her overboard. She was half way out when a big swell came through and threw us all down, cracking one of her bottom PVC pipes on the side of the boat. We were concerned as we were watching her, but surprisingly she stood upright quickly, we can only hope her crack didn’t injure her completely. Considering the small craft warning and the swells, we made it out as far as we could but we did not make it to the 4-mile mark.
Luckily for our buoys they are headed out to higher salinity waters, which means higher density, and better buoyancy for all of them! Salinity is simply the dissolved salt content of the water and I think we can all agree that the ocean is much saltier than rivers. Check out this graph below and as you can see as salinity increases along the bottom so does the density. (lines going across the graph represent density)
Our buoys are not the only things affected by salinity. Right whales, one of the most endangered whale species due to human activity, depend on environmental signals such as salinity, for their foraging patterns. (Firestone 2008) Lucky for us North Florida folk the month of late February to March is when these Right Whales are densely populated around the North Florida coast. The Right Whales migrate south to give birth to their calves and after that occurs they begin to migrate up north to the tip of Long Island. So, for those of you who are interested in whale watching get out there now and enjoy all of the mothers and their calves who will soon begin their journey! (Kenny 2001)
Stay tuned for where are buoys are headed next! Click here to see where they are now! It is important to note that these tracking locations though they are precise they are not 100 percent accurate due to noise or statistical randomness that are in GPS devices. Noise is actually a requirement in GPS systems since they are owned and operated by the U.S. Government. (gps.gov)
* Special thanks to fellow Marine Science student, Drew Allen, who was a huge help during the release.
References:
Kenney, R. D., Mayo, C. A., & Winn, H. E. (2001). Migration and foraging strategies at varying spatial scales in western North Atlantic right whales: a review of hypotheses. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management, 2, 251-260.
Firestone, J., Lyons, S. B., Wang, C., & Corbett, J. J. (2008). Statistical modeling of North Atlantic right whale migration along the mid-Atlantic region of the eastern seaboard of the United States. Biological Conservation, 141(1), 221-232.
http://www.gps.gov/