Gulf - 2013

2013 June 30, July 1, July 2
Gulf of Mexico - Ewing Bank and Mississippi Canyon

After our stunning find of 24 whale sharks on and east of Ewing Bank last June 20, scientists made a dedicated long week-end's trip in a chartered vessel, the FV Annie Girl, to see if we could get a repeat performance and tag some more of these gentle giants.  Alas, weather seldom cooperates with long-laid plans, and these three days that had held so much hope did not afford us calm or clear seas. As hard as we tried, blue water was pushed 30-40 nm farther south (offshore) than previously, and visibility both in the air and water was not great from the air. (Which meant it was even poorer from the surface.)  But we made the best of it, and we did see some beautiful sights we'd like to share with you.  And some not-so-beautiful sights, as in a few more significant oil slicks.  So enjoy the  photos and videos, and stay tuned for the articles from our subsequent flights -- July 19, July 31, August 04, August 20, and August 21!

Here are a few of our favorite photos:  Dolphins, some huge baitballs, an enormous beautiful bird rookery northeast of Isles Dernieres, sargassum and various sea phenomena, gorgeous shots of the coast and wetlands, weather near the city of New Orleans and an awesome waterspout offshore, and last but not least (unfortunately), oil slicks and their associated emissions.

Lots more photos below, and videos (there are 21 videos in total from these three days)! We'll start them off with a google earth map showing you where we flew and where the most substantial sightings of each category were. (You'll guess the icons for the various marine life and phenomena.) At the very bottom of this article, you'll see our flight logs for these three days of flying. And as always, you can download our full GPS flight tracks for these days from this site's main menu item "Flight Tracks."  Here are the links to our GPS Flight Track files for 0630, 0701, and 0702.  Happy tracking!

Before we start with all of the photos and videos, we have some profound thanks to offer! Jennifer McKinney and her colleagues at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries have been the scientists behind all of the real successes of these flights. While it is useful for us to obtain comprehensive and meaningful surveys statistics of the numbers and locations of whale sharks and other marine life, the pioneering science here relies most of all on the abilities of these scientists to identify (by DNA and spots) and tag (with spot and satellite tags) the whale sharks. Without that information, we would remain as ignorant as we are about the habits and characteristics of these mysterious gentle giants of the sea.

All three of these days had the fantastic volunteer help of two of the Gulf's most dedicated spotters, photographers, and videographers -- Terese P. Collins of Biloxi, MS and Don W. Abrams of Ocean Springs, MS. Terese took virtually all of these photos, and Don shot the videos in addition to being one of the sharpest spotters around. Even when we don't find whale sharks, we are assured of finding much else of interest on flights with these folks along!
Finally, we thank Flightline First at New Orleans' Lakefront Airport for treating On Wings Of Care as they do their other special base customers and offering us appreciated discounts on our hangar and fuel charges.

Here are maps showing these three days' flights. Yellow is June 30, red is July 1, and light blue is July 2. You can see where we had to abandon the "grid" survey in the Mississippi Canyon area on July 1, because of weather and the fact that blue water could only be found much farther south and west. The icons depict substantial sightings of dolphins, sea turtles, sargassum and other sea phenomena, bird rookeries (only one seen), oil slicks, rigs and vessels, weather, coastal areas and wetlands, and the city and Mississippi River.

Now here start the photos and videos. Many more photos from each of these categories are in the galleries appended below.

First, the dolphins and huge bait balls:

Here is a video showing some of these enormous bait balls, taken on July 2:
20130702-On Wings Of Care - WS7- Video10: Bait Balls - 2000Z
{youtube}XlLUyVzHw7Q{/youtube} 

Next, extraordinary sargassum patches and lines, and some unusual (and oft mysterious) sea phenomena: 

Here are seven videos of sargassum:

20130630-OWOC Gulf Flight-Video3 - XLSargassum
{youtube}3HsYdnaMZoA{/youtube}

20130701-163-Sargassum Meadow
{youtube}0VmPhgCqVnA{/youtube}

20130701- WS6 - Sargassum
{youtube}5Z6syR4np0U{/youtube}

20130701- WS6 - Sargassum 2

0130702-OWOC Gulf Flight WS7 - Video2: Sargassum1-1614Z
{youtube}u-KJmW0WTUc{/youtube}

20130702- OWOC Gulf Flight - WS7- Video4: Sargassum2 - 1802Z
{youtube}Jt6REl-N7wY{/youtube}

20130702-OWOC Gulf Flight WS7- Video9: Sargassum2-1920Z
{youtube}V4N5U17PSr8{/youtube}

Next, some of the oil slicks we saw out there -- three sets, in chronological order from June 30, July 1, and July 2:

Here are five videos of the oil slicks we saw these three days:

20130630-OWOC Gulf Flight-Video1-Oil1
{youtube}gj-4qK1qH-4{/youtube}

20130701-165-Surface Oil Sheen

20130701-WS6- OIL

20130702-On Wings Of Care -WS7- Video1: Sheen1-1610Z
{youtube}Y4TizlJVsaQ{/youtube}

20130702-OnWingsOfCare WS7- Video3: OilSheen2-1633Z
{youtube}CiaJ1CSN26I{/youtube}

Next, some of the interesting rigs and vessels: 

And five videos of the rigs and vessels:

20130701- WS6 - Rigs & Vessels
{youtube}5Hw0_MuGsJo{/youtube}

20130701-Video of platform flaring
{youtube}P8fIUFNKt00{/youtube}

20130702- OWOC - Video5: DoublePlatform-RipLine - 1808Z
{youtube}70XhGbh5b9E{/youtube}

20130702- OWOC - WS7- Video6: UncleJohnPlatform - 1811Z

20130702-OWOC Gulf Flight - WS7- Video7: Rig&2vessels-1824Z

Check out some of the weather we had to fly around, most every one of these days!

20130630-OWOC Gulf Flight-Video2-Weather

20130702-On Wings Of Care - WS7 - Video8: Weather-1825Z

{youtube}5MNWpyAs4rE{/youtube}

Now for that beautiful rookery and some coastal views:

20130702- Flight Over Wetlands - Time Lapse Photographs

And the city of New Orleans:

__________________________________________

Now here are more photos for each of the above categories:

First, here's the FV Annie Girl, our faithful boat crew!

More of the dolphins and bait balls: 

Sargassum plus some sea phenomena which we won't pretend to understand, but in our 700 hours of flying over the Gulf, we can definitely say that it is unusual:

Here are some of those ubiquitous surface oil slicks:

More of those interesting rigs and vessels: 

That wild weather that was all around us:

The beautiful Louisiana coastal areas and wetlands, and that awesome rookery:

And more gorgeous views of New Orleans:

*************************************************

COMBINED OWOC FLIGHT LOGS from 2013 June 30, July 1, and July 2:
Whale Shark Survey Flights 5--7, Ewing Bank Surveys 3--5.
(Map Tracks:  Yellow, Red, Light Blue)

All waypoint numbers below refer to the GPS tracks shown in today’s article at OnWingsOfCare.org.

Times are given in CDT. 
Lat/lons are given in degrees and decimal minutes.
Pilot: Bonny L. Schumaker, Ph.D. (ATP, CFI-AIM)
Spotters/Crew: Don Abrams, Terese Collins
Seas and weather:
20130630: Seas 2-4 ft ft, Winds NW 8-15 kts. No blue water in survey grid, green water was murky.
20130701: Seas 0-2 ft, Winds NW 5 kts.
20130702: Seas 2-5 ft ft, winds SW 8-15 kts.

Sky & Visibility:
20130630: Scattered high clouds, mostly clear skies, 10 miles visibility
20130701: Scattered low clouds but mostly clear skies, 10 miles visibility
20130702: Scattered high clouds, mostly clear skies, 10-15 miles visibility

Flight Times: 0630:  4.8 hrs; 0701:  5.7 hrs;  0702: 6.0 hrs.

Flight routes (actual):
2013630: KNEW - southwest to directly over Ewing Bank, then east to Diaphus bank, circle over
the entire Ewing Bank area, then begin the grid survey.  Total 516 nm, area of 1239 sq mi.

20130701: KNEW - southeast to eastern portion of the Miss Canyon survey grid, then southwest to
blue water, then west to Ewing Bank to join with the tagging boat (FV Annie Girl), surveyed across Ewing and Diaphus banks, then north back to KNEW along the western part of the MC grid. Total 605 nm, area of 3239 sq mi.

20130702: KNEW - southwest to directly over Ewing Bank, circle over the Ewing Bank area near FV
Annie Girl,  then begin the grid survey.  Return to KNEW. Total: 635 nm, area of 3309 sq mi.

Note: The nominal Ewing Bank whale-shark survey grid consists of S-N rows separated by 6 minutes of longitude (approximately 5 nm), each about 42 nm long, for a total of 9 rows. (See the 20130524 flight log for full description of Ewing Bank survey grid.)

Maps of our routes showing the waypoints identified during our flights, plus some relevant waypoints from previous flights, are in today’s article (including links to our GPS Flight Track files for 0630, 0701, and 0702).

New Waypoints from flight of 20130630 Sunday:  
-- Wpt #s are from BLS’ flight GPS (Garmin 496).
-- Three (3) videos are posted on On Wings Of Care’s youtube channel for today’s flight.One shows the first large oil sheen we saw, barely 20 miles off shore. Another shows an awesome, huge expanse of sargassum just to the northwest of our survey grid.  The third shows a squall line and water spout we passed to our southeast while we flew to the Ewing Bank area.  There are also high-resolution photos of all of these and more.

New Waypoints from flight of 20130701 - Monday:
-- Wpt #s are from BLS’ flight GPS (Garmin 496).
-- There are four (4) videos at the OnWingsOfCare youtube channel from today:  Two of them feature the beautiful lines and patches of sargassum we found. One of them shows the oil found around N28-00 W89-42 (Wpts#681-683 below). The fourth is a compilation of many of the rigs and semi-submersibles we saw on today’s flight.  The photos in our website article complement the videos.

New Waypoints flight of 20130702 - Tuesday: 
-- Wpt #s are from BLS’ flight GPS (Garmin 496).  Legend:
-- There are ten (10) videos from today’s flight on the On Wings Of Care youtube channel. Several document the oil sheen lines we saw, two show the beautiful sargassum lines and patches, one shows an interesting short-legged platform called “Uncle John,” one shows the very unusual heavy bait balls we encountered on our way back northward, and one shows some heavy weather to our west as we made our way back northward to New Orleans.  The videos are complemented by some very nice high-resolution photos taken by Terese P. Collins of Biloxi, MS and Don W. Abrams of Ocean Springs, MS.