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June 29, 2009 – At Sea, 61 04N 165 40
by Herb McCormick
(June 29): There’s a booklet of charts aboard Ocean Watch that are a staple in the navigation stations on most long-range cruising vessels. It’s called the Atlas of Pilot Charts, and contains therein, on a month-to-month basis, separate nautical maps for different oceans on the planet detailing the following information: visibility, frequency of gales, sea-surface and air-temperature, surface pressure, storm tracks, and so on. As is perhaps evident, the information, displayed in orderly grids over vast expanses of aqua, is very useful.
However, the most relevant data, for sailors, are the wind roses that detail the strength and direction of breezes one can expect to encounter over the course of any given month, and at this juncture of our story I’d like to introduce Ocean Watch skipper Mark Schrader, who for the last 48 hours or so has been gazing at the Bering Sea Pilot Charts with a fixed expression of dazed befuddlement.
All who know the captain will require scant amplification of the previous depiction. For those who don’t, let’s try this: He’s in shock.
A quick, 360-degree scan of the horizon today provides the reasons. Ocean Watch is plowing through a flat, calm seaway barely ruffled by the wind. We won’t delve into the statistical probability of this in the Bering Sea, as gleaned from the Pilot Charts, other than to state the following: It’s. NEVER. Like. This.
The skipper took the opportunity to chart a course though the 35-mile-wide channel between a low-lying island called Nunivak, to port, and the Yukon Territory, well off to starboard, a piece of relatively shallow water you’d generally avoid in the usual gales. We were too far offshore to see the Yukon but we had a very close look at the sparsely populated island of Nunivak, the beaches of which were still frosted white with snow. One would’ve thought we’d just crossed the 60th parallel, and in fact, we had.
At the mid-morning watch change, Ocean Watch came to a complete halt, the engine was shut down, and the crew gingerly walked up on the foredeck, staggering around like characters in a science-fiction movie just emerging from a cave after an invasion by space aliens. The cold night had given way to a brilliant morning. It was warm out. We all shed layers of gear and basked in the milky sunshine.
And that brings us to the main subject of today’s log: Jellyfish.
Last week, we received the following email from research scientist Mary Beth Decker of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. Her note read as follows: “Your run up 166W will cross our survey area; in fact, this is an area that was particularly dense with jellyfish in the 1990s and hence dubbed Slime Bank. You will cross the Inner Front near the 50-meter isobath. The Bering Sea is teeming with life in the summer, and fronts are areas of enhanced activity. I hope the weather cooperates.”
As mentioned, the weather couldn’t be more cooperative, and jellyfish are a particular concern these days to oceanographers, in general, and the crew of Ocean Watch, in particular. Before the outset of our journey, in Seattle, we were briefed by an oceanographer who specializes in the study of jellyfish, Dr. Jenny Purcell, who outlined the significance of the gelatinous critters to the scientific community and instructed us in the identification and sampling of species we might encounter underway.
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| Jellyfish are an important barometer of the ocean’s health. |
Jellyfish, as it turns out, are an important harbinger, a barometer if you will, in gauging the health of the seas. And the squishy little fellows have been wreaking havoc over vast, watery terrain. In Japan, a recent run of giant jellies has decimated the fishing industry; closer to home, in the coastal California burg of Morrow Bay, they closed a nuclear power plant after clogging the saltwater intake tubes. In our present part of the world, the Bering Sea, in recent years the jellyfish population has increased tenfold.
Once Ocean Watch drifted to a complete stop, sure enough, there was a jellyfish. Then another, and then another still. Back in Dutch Harbor last weekend, we met fisheries experts who explained that the walleye Pollock catch in the Bering Sea was significantly down last year. The precise reason why remains elusive. It’s one of the reasons Dr. Purcell has enlisted us in the cause. Could these tiny invertebrates help scientists understand why? Or, perhaps, could they somehow be the cause?
Professor Decker, from Yale, forwarded the link to an Internet story that added quite a bit of insight to our understanding of the Bering Sea ecosystem (www.pbs.org/harriman/lectures/Alexander.html).
“The Bering Sea is influenced by atmospheric and oceanic processes in the Arctic Ocean to the north and the North Pacific Ocean to the south,” writes Vera Alexander in the forwarded story. “It is neither truly polar nor typically north temperate in character.” What it supports, however, is “a diverse, abundant and highly productive marine biota. It is home to a rich variety of biological resources, including the world’s most extensive eelgrass beds; at least 450 species of fish, crustaceans and mollusks; 50 species of seabirds; and 25 species of marine mammals.
“From the earliest days of its exploration, the potential for an immense harvest was recognized,” she continues, before adding, warily, “and exploited.”
The hanging question about the Bering Sea’s ability to support so much life, of course, is this: Will it continue to do so?
The jellyfish that have been raising chaos here are a large species known as Chrysaora melamaster, which compete for food with young Pollock, and also feed on them. Where have they come from, and why? The samples we took today, we now know, were for the most part the much more common moon jellyfish, examples of which seem to occur just about everywhere. But we dutifully collected samples, entered notes in our field guide, took photographs, and recorded position coordinates. The larger questions suggest a complicated puzzle, and we’re honored to perhaps contribute at least a small piece in helping to solve it.
Regular readers of this log may recall that my last jellyfish encounter was a humbling one, but today, when it came to bagging jellies, I was a veritable Nanook of the North. Meanwhile, my friend Dave Logan, the consummate fisherman, wet a line off the transom in search of halibut, and though he wrestled one for a while, as Ocean Watch once again proceeded towards Nome, all he had to show for it was a lost lure.
Yes, jellyfish are easy to snare, but I understand a rare, unique opportunity when I see one, so I used the rest of the morning to pretty much constantly remind him of the fact: At least one of our nets was full.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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