California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations

1. To conduct continuous underway sampling of surface waters. Temperature and salinity will be automatically logged by computer with the output from the GPS navigational unit.
2. To contribute to ongoing assessment of pelagic fish stocks between San Diego and San Francisco, California.
3. To collect information the size distribution and species composition of pelagic fish for acoustics ground truth information using trawling.
4. To monitor environmental conditions within the CCE survey area.
5. To record continuous acoustic targets obtained with a multi-frequency Simrad EK-60 scientific sounder.
6. To service and move three moorings on CalCOFI line 90.
7. To carry out an intensive field survey of island wakes around San Clemente and Catalina Islands, and south of San Nicolas Island, to detect hotspots of production supporting juvenile sardine and other juvenile fish.

• During leg 1, the Ocean Starr will conduct standard CalCOFI operations on the basic six line/75 station grid.
• During leg 2, operations will focus on collaborative mooring operations with Scripps Institution of Oceanography and intensive sampling around Catalina and San Clemente Islands, and to the south of San Nicolas Island, as mentioned above.
• During leg 3, plankton stations will be limited to night hours to permit continuous acoustic running during daylight. Plankton sampling of this area, south of Point Conception, will recently have been done by the preceding CalCOFI survey. Each night time plankton station on leg 1 will comprise CTD, pairovet, bongo and manta tows at the same location.
• During leg 4, north of Point Conception, full station work will be carried out in daylight and at night.

Scientific operations on CalCOFI cruises are performed 24/7 - around the clock, 7 days a week. Scientists, technicians, and volunteers work 12hr shifts scheduled from noon to midnight or midnight to noon. Although transit times between stations can vary and are heavily influenced by sea state, transits between stations usually take 2 to 4 hours. Coastal stations spaced 20 nautical miles apart (eg. 93.50 to 93.55) take ~2hrs; offshore stations spaced 40 nautical miles apart (eg. 93.60 to 93.70) take ~4hrs. The time to complete work on a station varies as well but a typical station operations takes ~2.25hrs. Longer stations are: daily primary productivity noontime stations, Santa Monica & Santa Barbara basin stations, & DIC stations all take ~3hrs; 3500m deep CTD casts on stations 80.90, 90.90 take ~5hrs; nightly Oozeki trawl stations take ~3.5hrs. SCCOOS (9 per cruise) and shallow (<500m; 8 per cruise) stations can be significantly less than 2 hours. CalCOFI cruises operate on Pacific Standard Time (PST) on all cruises.

Each standard CalCOFI station usually includes the following:

• A Seabird 9/11plus CTD/Rosette consisting of 24 10-liter hydrographic bottles is lowered to 515 meters (depth permitting) measuring physical parameters (temperature, salinity, oxygen, fluorescence, transmittance, NO3 and PAR); bottles are closed at discrete depths isolating seawater for analysis of: oxygen concentration, salinity, nutrients, chlorophyll and phytoplankton.
• A CalBOBL (CalCOFI Bongo) standard oblique plankton tow with 300 meters of wire out, depth permitting, using paired 505 um mesh nets with 71 cm diameter openings. The technical requirements for this tow are: Descent rate of 50 meters per minute. All tows with ascending wire angles lower than 38 degrees or higher than 51 degrees in the final 100 meters of wire will be repeated. Additionally, a 45 degrees wire angle should be closely maintained during the ascent and descent of the net frame. The Bongo frame is fitted with a self-contained OPC (Optical Particle Counter) mounted inside the port side opening.
• A Manta net (neuston) tow, using a 505 um mesh net on a frame with a mouth area of 0.1333 m^2. The Manta net is towed at surface, sampling 8cm below the air-sea interface, for 15mins at ~1.5kts.
• A Pairovet (vertical) plankton tow is performed at all stations inshore of, and including station 70. The Pairovet net fishes from 70 meters to the surface (depth permitting) using paired 25 cm diameter 150 um mesh nets. The technical requirements for Pairovet tows are: Descent rate of 70 meters per minute, ascent rate of 70 meters per minute. All tows with wire angles exceeding 15 degrees during the ascent will be repeated.
• A PRPOOS (Planktonic Rate Processes in Oligotrophic Ocean Systems) vertical net tow is performed at all stations on line 90.0 and 80.0 as well as stations out to and including station 70.0 on lines 86.7 and 83.3. These stations are occupied as part of the LTER(Long Term Ecological Reserve) project. The mesh of the PRPOOS net is 202 um and the tow is a vertical cast up from 210 meters.