Hear from students who joined CalCOFI at sea and experienced life aboard a research vessel firsthand. From observing marine mammals and collecting oceanographic samples to working alongside scientists, NOAA staff, and the crew, these reflections offer a glimpse into the people, science, and unforgettable experiences that make a CalCOFI cruise unique.

CalCOFI has recently published its long-running larval fish and egg dataset to the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) which has expanded the accessibility of this foundational time series to the global scientific community. While the data have long been available through ERDDAP, this new integration into OBIS significantly increases discoverability and interoperability. We hope that this will enable broader use in global biodiversity syntheses, ecosystem analyses, and use-inspired research. The dataset, built from more than 75 years of standardized observations along the California Current, provides detailed information on fish early life stages and remains one of the most important records for understanding marine population dynamics and ocean ecosystem change. For more information please see these articles from GOOS (https://goosocean.org/news/over-75-years-of-fish-larvae-observations-from-california-coast-now-globally-accessible/) and OBIS (https://obis.org/2026/04/15/fish-egg-larvae-dataset-calcofi/).

A new study co-led by CalCOFI researchers, including Erin Satterthwaite, demonstrates how environmental DNA (eDNA) and microbial community data collected through the CalCOFI program can improve predictions of baleen whale density in the California Current Ecosystem. Using CalCOFI observations and samples collected from 2014–2020, the study found that microscopic ocean life can provide important ecological habitat information linked to whales. This improved prediction accuracy beyond traditional oceanographic approaches. This work highlights the growing value of CalCOFI’s long-term ecosystem observations and emerging genomic tools for understanding and managing marine ecosystems. Read the Scripps press release here: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/tiny-ocean-life-helps-scientists-estimate-prevalence-whales-california and the paper, Microbial and small zooplankton communities predict density of baleen whales in the southern California Current Ecosystem here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0334209

Hi! I’m Ainsleigh Lloyd, a researcher in the Marine Bioacoustics Research Collaborative at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I was the marine mammal acoustician and one of the observers on this CalCOFI cruise. My duties onboard included identifying and recording marine mammal presence and behavior, and deploying acoustic equipment to record calls, clicks, and other bioacoustic signals. Half of my time was spent on the flying bridge (the very top of the ship!) to look for mammals. The other half of my time was spent in the acoustics lab recording and monitoring soundscapes in real time.

In January, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Oxnard, kicking off their 2026 Invited Speaker Series. In my talk, “Beneath Pacific Tides: Tales from over 75 Years of Ocean Observations in California,” I took the audience on a journey through some of my favorite stories from CalCOFI’s decades of ocean research.

Hi, my name is Mallory! I’m a current Master’s student at SIO, and I got to help out with CCE and CalCOFI data collection on the cruise! As an undergraduate student, I had worked on consolidating and organizing PRPOOS plankton data from the CCE LTER database, so it was a satisfying, full-circle moment to finally get to be out on the ship, seeing the origin of where that data came from.