22 June

R/V Pelagia Cruise HERMES

Thursday – 22 June 2006
Finally we have left Galway tonight and we are heading in a northwest direction to the Rockall Bank. Because of the bad weather forecasts of the last few days, we decided to stay in Galway, waiting for the depressions to pass by. Especially the strong winds would make work at sea impossible. We spend our days in port unpacking containers, shifting boxes, preparing labs and building up all the equipment.
We are with 15 scientists on board with different nationalities and different research interests and in the diary everybody will get a chance to explain what they will be doing during this cruise. In the coming days we will deploy a few landers and moorings in the coldwater-coral mound area at the SW Rockall Trough margin. With the landers and moorings, who will measure water temperature and current velocities we would like to get more knowledge about the current and hydrographic system around the mounds. Corals living on the mounds will benefit from the presence of currents, bringing food to the corals and preventing them from sedimentation. We also are going to take sediment samples and water samples. At the moment everybody is getting used to the movements of the ship and is getting to know each other better. The estimated time of arrival at the Rockall Bank will be tomorrow morning and than we will start with a multibeam track in a selected working area.