2008 Cruise

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2008 Cruise

The 2008 western Indian Ocean cruise aboard the Dr. Fridtjof Nansen is probably the longest (~118 days) and most ambitious cruise to have taken place in the western Indian Ocean region to date. To follow the cruise, be sure to look at the Cruise Blog.

The cruise will be comprised of four main legs. Leg one will be a survey of the southern and eastern parts of Madagascar, including the upwelling cell near Angoche, and the entire east coast. Leg two will be a survey around the whole of the island of Mauritius. Leg three will cover the remote Mascarene Plateau and some of the Seychelles. Leg four will be in the Mozambique channel, and will survey any dipole eddies in the channel at the time and continue a long-running survey of the Delagoa Bight upwelling region.

The cruise will start in Durban on the 22nd of August. The Nansen will depart Maputo on the 23rd of August, and sail across the Mozambique channel to Toalanaro (Fort Dauphin) in Madagascar, where there will be a brief stop to resupply and change over the Nansen operating crew.

From Toalanaro, the ship will embark on the first leg - a pioneering oceanographic survey of the oceanographic conditions off the East coast of Madagascar, a region which has been very poorly surveyed in the past. This will be the first near-synoptic oceanographic survey of this region, and will likely help us understand the oceanographic conditions in this poorly studied area, enriching our understanding of the physico-chemical structure of water masses and the pattern of current flow.

The ship will visit Toamasina on the 11^th of September, where we will hold an Open Day. The ship will then continue on its first leg. Once this is completed, it will sail to Port Louis in Mauritius, arriving on the 27^th of September.

On the 28th of September, the ship will depart from Port Louis and undertake the second leg of the expedition, a comprehensive oceanographic survey around Mauritius. On the 2^nd of October, the ship will be in harbour again, for a crew change and Open Day. The ship departs Mauritius on the 3^rd for the third leg of the expedition.

The 3rd leg of the expedition is a survey of the remote Mascarene Plateau. We believe an understanding of this area is vital to the management of both LMEs, as the South Equatorial Current dominates this region and in turn forces current flows in the two LMEs. The presence of the Mascarene Plateau in the path of the South Equatorial Current probably complicates the flow of this current; in-situ measurements will help us interpret remote sensing imagery and improve computational models of the region. We will probably be joined by a survey vessel from the Seychelles on this leg. On the 13^th of November, the ship will be in Port Victoria, Seychelles, for an Open Day.

From there, the ship will depart, finish the Mascarene Plateau leg, and will be at Moroni in the Comoros on the 20^th. As the ship is unable to dock at Moroni, we do not think an Open Day will be feasible. A crew change will take place, prior to embarking on the fourth leg, a survey in the Mozambique channel.

The fourth leg will primarily aim to comprehensively study one of the dipole eddies which dominate the oceanography of the Mozambique Channel. An understanding of these and their impacts is likely to be vital to the management of the Agulhas Current LME region. As these are constantly in motion, the exact sampling location cannot be known with any certainty. The presence of these eddies can be detected with Remote Sensing, and this will be used to guide the sampling during this leg. This leg will also continue work begun on ACEP (African Coelacanth Ecosystem Programme) cruises on the upwelling cell in the Delagoa Bight region. This upwelling cell likely dominates productivity in the southernmost part of Mozambique and along most of the east coast of South Africa.

The ship will dock in Maputo on the 11^th of December, completing the data aquisition part of the cruise. After that, the scientists, students and technicians who took part in the cruise will carefully analyse the data and create reports which synthesize the data into useful information which will impact on our understanding of the region and its eventual ecosystem-based management.

Note all dates are provisional. For current dates, please check the Cruise Plan Calendar; they may continue to change as the cruise is still being planned.