These last few days have been a bit wild out here on the high seas (movie)! This is not unexpected as we are in a very active/dynamic ocean surface current area where the Gulfstream flows north at the surface overlying several other deeper/cooler currents (pic 1; windy.com). As you may imagine the heightened sea state has consequences in respect to both our comfort and data quality. The threshold for the latter was breached yesterday morning (05/19) when we lost contact with our tail buoy (float at the end of the 6km streamer), which is bad news as we were not sure if it was still attached. As a result, we broke off Line 14 (pic 1) and reeled in the streamer to investigate the problem. Luckily it was still attached (pic 2) and we were able to fix it, but not without a ~15hr delay. During the delay we headed southeast to get away from the storm (much to the relief of all onboard). As a bonus, the calm seas and distant storm clouds provided us with a fantastic sunset (pic3). We are back on line 14 now with high hopes for low seas, wish us luck!
