Cordell Expedition Trip

Brian Basura and I participated in a series of research dives with the Cordell Expedition on Oct 15-17, 2004.  The goal was to dive a series of ridges and pinnacles on the Pt. Sur shelf in 125-160' of water and make observations, take photographs, and collect various mineral and biological samples.  Our observations will be compared to those taken by a team of researchers 15 years ago and the samples will be delivered to various research institutions.

The weather didn't exactly cooperate with us but we still managed to make a couple of quick dives and take a few photos.  The swell was manageable, but the current was moving at speeds that I've never before witnessed in California.  Making forward progress was almost impossible and it was all that we could do to remain stationary beside the zodiacs tied to the down lines.  The current was so strong that we had to pull ourselves hand-over-hand down the line!

We were under chilly grey skies for most of the trip.  We were rewarded with an exceptionally warm and comfortable night on Friday only to be pounded by high surf and blowing rain on Saturday night.  It was an adventure and it taught me a thing or two about how to better deal with camping out on the deck of a boat during cold & wet conditions.

The few minutes of bottom time was nice, but the real joy was spending time with and getting to know the other divers and participants in the expedition.  I've never met a finer group of people.  See the following link for more information on Cordell Expeditions.

Photos:


Cordell Explorer


Dive 1 - 19Sur Hydrocoral


Dive 1 - 19Sur

Dive 1 - 19Sur
Dive 1 - 19Sur
Dive 1 - 19Sur

Pfeiffer Cove Dive
Pfeiffer Cove Dive
Pfeiffer Cove - where we slept

Pfeiffer Cove - where we slept
headed out for the day
The fog moves in

Dive 2 - SW Ridge (161 ft)
little cabin up on the hill
Dive 2 - SW Ridge (161 ft)

Dive 2 - SW Ridge (161 ft)
At the 60' deco stop
Dive 2 - SW Ridge (161 ft)

Typical Conditions - cold & grey
GIS data for area of dives
Bixby Bridge


Brian took a few photos with his Nikonos.
 


 
 
 
 

Pt Sur Bank GIS Analysis:

NOTE:  these maps suck because I made them early on in my GIS hobby.  I know how to make better ones now.
I plan to revise them soon.  (Nov 2005)

Notes on the data:  MBARI generously supplies CDs of the survey data to the public.  You can obtain a CD by sending an email to cdrom@mbari.org and requesting the "MBARI Monterey Bay Multibeam Survey CD".  The CD contains GeoTiffs of both the backscatter and depth layers as well as ASCII raster format (similar to XYZ) for the depths.  The data is at a resolution of 25m.

I contacted MBARI requesting the highest resolution possible data for the area we were diving and David Caress of MBARI was kind enough to reprocess my area of interest at the highest possible resolution and make it available to me via an anonymous FTP site. 

The GeoTIFFs can be viewed using any modern image viewing utility.  To get the most out of the data, you'll need Geographic Information System (GIS) software.  There are many to choose from, but this data was processed using Manifold. 



This is an overview of the area.
This is an overview of the shallower area of the bank.  The yellow areas with black outlines define the areas shallower than 150'.

This is a slightly zoomed in view of the NW Ridge area.  The grey area defines everything shallower than 170' and the yellow area defines everything shallower than 150'.

Here's NW Ridge with the 170' layer turned off
Here's the NW Ridge with contours drawn at 1m intervals and the 150' yellow area turned on.
This image is an overview of the shallowest area of the bank.  Dr. Schmeider calls this spot 19SUR.  The yellow areas are shallower than 150' and the red areas are shallower than 140'.
 
Here's a zoomed in view of 19SUR.  The green areas are shallower than 130 ft, the red areas shallower than 140 ft, and the yellow areas shallower than 150 ft.  Of the green areas, the absolute shallowest point is about still about 125 ft.		  

Note:  This data set was processed by MBARI to the highest accuracy allowed by the collection system.  This turned out to be 3 meters in longitude and 3.7 m in latitude.  I don't have a specification for the depth accuracy, but 0.05% of water depth is reported for similar surveys.

Trip Reports or GIS Data from others:

Schmieder Bank Report from Marcos Perreau Guimaraes (Nov 05)
http://www.stanford.edu/~marcospg/SurPlatform.html

 

Bay Area Underwater Explorers (BAUE) trip (July 31, 04)
http://www.baue.org/projects/bigsur/july_31_2004.php

 

Point Sur Bank Photos by Phil Sammet
http://www.stanford.edu/~marcospg/plongee/Sur_Phil/index.htm

 

2004 Cordell Expeditions page
http://www.cordell.org/htdocs/CE_pages/CE_Pt_Sur_2004_Exp_3.html

 

USGS Continental Shelf GIS for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of01-179/index.html

 

California State University Monterey Bay - Sea Floor Mapping Lab

http://seafloor.csumb.edu/SFMLwebDATA.htm

 


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