CalCOFI 1704SH General Cruise & Cast Notes:

Stations and Station Order: CalCOFI 1704SH on RV Bell M Shimada occupied 104 
scheduled stations: 75 standard (occupied 4 times a year) and 29 northern 
(winter, spring only).  The station order was typical south-north, west-east-
west starting off San Diego and ending off San Francisco. After station #82, 
70.90, RV Bell M Shimada came into Monterey CA to exchange personnel. With fewer 
analytical personnel available, reduced seawater sample collection started after 
the southern 75 standard stations. The rosette was stripped of 12-10L bottles 
and three check salts, 12 oxygen samples, 9 chlorophyll samples were collected 
after sta #75, 77.49. Nutrients were collected from all 12 bottles on Line 73.3 
but there were problems with the nitrate channel during the last few runs. CUFES 
egg survey transects were performed throughout the cruise on all transects and 
transits. Refer to map for station order and track.

CTD General Notes and Problems:

The CTD configuration throughout the cruise was standard: Seabird 911+ with dual 
T, C, O2, & pumps;  Wetlabs C-Star 25cm transmissometer; Biospherical QSP200L 
PAR;  Datasonics/Benthos Altimeter; WET Labs ECO-AFL/FL; Seabird SBE 18 pH; 
Satlantic ISUS v3 (rebuilt & upgraded to firmware v3 prior to CalCOFI 1611SR; 
recalibrated by JRW/DGS on CalCOFI 1701RL) & Wetlabs (custom) batteries. Please 
refer to the xmlcon files or cruise prospectus for additional info & metadata. 
There were no primary sensor failures this cruise but the pH sensor behavior 
began to deteriorate after 30 casts. The pH sensor, which just returned from 
Seabird, will be sent back for service. Please remember the 50% reduction in 
bottle samples after station 75 may affect bottle corrections applied to CTD 
sensor data.

The first leg of the cruise was relatively calm the first two days of the cruise 
but rough weather appeared on day 3. After two days of rough weather the 
remainder of the offshore stations were in moderate seas. The 3500m deep casts 
on sta 90.90 (or 80.90) was not performed - RV Shimada has only 3800m wire. The 
transmissometer did not have any visible dropout problems. The ISUS was mounted 
vertically, with optics pointing down worked well when powered but one profile 
was lost due no power (not being plugged-in). pH sensor was fresh from service 
at Seabird and new coefficients imported. 

Logistics: CalCOFI 1704SH loaded RV Shimada at TAMT Friday and setup Saturday 
with final setup & walk-thru Monday. RV Shimada sailed with 12 scientists and 2 
volunteers at 1600PDT Mar 28th 2017. No acoustic calibration of the EK60 was 
performed. RV Shimada's two-conductor termination was used with the SIO-
CalCOFI's v2 deck unit and SIO-CalCOFI's primary PC (Windows 7 ASUS blade) for 
all casts. Shimada's monitor was interfaced with the SIO's CTD Blade PC, 
keyboard & trackball. SIO-CalCOFI's Seabird Remote Depth Readout Box was used, 
interfaced via deck unit, with cable run from the survey lab to winch shack. 
Shimada's NMEA GPS feed was interfaced with SIO-CalCOFI's deck unit using the 
Seabird serial-to-deck unit cable. The GPS NMEA string was occasionally 
problematic; the date year was 1920 and sometimes listed in the .hdr file as 
2080. These casts will be identified in the cast by cast breakdown below. A few 
casts were not restarted so have bad GPS lat/lon/date/time. The solution 
discovered was to power cycle the deck unit and restart data acquisition 
(sometimes 3-4 times before success). SIO-CalCOFI's new (since 1611SR) LARS-
designed 24-bottle rosette was used throughout the cruise. The termination work 
fine throughout the cruise and there were no sensors replaced. The primary and 
secondary oxygen sensors differed from each other ~0.4ml/L but both responded as 
they should so were not replaced. Both had been recently serviced and 
calibrated. SIO-CalCOFI ran their own data network independent of the ship's 
network although some SIO computers did connect to the internet occasionally via 
SHWLAN wifi. Other interent devices, mainly smartphones and tablets, were 
connected all the time - one internet device connection per scientist at a time. 
This restriction helps with the limited bandwidth but eastward transects still 
have poor internet connectivity (prevalent on ALL ships we sail on except the 
recent Sally Ride CalCOFI). Internet was lost completely April 11th and was not 
working the remainder of the cruise. The CESL sample log tablet and CELog event 
tablet performed reliably when hard-wired to the data network, as well as the 
Chl Van Flog fluorometer computer. During the rough weather on day 4, the tablet 
base was flooded and electrical power connection shorted & eroded away. The 
backup tablet was installed onto an upper shelf, out of the splash zone but 
covered with plastic. SIO-CalCOFI's Portasal "Harry" was used after day 1 when 
the Shimada's Portasal stopped working properly during JLW sample run. "Harry" 
worked fine for the remainder of the cruise and Shimada's Portasal was not 
retried during the cruise.

RV Shimada does not have a Knudsen 3 or 12kHz echosounder to find the bottom 
depth. The EK60 system worked well although a +5m offset for center board depth 
should be applied..

More cast specific info is available at http://calcofi.org under CalCOFI 1704SH