Davis Drive Davie Dolphin

Davis Drive Davie Dolphin—Davis Drive Elementary in Cary, NC

Location: 160° 59.2561’ E; 63° 59.9108’ S

Time: Sat 14 JAN 2023. 21:05 UTC

Float Number: 20302

Float Type: Apex

Float Program: GO-BGC

This float was adopted by the Science 5 class at Davis Drive Elementary in Cary, NC. Their school mascot is a dolphin, and his name is Davie. They sent in an image of their adorable Davie Dolphin, so I tried to recreate him as best I could for them!

This was the 5th float we had deployed, and the 4th in just over 24 hours! The crew has become adept at deploying the floats quickly and carefully at each location. Even though the weather had gotten steadily rougher, we were still to be able to deploy floats, even though we couldn’t do any of the other sampling at each station. 

The waves at this last deployment location were around 4-5m high and the boat was rocking and rolling during the deployment. Luckily, the deck where the floats are deployed from is only a few meters above the water line, so the floats don’t have far to travel. During this deployment, a wave spun the float just as the crew was pulling in the deployment line and a small knot was tied in the end of the line, so they couldn’t pull it free of the deployment ring. Luckily, they were able to hoist the float back on board, untie the knot, and then safely and successfully deploy it. As Davie Dolphin finally rode off into the waves, some seabirds were very curious and came to take a look! It was so surprising to see the birds materialize seemingly out of nowhere, since we’re hundreds of kilometers from any land.