New Eddy developing out of nowhere! May 27

Happy Memorial day. Take a minute to remember the wounded warriors and supreme sacrifices people made to defend the beliefs of the USA. Locally, I think of the 28 men who died aboard the Texas Tower 4 because of faulty construction and power of Nature's wrath.These men died defending our shores from incoming attacks. Rest In Peace.

It is truly mind-boggling. New 72-73 degree water is butting up against 66 degree water by the Dip area and towards the Hudson. Where did this come from? A little over 10 days ago nothing was to be seen then all of a sudden we have a curl of beautiful low 70's temp water that looks like an eddy will form drawing water from the nearby Gulf Stream.
Reports of a couple of boats with small YF by the Hudson this weekend.
So they are definitely in the forefront of this water.
One can never tell what Mother Nature will do nor when, so I guess the morale of the story is keep your eyes peeled for changes.
Have you boat ready to head out when you can.
Offshore is producing and looks good now and short term. But I am just an observer and report what is happening.Mother Nature is definitely in charge as usual and can confound us when she wants.
Good luck.

Eddy, Say It Ain't So!

12 May Water Update

Guys, you know I just love this stuff. Even if I can't get out, following the water is fascinating and I love analyzing it.
Back on April 3 my  thread on a couple of forums started and eddy water was out by Block Canyon..
This past weekend that same eddy water had made its way down to Wilmington and Poorman's where a bunch of boats gathered and harvested yellowfin,bluefin,mako and bigeye. Bluefin were caught recently in the Chicken Canyon and sighted by Shrewsbury Rocks last week. That is the good news.

Now the bad news.

Look at the temp map from May 12th. There is not one warm water eddy to be seen. You can see a small warm trail that leads to the water by Baltimore Canyon area where aall the tuna were caught the other days, and some 60 degree water off the Hudson but there is nothing but cold water out east where our eddys come from. Nothing as far as the eye can see. At least not now.
So what is in store for the tuna near term 30-50 days? Probably only bluefin. Next stop Coimcardi? (Coimbra+Bacardi), Princess?
Not that that is so bad but it certainly does not sit well with offshore canyon hungry anglers who are not likely to spend $1200 to catch the one recreationally BF allowed.
I hope that some water quickly vortexes and materializes into an eddy
out by Hydrographers by then. You know Mother nature, no telling.
Thanks to Terrafin for the use of its SST service map.

Fin It on Pin It! -Pinterest

Pinterest! Ok, another social tool to spend time with! But this is easy to be connected and share with just by using photos. So, thinking about all the good images I see that come and go on FB, Twitter, I figured let me start a community photo board about the fish we caught and call it

Fin It-I created this page on Pinterest. Welcome to my FaceBook friends,Pin It users and social network to send me a link of your favorite fish shot & I will add to the Fin It Board. Here is the link to see the beginning.  http://pinterest.com/bigmahi/fin-it/ This could be a cool thing. Lots of great shots used here that would be great there. I already added some from here. Take a look. Be sure to included your name so it can be part of the caption.

I am not sure how many images can be on a board but I hope to find out. 
 

SST Service Comparison Chart

Hey, all of you who fish and want to see satellite temperature shots and various other data that will help you plan to find the fish species you want, here is a chart of companies offering these services. You will see some free and some pay for service. There are others but here is a good sampling for your use.Check out my blog when you get a chance for information I think you will interesting and useful in fishing and related topics. Jeff, http://bigmahi.blogspot.com

Ward off Evil-Do a Good Deed Today

We all are somewhat superstitious; some more than others. My daughter blogged that she was sitting in her office today with a helmet on and padded clothing. Now, a bit over top I would say.
But, let’s take the evil out of today and put in some good. Not asking for a lot, just one day.
1-Tell your family you love them ( no fingers crossed)
2-Make that donation to charity you have been postponing
3-Do your spouse a favor before they ask
4-Help a colleague
5-Make up with your sibling or parent
6-Email an old friend
7-Return that over due library book
8-Surprise someone in a cool way
9-Listen to a song from your teens
10-If nothing else, think about these 9 things. Maybe just the thought
of these things will put Friday the 13th in it’s place.
Oh, and good luck!

Did 44066 Go Dark?

Yesterday, Feb 26, I went online to check out the status of the latest drifting 44066/TT4 buoy.
It has been consistently drifting pretty Easterly for the past month transmitting good data.
Of course who really needs this data? It is so far away and in the middle of the Atlantic, but it is fun tracking it.  Having been involved from the beginning I feel connected and like to keep an eye out and share info for those of you who are interested. Getting this buoy deployed was major cooperation among government agencies and us ocean using stakeholders.

As of yesterday ( see post below), I posted a last line on the post something about a contest.
I was excited about bringing some late winter online fun to readers.

So, today I go on line to see what the ocean conditions were and how they might have subsided.

You can imagine my shock when I noticed that the last data upload from the buoy was one hour after
my last view and NOTHING was transmitted more than an hour later. It appears that the equipment has failed, again, probably due to the 40mph winds and 25 foot waves hitting her for several hours. Maybe she got tipped over, dunked or smashed on a wave wall. Maybe a passing ship nicked her but no way of knowing that. But that is probably unlikely since the Bermuda Cargo Lines spotted her and verified that her light was working. BCL also verified that they were able to spot her on radar for miles so other ocean going ships would have the same capability. The reason for not seeing updated data on the NDBC website is unclear but my worst fears of a damaged buoy are beginning to surface, or subsurface as the case may be!

Here are the last observations on the NDBC site yesterday. I separated them so you could see the
conditions and changes.

YYYY MM DD hh      LAT       LON  WD WSPD  GST WVHT  DPD  BARO   ATMP  WTMP  

                                 deg  kts  kts   ft  sec   mb    degC  degC 

Data found this morning 1 hour after posting latest position. Last posting.

2012 02 26 14  38.0449  -61.9210 297 29.3 38.5 25.7 13.8 1013.6  12.0  19.2 

Data used to determine location of 44066 Feb 26   

2012 02 26 13  38.0528  -61.9477 291 27.2 43.5 25.0 12.9 1013.1  10.9  19.2  

This is such a strange development. Having just been somewhat optimistic about the  buoy continuing to transmit after almost 2 months of drifting, it now seems that she has gone dark.

This needs to be verified by NDBC. It is possible that for some reason the servers at NDBC are down, but we'll just have to wait and see.

This information will be updated when NDBC clarifies the situation.

As earlier reported there are two 44066 buoys drifting out in the middle of the Atlantic; one is the latest still transmitting and the other went silent a year ago. I don't know the last time that this has occurred in the NDBC program with two buoys breaking off the same area and drifting along similar lines towards Europe.
I used the Google image from last year and created a pushpin for the latest position.
You can see both the new 44066 26 Feb 2012 and the 44066 24Jan 2011 with the X next to the yellow pushpin icons on the Google map below. The Current position today has the drifting buoy in 61 degree water and fighting 25 foot waves and gusts to 43mph for part of today.
We will see if she survives the winds and seas which tormented and eventually took down the first 44066 buoy last January. The new buoy is about 700 miles from its mooring near the Tip of the Hudson. Last year the other buoy went dark about 850 miles away. The current buoy latitude is along the 38th line and last year's was close to this line as well. Both have been sucked into the Gulf Stream and subject to the Westward movement of the currents which predominately head towards
the Azores.
Interestingly, if you read the recent story of the Regulator that had been swamped 3 years off of Cape Cod it was found about a month ago on the North Coast of Spain! It traveled 3 years before making landfall! It was covered with barnacles and was stripped by the severe weather of any instrumentation. See story:
http://www.regulatormarine.com/tales-sdouglas.html

So who knows where this one will land.

If she stays alive for a while longer I may run some kind of contest asking for readers to guess the lat/lon where she might stop transmitting or the spot where she will make landfall. Anyone wanting to donate a cool prize, jump in.