[obol] 10 April at sea

[Troy Guy]

OBOL-
More from Scott Mills and Terry Hunefeld aboard the Freeman, see clip 
from Terry below. They started off Newport, headed south near shore, 
then turned west and surveyed across the northern portion of Heceta Bank 
and beyond. Today they are well offshore.
"The day began gray and overcast. Began birding several miles off the 
coast at 0800. Pretty much all we saw for the first hour were common 
murre, (most in this time period off Newport). More alcid variety as the 
morning went on. A couple of Minke surfaced. After lunch, we headed west 
we encountered masses of alcids, and for 90 minutes we were entering 
data as fast as we could call it out and type it in. Ancient Murrelet, 
Marbled Murrelet, Parakeet Auklet were mixed in with Rhinos and 
Cassin’s. The day continued to clear, becoming sunny and pleasant. A 
couple of big Blue blows were seen, and I called the Chief Scientist to 
the flying bridge as he had asked me to let him know when we were seeing 
cool stuff. The call went out over the radio and 5 scientists enjoyed a 
nice sunny late-afternoon show of distant Blue Whale spouts."

Best,
Troy Guy
Astoria, OR