We started off Thursday by installing our last two instruments. With all of our instruments now fully installed and constantly collecting data, we now found ourselves having a lot of free time on our hands. We spent much of the rest of the day releasing our floating drogues at different positions in the nearshore to monitor any current circulation. Luckily we were able to collect data as drogues were pulled in different distinct patterns throughout the day.

Our GPS drogues are actually large diameter PVC pipe with PVC stoppers on each end. We drilled a hole in the top of one stopper and inserted a plastic dowel which was glued in place. We then attached a water proof GPS bag to the top of the dowel which would allow the GPS units to remain high and dry while keeping GPS reception. The GPS units we chose for this experiment are originally for monitoring a dog’s location during a hunt. This unique system allowed us to watch all three drogues or ‘dogs’ as we affectionately call them, on one GPS receiver and plot their tracks together.

Today followed the same trend of activities as yesterday. We released the dogs many times throughout the day as well as doing a high resolution survey of the beach and nearshore thanks to the relatively low energy wave conditions.