What a day this has been! Five tags on! It started out with the acoustics team successfully tracking sperm whales through the night. The animals had moved northeast over 15 nm, back to the vicinity where we had turned southwest yesterday. By morning, only 2 of the animals were within acoustic range. The sea state was rough and  marginal for launching and tagging from small boats, and the visual team again worked with the difficult conditions of white-capped seas. These conditions lasted throughout the day. We lost contact with the animals shortly after 07:00 local time, but reacquired acoustic contact about three hours later. Although the seas were still marginal, the small boats were launched about 11:00 CDT. An XBT was taken, and the 38 kHz fishery echo sounder was deployed to monitor for deep backscatter layers that might indicate prey fields. Near surface currents were directed northeastward at about 1knot or less when the 38 kHz ADCP was turned off.

Then the action started. We worked with a group of 8-12 sperm whales, including 2 that were yearling sized. About noon local time, a depth S-tag was deployed. Two hours later and in quick succession, 2 location-only S-tags were deployed. A bioacoustics probe (B-probe) was attached to a whale shortly after that, but the tag did not stay on. About 17:45 local time, a third location-only S-tag was deployed. An hour later the tag team deployed another location-only S-tag. Biopsies were obtained on all 5 tagged animals and photo-ids were taken of at least 2. All the teams worked long and hard with excellent coordination and communications to achieve this 5-tag success in the windy, rough seas of the western Gulf of Mexico!

Our position at 21:10 local time is 26 52.715'N 95 29.975'W.