Captions below:
The original funding to do the drifter work came from the Maine Oil Spill Advisory Committee and was focused on information needed for spill planning. Because of this we needed to gather information about the currents in the areas most likely to have lots of boat traffic. Three of those sites are the Eastport Breakwater, the Estes Head Pier, and the Lubec Narrows area. In order to get really good information about how the currents in these areas work we set out the drifters using one of three different methods.
The method we have used most often is deploying along a transect. When we set out the drifter in a transect, we place them in the water from one point to another in a straight line. This map shows a trial we did on July 25, 2005. The drifters were deployed in a line between Treat Island and Friars Head Campobello. This run was interesting because the drifter set out closest to Treats entered Cobscook Bay by going to the south of Treats Island. The other four drifters moved into Cobscook by going around the northern end of the island.