Advanced oceanographic instrumentation systems and measurements at St. Croix, U.S.V.I.

During the past three years the Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory, together with its subcontractors, have designed, fabricated and deployed a number of sophisticated oceanographic instrumentation systems. These systems have been used to obtain detailed property measurements in the ocean in the vicinity of St. Croix, U.S.V.I. They include: a large aperture towed thermistor-fluorometer chain, a self-propelled underwater research vehicle, an acoustically tracked current/shear profiler, a moored current meter array and cable deployed CTD and CTD microprofilers. A sampling of measurements made with each of the systems is presented. New methods of processing and displaying the data are discussed and are used to describe some of the physical features of the ocean in the lee of the island of St. Croix.