May 15 was the 6th day of drifter releases. We did 2 releases in the morning during the ebb tide, 1 during ebb to slack tide, and 1 afternoon release during flood tide. The releases today were shorter in length so that we could collect all 35 drifters more quickly if thunderstorms arrived, which thankfully they didn’t. Below are images of the flood tide release.

Fig. 1: 12 drifters were released in the old channel (blue lines), and 22 were released in the new channel (green, yellow, and red lines). Regardless of the initial release locations, all drifters converge in the inlet. (The coast line (thick white lines) used is only an approximation and clearly inaccurate!)

Fig. 2: The drifters leading the pack are now hugging the south-west bank and have made the first part of the “S” turn. A little further upstream of drifter 32, some drifters were strangely sucked underwater for about 20 s.

Fig. 3: All but a few drifters hugged the south-west bank and the leading drifters have made the second portion of the S turn. Drifters suggest surface convergence as the drifters do not sample the width of the inlet. We allowed the drifters to continue up the inlet until they reached the ICW where they were collected.