Ocean Floor Surveys Outside of the Refugio Oil Spill

On June 10th, we set out together with our partners at Santa Barbara Channel Keeper on their boat the R/V Channel Keeper. We headed to Naples Marine Protected Area (MPA), which is just a few miles down current from the Refugio Oil Spill Site. We had a few VIPs along with us, a reporter from Rolling Stone Magazine and an oil spill documentary producer. We launched our OpenROVs and inspected the ocean floor on the current facing side of the MPA. Luckily we can report that we did not see any oil on the benthos (sea floor), but many more surveys are necessary to have a complete grasp of any deposition.