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Back to Wellington, where it all began (Photo by Peter Minnett).

The Sage logo shows the track of the Tangaroa following the tracer labeled patch around an eddy.

As the SAGE voyage comes to an end, it is only fitting that we have the best weather of the month. After all, we did ask for strong wind conditions to assist in giving high gas exchange, and we certainly got it. So now as we bask in sunshine amidst the warm sub-tropical waters, we have been reflecting on the voyage; a voyage with exciting, challenging, intriguing and unexpected aspects that make the scientific endeavor so rewarding.

There have been several highlights. The first was the opportunity to make dual-tracer gas exchange coefficient measurements at higher wind speeds than had previously been sampled. The high wind speeds were also a feature for the MAERI remote sensing of sea surface skin temperature, and microwave radar measurements of waves.

A second highlight was to find that we did not stimulate a phytoplankton bloom with the addition of iron, a result unlike previous experiments. This has the biologists intrigued, and will keep them busy examining the results of the onboard experiments to determine the missing factor(s).

This is the final wrap-up for the fieldwork, and now the scientific personnel go their separate ways to begin the lengthy work of analyzing the data in detail. From this will emerge an improved knowledge of the biological and physical controls of the interchange of gases between the ocean and atmosphere, and the subsequent role in influencing climate change.

With a goodbye from the whole SAGE science team, we say a very big thank you to the many individuals and organizations that made SAGE possible. We owe special thanks to Captain Roger Goodison, his officers and crew for rising to the challenge and providing us with the highest level of logistic support and the required flexibility to run the many and varied deployments and operations of SAGE. The range and amount of equipment presented a considerable engineering challenge and this was handled extremely competently by the engineers Allan Harvey and Fred de Jager, along with Greg Foothead and the staff at the NIWA workshop in Wellington. We also thank the ground support back at NIWA coordinated by Mark Hadfield, assistance with ocean color provided by Steve Wilhelm at University of Tennessee, IT support from Chris Edsall and the IT team, and the many participating organizations that provided equipment for the voyage. None of this would have happened without the funding of the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST) through programs (C01X0204) "Drivers and Mitigation of Global Change" (C01X0223), "Ocean Ecosystems: Their Contribution to NZ Marine Productivity," the US National Science Foundation, the International Science and Technology (ISAT) fund, the many collaborator institutions who also provided support, and of course NIWA itself.