Now we are talking...

Morning everybody, especially the readers who write and ask as questions! We had a rough day yesterday in this corner of our study area called 3N… very windy most of the day, we started with 17 m/s in the first haul, 13 m/s in the second… no break until the fifth and last haul, when it dropped to 7 m/s. We moved towards shallower waters as the day progressed, from the 1400 m of the first haul to 550 m in the last.

Catches were really scarce, luckily we do not have a share system on board. Among the most abundant species we caught were Greenland halibut (but do not get too excited, total catch for the day was below 60 kg), dogfish, which are small sharks fished for oil, and some really ugly (I think) fish called antimora. And with this sentence I just realised I made a bee line with my camera towards the pretty non-edible deep water fish and did not take a single picture of the target species. I will watch out for those today….

The truth is that it was an exhausting day. It is difficult to imagine this if you have never been at sea but fighting for your balance all the time is very tiring. The ship also suddenly rolled rather madly right before seven and EVERYTHING on top of surfaces went flying. Unfortunately among the flying items where the water glasses that had just been laid on the tables. So those coming to the Flemish Cap and 3L surveys beware, you may have to bring your own glasses! Manuel warned us we are already drinking from the glasses allocated to July.

I also spent lots of time with my cameras, now I understand my colleague Bernardo, when in 2014 I kept asking him for his GoPro footage and he said “be patient, this takes a while”. I filmed the shooting and hauling and the question now is how to edit them and if there is a way to upload them while we are here. I can tell you that my footage will not be as elaborated as Bernardo’s who added even music.

And today? Today we have clear sky and calm seas, and we do have a message for the weather forecast agency: this is what we want for this an the next two surveys. Please!!!

The weather has allowed us seeing the Portuguese trawlers, and one of them, Santa Cristina, very close. It is beautiful but very old.

In a few hours we will publish some pictures of gorgeous fish and we will tell you more about our catch.

Santa Cristina, Portugal

Dear Meteorologists, please get us another 90 days like this