We keep up the pace

This is going very well. The weather is better than yesterday and we have bagged already five bautiful hauls, making a total of 110. The last haul today will be at 1300 m depth, to finish the day in style. This morning our legs still felt a bit heavy after the hard work keeping our balance yesterday while the ship rolled as if there was no tomorrow. But we are very close to the end in the final sprint and we are not going to give up now. This is a race and we will keep up the pace, as the song says.

The problem is that we have this horrendous forecast for tomorrow, which has not changed in the last six days. The tiny area that remains to be sampled is just between those two lows looking like two fried eggs painted by Warhol. As you can see, it's going to be very windy, between 25 and 30 knots, so we do not have high expectations when it comes to work. If this is what awaits us I hope that no one gets hurt and that our water glasses survive the day. I am sure the guys in the bridge know what to do so that the boat does not shake us too much

The weather forecast tomorrow morning

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Just in case the forecast is accurate and work out on deck is out of the question, José from the engine room has started the rubber boat engine to check that it works (it must be done periodically) and the deckhands have start the crusade against the rust that can be seen here and there. The ship must shine on arrival to St. John’s.

José checking out the rubber boat

Today's first haul was a surprise. It came full of small fish -juveniles. The catch of ray, for example, was 1.4 kg and included 51 individuals. I had never seen so much small fish in a haul, or such small redfish. The small rays do not have nothing to fear –except for a trawler, probably. They have vicious spines, extremely hard, sharp and pointy. I do not think there is any animal fool enough as to eat them, and if there is, it will happen once. What an stomach ache. Not to mention how nasty probably is having your esophagus and stomach shredded to pieces.

From the top: Greenland halibut, American plaice, Arctic cod, wolffish, redfish, snailfish and a skate. The skate measured about 12 cm.

She won't go down without a fight.

The rest of the hauls have been just as diverse but with adult fish. We have caught more Greenland halibut, of which we had another record catch for this survey (finally after all this time, Diana!). We have also caught more black dogfish and redfish than last year. On the other hand, sandlance and capelin (cod’s favourite meal) are very scarce. Let's see what the data tells us, when everything has been typed in and corrected. This has been a different survey than usual, not only because of the low catches compared to other years, but also because we have got better catches in the deeper strata than in the shallower areas. 

Jose Luis, Marta and Jose measuring blue antimoras

Vanessa and Fergus get busy with some Greenland halibut.

On dry land you must be already enjoying your weekend and we wish you all have a good time. Some of us have just a few days left on board, but for now we will continue to work and report on our findings.