Madness

Today has been a huge success. And Javier’s birthday, too. We started with somewhat ambitious goals and we have achieved the lot of them without a hitch!!! We are done with the region of our study area that we call 3O, which is a bit boring because there is little fish, there are few trawlable places in the deeper strata and we do not have the bottom cartography. IN 3O there are 22 hauls and we have finish them today. Yes!! So far we have bagged 33 hauls, 32 of them done in 5 days, which is very, very good going. Surely former Platuxa participants will choke the commentaries section tomorrow with messages to confirm this. 

Javier biologist.

We started with a haul at 1300 m at 6 this morning and we hauled the sixth and last haul a mere two hours ago at about 350 m. We have also taken two profiles with the CTD and right now we are about to take the third. The weather has been exactly as we asked the meteorologists for -thanks, guys, and lots more, but let’s go step by step...

Sunrise in the Grand Banks, fish eye effect

Starting at 6 in the morning is not just because, but a need to optimise working time. If we wouldn’t do this the team starting at 8 would have nothing to do until 10, and we cannot afford that. We got lots to do, too little time to do it and we are constantly under threat of a low forcing us to stop working and shaking us on top of it.

The catch in the first haul was very scarce but brought some Greenland halibut, different grenadier species, chimaeras (we will show them very soon), but mostly antimoras, which I dislike quite a lot. The second haul was equally poor but came with a surprise: a Linophryne lucifer right under 20 cm that arrived in very good condition even though they are so soft, and she had a male attached to her!!!! These are anglerfish, and as such, instead of a dorsal fin they have a single spine that leans forward and has a photophore dangling from it. This organ produces light that attracts unsuspecting prey. Where they live (we got this at 1000 m), the only light sources are living organisms. Light can mean finding a mate or becoming a meal. More on this on a very entertaining book by Palumbi & Palumbi called “The extreme life of the sea”. I have also found an smashing comic on the private life of these fish that I strongly recommend: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/angler

It so happens that males are tiny but have a very well developed…. sense of smell, which they use to find the enormous females. I don’t know if it is hunger or not knowing what to do, but when they find a female they start to bite her. As they bite, their mouths melt into her body, so they become attached to her whether they want it or not. Next step is that their whole bodies melt into the female’s, until only the gonads can be seen. These will be used by the female when she sees fit, and she can have several males thus attached. So.

Linophryne lucifer. The male is the tiny bit dangling on the right.

After this, the next haul at 800 m was a bit disappointing, with more antimoras, a few dogfish and little else, but lunch came with a birthday cake and we forgot about the haul in no time.

And then, surprise, surprise!!! Fourth haul, right before the codend arrived, a sperm whale showed up!!! I love them. Don’t know if it is because I have seen so few of them, because they are so weird, with that enormous head that takes one third of their bodies. Their heads hold the spermaceti organ, which liquefies when they surface and hardens when they dive. But besides being a flotation aid, it seems it can also act as a ecolocation organ. The photos are not contest winning, it was so close that the cranes at the stern were always in the frame. 

The sperm whale blowing right besides our stern

The sperm whale in the middle and crane on the left. No time to crop..

 

 

After this Jose María came with this mad idea of chucking his GoPro down the fish hold to film the process from a fish point of view… everything we can say now is that we need to develop this further. The GoPro survived.

When it seemed the day could offer no more, the fifth haul came WITH ANOTHER SPERM WHALE in its wake!! Or maybe it was the same? It also loitered a bit about while we hauled the gear. But we had to leave it behind to go for our last haul. Besides, we had caught an Atlantic halibut that measured 153 cm and weighted 44 kg!!!! That’s nearly as big as I am… Ole Venicio and Edu for lifting it for the pic!!!

Second sperm whale

Second sperm whale not swimming into the sunset

Venicio, the Atlantic halibut and Edu, in that order



This is what a 44 kg Atlantic halibut looks like

Luckily by then was dinner time, I was starving after going upstairs and downstairs a million times (four decks from the bridge to the working deck). Delicious cod from yesterday, among other things, because the kitchen on board Vizconde is not from this world.

Time to haul the sixth and last haul, with Adriana, Iñaki, Marta and Nair, I go downstairs, purposedly leaving the camera behind because what else could happen today? Well, it could happen that in the last haul you catch a 117 cm and 28 kg anglerfish, thank you very much! Iñaki, despite his own size had trouble to take it, difficult to get a hold on an anglerfish of that size, with all those teeth and so slimy…. 

 

So, as you can see, no way to get bored here… Thankfully we will start tomorrow at 5:30, otherwise the day would not be long enough… Off to bed, the lot of you!!