Reapers... at sea

Yesterday was a great day. Catches increased from the third haul on. As we moved away from the cslope, water temperature (both surface and bottom), rose from just 1ºC to 2-3ºC, and we began to fish. We were in "yellowtail flounder territory", so this was the dominant species for the rest of the day. In one of the hauls we caught 1300 kg, and at the end of the day we had almost 3 tonnes. In a much smaller amount was American placie, about 400 kg. Both species like shallow waters but their distribution does not overlap completely in this area.

The first haul with a good catch arrived during Jose María's shift. On deck Luis, Paco and Luis.

It seems that yellowtail flounder originated in the North Pacific, and that it colonized the North Atlantic when the terrestrial link in the Bering Strait sank. You know that yellowtail flounder is a flatfish and that flatfish have both eyes on the same side of the body. What you may not know is that there are "right" and "left" flat fish, depending on which eye migrates. Yellowtail flounder is "right" because it is the left eye that moves on to the right side. In Balcombe's book I read that this happens very quickly, and according to the species the eye takes between 1 and 5 days to reach its new location. Can you imagine waking up one day with both eyes on the same side of the face?

Shift change. From the left: Paco, David, Rubén, Juan, Luis, Alberto, Luis and Javier

After checking the weather forecast last night, we bridge dwellers decided unilaterally to stay close to where we fished yesterday, rather than going west. There is a low today near that area and since time is tight we prefer not to risk fishing days.

When there's lots to do the crew helps a lot: Antonio, Vanesa, Alberto, Jorge, Luis and Cristina

Anyway, this morning we started with haul at about 900 m depth; part of the crew had to get up very early, but the effort and the cold have been worth it: it has been one of the best deep water hauls in a long time. Diana: We have found Greenland halibut. Marcos: we got sharks but do not worry, they are so small, we can hold them in our hands, and they don’t bite.  

The first deep-water haul: Rubén, David, Juan and Javier today at 6:00

Fergus has already taken his first microbiota samples and now we head for shallower depths.