The dredging has set in full force. We dredged for three days nonstop save for the occasional repair to the dredge. My job is assisting in bringing a dredge up out of the sea onto the table, dumping the contents, and setting it it back out again. Once a dredge is completed the deck has to be washed down with the seawater hose as there is a surprising amount of organic debris left from the dredge. A dredge takes around an hour to complete depending on what we catch. The ease of the dredge entirely depends on what is hauled up. Those that are filled with large rocks, are sandy or muddy, and those that are extremely large in quantity are the hardest to shovel and sort. I’ve seen all sorts of amazing creatures that were caught in the dredge. Not only have there been scallops, but I have seen octopuses, squid, mussels, monk fish, skates, hermit crabs, sand dollars and sea stars at the top of my head. The first few days of the week were consumed by continuous dredging and made for quick but arduous watches.
Shortly into the beginning of my watch on June 1st, we did one last dredge before we secured the dredge on deck. It was time to head into Woods Hole, MA to refuel. We steamed into port at around 9:30 am and had a couple of hours off until it was time to head out again. Before I could go and explore the town, we had to dump the garbage. This was a fun process of chucking trash bags over the side of the Sharp onto the dock where the bags were then brought to the trash bins nearby. I enjoyed wandering the town and in particular enjoyed the food and coffee at a cafe called Pie in the Sky. All too quickly, it was time to head back to the ship and we were off by noon.
The next watch, the midnight since leaving Woods Hole, the sea had picked up considerably and there were strong winds. We were not able to dredge in this weather and all we could do for hours was wait for the weather to die down. By daybreak the seas had calmed and we were able to place the Habcam in the water. As Habcaming requires nothing of the techs, the day was spent peacefully and quietly up in the bridge. The peace was broken by the time my next watch began on the 3rd. When I woke up we were back to dredging since the one of the computers of the Habcam had broken. One of the dredges we pulled up that early morning was of note, we had caught ourselves an old lobster trap, two lobsters included! After breakfast we got great news from science saying that they fixed the computer and the Habcam was ready to be put back in. Once it was deployed, there have been no further issues and we have been Habcaming up until today. Tomorrow we will be back to dredging but we had a certainly had a nice break.
See you next week,
Maia
