Category: Vessel/Laboratory Page 78 of 89

The start of the week was uneventful. We Habcamed for a day and a bit until it was time to start dredging. Saturday, the first day of dredging, was marked by hauls filled with sand dollars and some huge monkfish. Sunday was more interesting. The first few dredges were full of shell hash and one in particular was so muddy and huge I had to help sort for twenty minutes. After breakfast, science decided to change out the dredges so that the one currently on deck and the one currently in use switched. They needed to do some repair work to the inner lining of the dredge. That took a good while to maneuver and crane the dredges into place. However, once everything was figured out, the dredges after it were rather fun. One haul had lots of baby monkfish (over ten), one haul had a huge lobster and a seahorse, and one haul had a little, bitty octopus (as pictured above). That little octopus made my week!

Monday was quiet in comparison. The hauls were small and the runs between stations were long (30-60 minutes of downtime). A large, thick haddock was caught in one of dredges and was cooked up for lunch. It made for a good fried fish sandwich. Unfortunately, Tuesday was probably the hardest day of the week. Fog moved in, there was constant precipitation, and the swells had grown. It never graduated into bad weather but it was enough to make the work long and chilly. On the bright side, I saw a mola mola right up next to the ship and some species of sea bird landed and hung around the deck where we were working. It took off after a few minutes before anyone could take a picture. By Wednesday we only had a couple of dredge stations left. I only had to do four dredges before it was time to pull the dredge up and place the Habcam in. We Habcamed all of my Thursday watch as well but by Friday we will likely be back to dredging.

Plans are up in the air for the end of the cruise. We don’t have enough fuel to make it to the end and weather is supposed to get nasty for Sunday. The tentative plan is to refuel Sunday morning and wait for the weather to die down before heading back out. By tomorrow (Friday) there should be a final decision.

Until next week,

Maia

This past week been exciting! On Friday we dredged the whole day but this time we were getting lots of scallops. For one memorable dredge, there were so many scallops that they overflowed the net. The scallops were the size of dinner plates and were covered in muck. The dredging however was interrupted the next few days due to weather. Bad weather was supposed to move in where we were for the weekend. In particular, the wind was supposed to pick up to around 20-30 knots. In order to stay safe, we spent the first half of Saturday steaming over to the water near Nantucket. The idea was that instead of being stuck over 100 miles off shore in bad weather, the area around Nantucket was close to shore and could buffer storms. Once we arrived at Nantucket we continued to dredge as to not waste time. Personally, most of my watch that day was spent waiting for arrival but I did have some rock filled dredges towards the last few hours of my day. While waiting around, I noticed that there were many, many whales. While in the past weeks whales were not uncommon, that day in every direction I looked I could see at least one whale. There were more than whales as well. I saw seals, dolphins, and sharks too. It was incredible and time flew watching them. Unfortunately, I was unable to get any good pictures.

The next few days were spent dredging around Nantucket and the occasional Habcaming. On Monday we had particularly bad luck with dredging.  There were multiple hauls that consisted of huge mounds of sand dollars or brittle stars. Anything other than scallops, fish, and one species of crab is considered trash and is duumpted over the side. One dredge broke the record for bushels of trash with 49 bushels of sand dollars. Those types of dredges and the dredges with rocks are the hardest and most backbreaking type of haul so Habcaming was a well needed break.

On Tuesday we pulled up the Habcam and steamed back to Woods Hole. We arrived at around 6 pm and I grabbed dinner at a local café. We spent the whole of Wednesday mobilizing. Most of the time was spent trying to install a new washer and dryer as ours had broken down a couple days prior. This was a large undertaking since the laundry machine didn’t fit through the doorways. Instead, they had to be craned through a hatch. Like all days on land, we worked from 7 am to 3 pm. At the end of the workday, I took the ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard to visit a friend from college who lives there. Bright and early this morning we left Woods Hole and started Leg 3 of this scallop survey. Today was entirely spent steaming out to the first station. I have to look forward to over 100 dredges by the end of the trip as science wants to do 70% dredging and 30% Habcaming.

See you next week,

Maia

         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