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