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