This week started the last leg of the survey as we headed out of Woods Hole and back out to sea. We started with habcamming briefly reverting back to a 12 on 12 off schedule to better assist the science team with the habcam and with annotating the pictures from the habcam. While it was mostly more of the same with the species seen through the habcam we did see plenty of younger scallops, more than were in leg one I believe. After a few days of habcam we went right into dredging once more in which we managed around 5 dredges per shift, though these dredges were smaller than dredges on the previous leg. Near the end of the dredging, the CTD winch stopped being able to rewind itself in the middle of a cast so the crew was forced to pull it back by hand, and we stopped doing CTDs after that as it wouldn’t have worked as well without the automatic rewinder. Dredging itself, minus the increase in loads done and the decrease in what was being brought up, was more of the same with the exception that halfway through dredging the net had to be switched out and replaced with a newer net as the previous one had some damaged links and was no longer completely safe to be using. It also had to be set up with a rock chain on it to prevent very large rocks from being brought up to the surface, rocks were brought up but nothing that couldn’t be brought to the side and thrown back into the sea. Other than those instances the final leg went by as usual dredging and collecting any scallops that came up with it until it was over. We took the scientists back to Woods Hole where they disembarked and took both the habcam and the dredging nets as well as several other items from the ship that they used over the course of the cruise. It was then an uneventful cruise back to Delaware where we took apart the rest of the machines and facilities used during the survey and stayed on the ship able to relax until the next day when the other intern and I would fly back. I really enjoyed this survey and I would be happy to do it again if I ever got the chance. I learned a lot of practical skills involved in working on a boat and I had a good time overall.
