Visit the kelpforest....

Well, I'm back - we arrived in San Diego Friday morning.

The previous day had been a bit subdued, since we all realized it was the last day of fishing. We were south of San Clemente again, and the first set was uneventful; about four sharks tagged and released. Then a run of about an hour as the Navy again told us to leave the area; while the ship was under weigh, the Mexican biologist and I heard a couple of sharp reports, loud enough over the ship's engines to startle us. We looked astern at the horizon, where a large Navy ship was barely visible through the near constant haze; it had a cloud of dark smoke over it, which dissipated as we watched. It must have fired a couple of shells; clearly audible at least several miles away - I'm no judge of distance; large oil tankers sometimes appeared as a small white box on the horizon as the superstructure was illuminated by the afternoon sun, and the entire ship did not become visible for another half hour.

Before hauling the last set, the chief scientist had us all get together for a group shot, holding a large cardboard numeral "2" and two of the oval floats to symbolize "200," since this year is NOAA's two hundredth anniversary. Then we set to work for the last time fishing anyway. By coincidence, the very last hook of this very last haul was occupied by a very large blue shark; and since the gear was all aboard, and everything else was finished, everyone not tagging got to observe the process and take pictures if they wanted. He cooperated quite nicely for such a big shark, and was let go without incident (as most of them were). But it was nice that everyone got to watch the very last shark being tagged.

That evening, we attempted to fish for Humboldt squid, as NOAA is trying to find out as much about them as possible as well. They're the squid that have made a large influx here on the West Coast from the south in the last few years - they are voracious predators and there is concern they could be affecting the entire ecosystem. The fishing equipment for them uses a heavy pole and reel, and a giant glow-in-dark jig about a foot long and weighing two pounds, to which a glowing Cyalume is also attached. I sent it down to about 100 meters about three times, jigging for awhile between times, until my arms and back got tired and I finally gave up. If I'd actually caught one, I think I would have had trouble reeling it in - they can be up to six feet long!

	DFG Block	Lat:	Long:	Mako	Blue	Pelagic Stingray
Morning set :	866	32.683°N	118.287°W	4	7	0
Afternoon set :	885	32.592°N	118.355°W	5	6	0

Overnight, the ship headed back to San Diego; it was due at the fuel dock at 8 am. We weren't able to leave the ship at that time, since the fuel dock belonged to the Navy, so we spent the morning cleaning and putting away all the cruise equipment. I scrubbed a lot of counter fronts and mopped the lab floors, in addition to vacuuming our cabin, and cleaning the sink and mirror. I also emptied the trash; since we were back in port, it all went into one bag, whereas the entire time we were at sea, plastic had to be sorted into a separate trash can.

While at the fuel dock, we were joined by a large Coast Guard vessel, probably twice as big as the Jordan. And an aircraft carrier came into the harbor - I took a few pictures as it went by for Gareth - he has a toy one he flies all of his planes off (hoping he's not getting predisposed to a military career, but he says he just likes the vehicles). They actually finished refueling a couple of hours early, so I called John and told him he should probably leave as soon as he could, and went to take my final shower on the ship before he arrived. So hot - I couldn't believe the difference in temperature from shore and off the coast, although we'd been hearing about it on the news all week.

Security at the Scripps Marine Facility is tight, so when he arrived, I had to go to the gate to let him in - one of the NOAA biologists gave me a ride the short distance to the gate. John had brought the kids, and I still had to grab all of my stuff, so after asking if it was ok, I got to give them an extremely short tour, my cabin, the galley and the mess deck - but people were already starting to get the ship ready for the arrival of all the Congressional staffers the next day, so I didn't want to get in the way. The ensign had the souvenir closet open, so John bought another t-shirt and a hat; then we hit the road back to Orange County.

So I'm back. To my own bed that I don't have to climb a ladder into and that doesn't have a big U in the middle. Trying to catch up on all my email and such that piled up while I was gone. Oh and you guys, too. Slowly, but surely. ;)

Someone tell my desk to stop rocking.

After a soak of about three hours, the set is hauled. A small mako coming up on the line - the line across the top is the mainline; the shark is hooked on the gangion. As the line comes in at the side, the gangions are taken off, and hooked sharks are walked to the stern where the scientists tag tag them.

( ...And I got to help tag today! Whee! )

Roomie's Teacher-at-Sea log: http://teacheratsea.noaa.gov/2007/eubanks/pdf/eubanks_log2.pdf

Worried about waking up this morning - the only alarm I brought with me was the one on my pod - which only beeps about four times. I did hear it, but I think only because I start waking up about that time anyway for work, and if I'm nervous about waking up I often don't sleep that soundly. I'll have to ask my roommate (E., a participant in the NOAA Teacher-At-Sea program - aliki, you might be interested in this) if she has more effective alarm clock. Turned out we didn't need to get up at 5:30 anyway, we're in the "Even" group, so we make the the morning set on even days and put out the afternoon set on odd days. So I got up in time for breakfast at 7, then read for awhile until it was time to haul.

Last night I got to take all the bait off the hooks before handing them to the person who snaps them back into the barrels and arranges the wire so that it doesn't tangle when they are next taken out; today I did the snapping. For the afternoon set, I got to snap the floats onto the line as it was going out; the mainline has a pair of stoppers every 50 feet or so - the pattern is five baited hooks and then a float, so I got to count to five and then snap a float on. Whee! It's been a long time since I've done this, so I'm a bit rusty - but someone else told me it's like riding a bicycle; it comes back very quickly.


Floats and a basket of clipped-together lines, waiting to be clipped on to the mainline...


The high-flyer (with radar reflector) that signals the end of the mainline; the pile of yellow is a sea-anchor that keeps the line taut. The other end stays attached to the vessel.

Several pods of common dolphins came by; they appeared to head straight for the ship, then went right past, porpoising and jumping as they went. E. was wondering if she would see any (she's never been to sea before), so she was happy to see some so soon.

Between sets, there were two safety drills, one for fire, and one for abandon ship - when we heard the alarm for the latter we had to grab long pants and a long sleeved shirt, hat, our life vest and immersion suit, and remember on which sides lifeboat we were supposed to assemble - I'm on the starboard side. After that drill was over, all of us who were on the ship for the first time ( or first in a long time, in my case), took our immersion suits down to the mess deck to practice putting them on. They're a type of neoprene suit designed to put on quickly over your clothes and increase your chances of survival in cold water - make you look like a giant, bright orange Gumby. I remember in observer training in Seattle, we had to put them on and jump off a dock into Lake Washington in January, paddle across to a life raft and climb into it.

I forgot how much they feed you on this ship. There are always several choices for each meal, plus snacks set out in the afternoon - today, fresh baked chocolate chip cookies! Then later one of the crew -Jose I think his name is - fried up some rockfish they'd caught the night before; he was giving me a hard time for not coming back and getting some sooner. He said he remembered me from the last time I came on one of these cruises because of my long hair. When I sat and thought about it, I realized the last time was probably a year or two before Angus was born. Yikes!

The morning set caught one mako and two blues, the afternoon set got skunked, although I did spot a fin near one of the floats. It turned out to be a mola (ocean sunfish), and if it was hooked, it got itself off.

Last night we caught three makos and a blue, plus one pelagic stingray, which was saved in a tank on deck for a researcher studying them. The gangion (dropper line) with a hooked shark is walked along the side of the ship to the stern, where a platform is set up, and the biologists measure them, determine their sex, tag them with a Floy dart tag, and some are given a shot of tetracyline. these also get a rototag. The tetracycline leaves a mark on their vertebrae that will fluoresce under UV light. Sharks don't have any bones, but nevertheless leave rings on their cartilage vertebrae like a tree. With the information recorded from tagging, a verification of the shark's age and growth can be determined, if it is caught later, and its vertebrae
collected. There has been debate in the past whether makos lay down one ring per year or two - whether they grow quickly or are as slow growing as thought.


This is the platform mounted at the bottom of the Jordan's trawl chute; scientific staff kneel on the platform, while the semi-circular cradle lifts a shark out of the water to be tagged.

Nice weather so far - Cloudy in the morning, clearing to partly in the afternoon. We were in the area between San Clemente and Santa Catalina Islands, Clemente being the most visible most of the day. Actually got fairly warm this afternoon. Parts of Clemente came and went as cloud banks built up in front of it, while above was a lovely layer of herringbone clouds. I never get tired of watching the sea and sky.



I have the Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows book, but I'm not the only one. ;p I've told myself I'm not going to read it until after I finish Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrel for my book group though...

	DFG Block	Lat:	Long:	Macho	Blue	Pelagic Stingray
Morning set :	848	32.978N	118.197W	1	2	0
Afternoon set :	848	32.902N	118.315W	0	0	0

I have get my daughter cleaned up; she's a mess! Pew!

This quiz had you submit your own pic...That's me with a tiny mako pup during a shark tagging cruise, back within a few years of me starting here...

( I case I don't get back i n time.... )

Oh, and aliki, you should like this blogathoner - lovely lighthouse pics. She's blogging for American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

I guess I will post something in order to move that "peace" thing down the page a bit so it doesn't piss off avphibes so much. I'm really not trying to be holier that thou, and I really don't know how I would solve the situation. That's why I'm a biologist and not a politician. It just seems as though it could have been done without alienating most of the rest of the world. although now that it's started, some countries seem to be changing their minds. I just hope it's over with quickly, and they had better find what they were looking for.

Anyhow.....

I was sitting here brooding about state of world affairs and unsuccessfully trying to accomplish something here at work, when I got an email telling me that the minutes of the Trinational Sardine Symposium that I attended in December were available. While I was looking that up, I also noticed a link for the Southwest Fisheries Science Center's Shark Research page. ( This brought back some fond memories.... )