Monday - Day 2
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
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