Friday - Day 6
Roomie's Teacher@Sea log: http://teacheratsea.noaa.gov/2007/eubanks/pdf/eubanks_log6.pdf
(No fishy pics from me today; but she has a neat one of a big blue, and a mola [ocean sunfish] - check 'em out!).
Didn't have get up early to set this morning, but good thing I had breakfast out of the way. The line had only been in the water for an hour and a half, but apparently we had drifted into a Navy missile testing zone and had to pull the line as fast as possible and get out of there. A Navy helicopter appeared and circled us three or four times. Several little blues were hooked even so.
Since we're done there early, the crew is going to try for albacore until we get to the next spot to set. At lunch, skipper said he'd never seen the Navy so agitated; apparently they had sent out a Notice to Mariners in an email (which contained a link - and not having internet access, he couldn't look at it), and several radio messages, but for some reason the channel it would have been received on was all static, so they didn't get that either...
No luck on the albacore. E. said her best picture of that effort was four people asleep on the picnic benches outside on the deck. I didn't participate, because I'm pretty sure this was purely recreational and I don't have a fishing license right now.
The next set is just south of San Nicolas Island. I put out the floats - which consists of being handed a float with a line attached, counting every fifth hook put on and then snapping on a float to the mainline. Then counting again. Boy, I'm sure grateful for kindergarten - One!....Two!...Three!...Four!...Five!
(I've been typing all these up in Semagic, but if it's ok with the ship's IT guy, I'll just copy as text files and try that email posting thing. If that doesn't work, I'll just save them to post at home.)
Afternoon set resulted in more little blue pups and one big one we joked must have been the parent. I've gotten pretty good at coiling the float lines into the basket in a way that they don't get tangled coming out. I also seem to do putting the hooks back in the baskets fairly often - usually there's one person for each type of hook, however I often doing both types by myself, which really isn't that difficult. the other person is often one of the grad students, and when we get a shark, they need to run off and get blood samples from it.
According to the weather reports on the news, it's supposed to be fairly warm on land, especially inland, but out here its blowing like crazy, and the swells are running 4-5 feet. Not that big as swells go, but if there's any at all the platform down at the bottom of the ramp where they tag the sharks turns into a washing machine. It's a pretty neat little operation; they have metal cradle, which lowers into water using the A-frame at the back of the ship, and raises it to bring the shark out of the water, where one person tosses a wet cloth over its eyes and holds down its head. The shark is sexed and measured, given a spaghetti tag below its dorsal fin and tiny clip of the fin taken for a DNA sample. If it's in good shape, it will get a dose of oxytetracline (which will leave a fluorescent mark on its vertebrae) and a rototag signifying such. Some animals get a SPAT tag (a satellite tag, which eventually comes off and uploads its information to a satellite). A few times during a soak, they've pulled out a tracking antennae to try to locate such tags - they are reusable if they can be found again, and they're pretty expensive.
After dinner, the aft lab became an art studio, as sets of fine point sharpie markers and styrofoam coffee cups(?) were set out on the table. It turned out that after the Jordan's return to port, there was some sort of Congressional tour scheduled, so someone decided it would be a nifty idea to make the politicians some souvenirs. So everyone drew little pictures, mostly of fish, with the sharpies on the cups, which were then placed in a mesh bag and attached to the nightly CTD drop. You'll seen what happens in the next post or two...
Here's my attempt:
I'm normally pretty good at sharks, but I totally forgot the pelvic fins on this one...
DFG Block
Lat:
Long:
Mako
Blue
Pelagic Stingray
Morning set :
872
32.783°N
119.325°W
0
7
0
Afternoon set *:
812
33.195°N
119.275°W
9
6
0
Mola mola popoff tagged
(No fishy pics from me today; but she has a neat one of a big blue, and a mola [ocean sunfish] - check 'em out!).
Didn't have get up early to set this morning, but good thing I had breakfast out of the way. The line had only been in the water for an hour and a half, but apparently we had drifted into a Navy missile testing zone and had to pull the line as fast as possible and get out of there. A Navy helicopter appeared and circled us three or four times. Several little blues were hooked even so.
Since we're done there early, the crew is going to try for albacore until we get to the next spot to set. At lunch, skipper said he'd never seen the Navy so agitated; apparently they had sent out a Notice to Mariners in an email (which contained a link - and not having internet access, he couldn't look at it), and several radio messages, but for some reason the channel it would have been received on was all static, so they didn't get that either...
No luck on the albacore. E. said her best picture of that effort was four people asleep on the picnic benches outside on the deck. I didn't participate, because I'm pretty sure this was purely recreational and I don't have a fishing license right now.
The next set is just south of San Nicolas Island. I put out the floats - which consists of being handed a float with a line attached, counting every fifth hook put on and then snapping on a float to the mainline. Then counting again. Boy, I'm sure grateful for kindergarten - One!....Two!...Three!...Four!...Five!
(I've been typing all these up in Semagic, but if it's ok with the ship's IT guy, I'll just copy as text files and try that email posting thing. If that doesn't work, I'll just save them to post at home.)
Afternoon set resulted in more little blue pups and one big one we joked must have been the parent. I've gotten pretty good at coiling the float lines into the basket in a way that they don't get tangled coming out. I also seem to do putting the hooks back in the baskets fairly often - usually there's one person for each type of hook, however I often doing both types by myself, which really isn't that difficult. the other person is often one of the grad students, and when we get a shark, they need to run off and get blood samples from it.
According to the weather reports on the news, it's supposed to be fairly warm on land, especially inland, but out here its blowing like crazy, and the swells are running 4-5 feet. Not that big as swells go, but if there's any at all the platform down at the bottom of the ramp where they tag the sharks turns into a washing machine. It's a pretty neat little operation; they have metal cradle, which lowers into water using the A-frame at the back of the ship, and raises it to bring the shark out of the water, where one person tosses a wet cloth over its eyes and holds down its head. The shark is sexed and measured, given a spaghetti tag below its dorsal fin and tiny clip of the fin taken for a DNA sample. If it's in good shape, it will get a dose of oxytetracline (which will leave a fluorescent mark on its vertebrae) and a rototag signifying such. Some animals get a SPAT tag (a satellite tag, which eventually comes off and uploads its information to a satellite). A few times during a soak, they've pulled out a tracking antennae to try to locate such tags - they are reusable if they can be found again, and they're pretty expensive.
After dinner, the aft lab became an art studio, as sets of fine point sharpie markers and styrofoam coffee cups(?) were set out on the table. It turned out that after the Jordan's return to port, there was some sort of Congressional tour scheduled, so someone decided it would be a nifty idea to make the politicians some souvenirs. So everyone drew little pictures, mostly of fish, with the sharpies on the cups, which were then placed in a mesh bag and attached to the nightly CTD drop. You'll seen what happens in the next post or two...
Here's my attempt:
I'm normally pretty good at sharks, but I totally forgot the pelvic fins on this one...
DFG Block
Lat:
Long:
Mako
Blue
Pelagic Stingray
Morning set :
872
32.783°N
119.325°W
0
7
0
Afternoon set *:
812
33.195°N
119.275°W
9
6
0
Mola mola popoff tagged