A typical day

A typical day: get up at 6 am.  The crew is already up and getting ready to set the gear.  I head up to the wheelhouse and hang out.  Technically, the science crew are supposed to be there in case the captain has questions or issues before or during the gear setting, but these captains know what they are doing, and I can’t think of much we’d (or at least I'd) be any use for.  The two sets take about an hour each, with a bit of time between to move to the site of the second set.  Sets are done about 8 or 8:30 am.  Then breakfast, and a bit of down time until gear retrieval at ~9:30 am.  While the crew is bringing the lines back in, we are sampling the fish for basic data (length, weight, etc).  Four times for each set we have a ‘tag skate’ where any sablefish, short-spined thornyheads, or Greenland turbot are tagged and released alive.  Out here, we don’t catch as many fish so there can be a lot of down time for us (ugh, so much downtime I start to go a little crazy) .  Once the first set is in, lunch, usually around 11:30-12:30 ish.  Then the boat heads for the second set, and starts hauling that in around 12:30-1:30.  We work the second set until about 4-5 pm, dinner, then free time (or studying, working time).  I try to roll into bed around 10.  Repeat for fourteen days.

Halibut are not kept by the boat, the guy working the roller will pop this off before it even comes on board.

I spent some time taking pics of the fish we saw come up today.  Pacific cod, sablefish, shortraker and rougheye rockfish, flathead grenadier, and an idiot (real name is short-spined thornyhead, but they have big eyes and look sort of cute/stupid so they are called 'idiots'...cue several photos of me, Dana, and me and Dana with idiots).  

Flathead

Me with a shortraker rockfish

Aiden yelling for me to 'hurry up, these are heavy!"

An elusive skillfish, the only close relative of sablefish!

While sitting on the stairs over the rail area I saw a wet bird under the fish shute, so I grabbed it and put it in a box to dry out.  It was a Leach’s storm petrel. It sat in the box all day and the next morning it was gone (I left the box cracked open a bit), so it must have flown away overnight.  They get attacked by the seagulls, so that’s the other reason I kept it in a box to dry out.  

The petrel drying in a box until nightfall

My favorite perch.  Can sit and watch the fish come onboard, and see when I have fish waiting to sample, yet I'm out of the way.

It was very cold and grey today, though in the morning I did see land for a bit, and a couple of sperm whales in the distance.  They’re easy to ID since they seem to spend a long time lolling at the surface (and they have a distinctive, forward pointing ‘blow’ when they breathe).  The look like big floating turds.  There were also three short-tailed albatross adults and 1 sub-adult near the boat today.  I got all three adults in one picture.  According to ‘the internets’, there are around 1200-2400 of these albatross, though the websites don’t seem to agree on a number…

Play 'spot the short-tailed albatross'...