No man's waters

We continue on our fixed 273º bearing and our current location is 42º37.6620 – 20º38.2280, about 500 nm from Vigo. Today is a bit rainier and windier than yesterday, thus the walks on the outer decks are for the daring. Nothing to worry about, though, except for the few souls affected by seasickness.

Yesterday afternoon passed in a flurry of activity, unpacking the material kept in our 25 crates in the labs and working deck. The engineers assisted us with the installation of weights and moving a couple of working tables we wanted right under the lights, for both the stomach sampling and sexing the thousands of fish that will be handled by the biologists. We also got ready the fishing plan and there was enough to do for everybody. We were amply rewarded at dinner, but we are not going to give away the details. We fear someone could take to the seas to kidnap our cook and his team. 

Noelia, Javier and Yolanda finishing off the weight installation

The CTD has been installed this morning. This is the sea data logger to measure salinity (conductivity), temperature and dissolved oxygen, named by its English initials. We got two of these, one belonging to the R/V Vizconde de Eza and another belonging to the Spanish Oceanography Institute (hereafter IEO). They were both tested last week by IEO staff , along with the sensors installed in the fishing gear, during a brief sea trip. These sensors will be our underwater eyes, allowing us to see from the bridge the gear descending, when and how touches the bottom and how it behaves during trawling. It must stay in contact with the bottom all the 30 minutes the fishing lasts, and the vertical and horizontal opening must be rather constant. To achieve this we count on the ample experience of the officers and captain, which was tested in the last two years, when we left without spare sensors and the installed sensors failed to our uttermost horror. This problem is now luckily solved and to everybody's satisfaction, since the new spare sensors are really good.

This afternoon will be invested into practicals about the CTD and its software, as well as the program used to store the data collected. We will also make a copy of the fishing plan to keep in the working deck and keep track of the daily progress.

Otherwise we are suspended in this grey limbo, with life reduced to preparation of our material, keep in touch with our families and rest -let's not forget that six members of the scientific crew and part of the R/V Vizconde de Eza crew will stay on board for the three surveys and therefore will have only four days off (those invested in the trip to St John's to replace crews) in nearly a hundred working days-. We have as well our own time, we turned the clock one hour back yesterday and we will do this again twice more before arriving to the study area. It is also very easy to avoid the news, of which we get anyway an abstract that has to be looked for in the comptuer if we want to read them. I don't think I am off the mark if I say most of us avoid them. It is really relaxing.

Before saying bye to our land-bound readers I'd like to remind you all that IEO celebrates this year its 100th aniversary, and all branches have a large agenda with many and diverse activities to bring our work to the public. Check the Institute website for more information: www.vi.ieo.es