All you need is fish

Hello there! How are you today? No complaints in Platuxa... Today Tuesday we are making progress but so far the day is easier than yesterday. What a day! The blog left behind lots of stuff unsaid, for lack of time and very thankful for Nair and Juan's timely contribution.

For example, we did not tell you that Estibaliz and Rai had analised by Monday morning 681 stomachs: 265 from cod, 198 from American plaice, 66 from yellowtail flounder and 152 from Greenland halibut. We cannot tell you more because unlike other years the data are not being saved on board. Nevertheless, you can check past survey reports and read our findings there as an apetizer until the 2014 report is ready. 

Estíbaliz and Rai deep into stomach sampling

I did not realise that the ripped gear could not be repaired yesterday in its entirety. The missing panel had a rather small mesh size and substituting it required making an awful lot of knots. Luckily and despite the fact that repairing gear is becoming a rare skill, on board R/V Vizconde de Eza there are no more, no less than eight seamen that do this very well: Eladio, David, Juan, Paco, Luis, Manuel, Javier y Luis. They found the rigth material among the net stored on board and they have replaced the missing panel. This is not as simple as going to the shop to buy material to make a pair of trousers. They had to use cranes to put the extra material on deck, unfold it, select the right piece, measure, cut, lie the ripped gear aside so we could continue fishing, pack and store again the extra material before they could start with the repairs. All this in the miserable cold weather we are having these days, and as you can imagine this is not a task you can perfom with gloves on. They are, besides, working as well below decks with the fish. I will just tell you that both biologists and crew are working round the clock. And I am afraid that, as the clock, we are doing extra hours for free.... 

David (sitting) y Paco (standing) fixing the ripped gear

Eladio fixing the ripped gear

Juan and Luis fixing the ripped gear

I would have liked to tell you as well that according to my sources, the IEO activities planned in Samil for last Sunday were a success despite the fact that the day started with Deluge 2.0. Fortunately, the weather improved greatly and many, many people flooded to Samil and learned, among many other fun facts, to extract the famous otoliths. I will not tire of recommending you to check out the IEO web site (www.ieo.es) because there are several coastal IEO branches and all of them will carry out many divulgative activities this year. Besides, the oceanographic vessels Ramón Margalef and Ángeles Alvariño are visiting many Spanish harbours with open door days.

Finally, it was really nice to have finally other collaborators in the blog, because the original idea was to give everybody the chance to tell their views about our work and their experience on board, rather than making a monologue of it -especially with the impossibility of checking the comments without help from Uxía, who has more than enough on her plate without the blog, and by the way, Belén from Alicante, your greetings to Ivan were duly transmitted-.

As for today, we have hardly had any fog at all and have seen the horizon for most of the day. Nothing has changed around us. The Puffinus gravis are here, the fulmars are here, and even some great skuas and a Sula bassana have joined the group. Birds, 167, Cetaceans, 0.

Our positions on Tuesday:

L54:	43º 00.72 -	49º 18.11
L55:	43º 03.08 -	49º 18.07
L56:	43º 04.05 -	49º 21.97
L57:	43º 06.14 -	49º 29.80
L58:	43º 07.42 -	49º 32.10
L59:	43º 09.02 -	49º 35.56
L60:	43º 12.63 -	49º 37.37

And this is all, folks!!!!