You better keep that trap shut

Morning / afternoon /evening! Hopefully you have all had a day as entertaining as ours... didn't I say yesterday that we had this “end of the survey” atmosphere on board? Well, today it has been “middle of the survey” feeling all around... this last leg of Platuxa is very difficult. Time is definitely pressing and nearly all hauls are in deep water. We cannot make mistakes now. The area to survey is rather large, we have canyons to avoid, large non-trawlable areas and cells with sponge gardens. Rather than a survey area this is a puzzle. Each valid haul is a triumph. And we have had six of them today! Look at them, here they are:

L115:	45º 36.82 -	048º 21.36
L116:	45º 33.68 -	048º 23.15
L117:	45º 32.10 -	048º 23.26
L118:	45º 34.03 -	048º 14.33
L119:	45º 28.03 -	048º 18.85
L120:	45º 25.01 -	048º 18.56

We have started in the shallower area, at about 200 m. We are not fond of this strategy, as you know, but those hauls were rather far from the rest, and since the slope is especially complicated here we couldn't risk starting the day with some mishap at 1300 m and have no time to sample the shallows in the latter part of the day. That would have meant having to surrender several strata and not finishing the survey.

This decision has had several consequences. First of all, Noelia, Yolanda, Rafa and Javier's shift hasn't had a minute off in the whole morning. Neither had Estibaliz and Rai. The first haul brought us cod, not very abundant but in a wide size range, and the smallest individuals had to be sampled in detail. And in the second haul we got over a ton of redfish. Since these were the very last shallow water hauls, it was my turn to start the data analysis for shallow water species. While I revised data from past hauls, Nair had to give priority to the data from today, fresh from the deck with slime, scales and everything else, all this in between sprints to the CTD. The CTD decided it wanted attention and didn't do its thing early this morning, so we had to repeat the first cast. When the second shift (Adriana, Bernardo, Iván and Juan) entered they got a haul with tiny Greenland halibut, so they also had their hands full... And the Vizconde crew has started the “facial treatment” the ship gets before going to harbour. It has been washed from head to toe, as to say, with soapy fresh water, until it sparkled, as when we left Vigo. And some serious cleaning has started inside as well, even the ceilings are being wiped.

And to close this entry I have a friend to introduce: Eurypharinx pelecanoides, or pelican gulper. You guessed right, it is one of those deep water black fish... I cannot resist them. It has an incredibly black, smooth and shiny skin, same as Rondoletia loricata, and a huge mouth that was probably the inspiration for the GLORIA gear. You won't see it in the picture, and sadly it couldn't be seen in this specimen, but they got a luminous tip at the end of the tail, which is used as bait... they swim with the tail curled forward, so the tip hangs in front of their mouth. It is thought they swim open-mouthed as not to miss anything. Some stomachs were sampled ages ago and they found inside small and juvenile fish, shrimp and sea urchins. Nevertheless you have nothing to fear because they live at 1300-1800 m depth.

So now I hope I have awoken your curiosity enough as to go browsing the internet for more, and while you are at that I'll leave quietly to continue with my report... see you tomorrow!!!!