Changes in Latitudes

It has been months since I last posted, and it's been pretty busy lately. But I thought I'd recap my last survey for the year - the Barents Sea Ecosystem Survey. I was on this survey last year, but this year was a different set up. We had pelagic and bottom trawls on the same boat. Last year, the pelagic trawls were done on one boat, and bottom trawls on another. The target species for the pelagic trawls is capelin ("lodde" in Norwegian). We started out from Longyearbyen, Svalbard on September 13th and the sky was blue, but the wind was really strong. We boarded R/V Johan Hjort after a few hours in town. Taxes are reduced on Svalbard, so people like to shop for outerwear, tobacco and alcohol. Longyearbyen I had night shift and we worked 6 hours on 6 hours off for three weeks. It was tiresome and hard work. We had fish coming on deck almost constantly and I nearly passed out again, but now I know the symptoms when they come and I lay on the floor until ...

July 5th til August 6th I was aboard F/V Kings Bay to take part in the annual summer mackerel survey in the Norwegian Sea. I was dreading being out for nearly 5 weeks, but in the end I left with some very close friends and lots of memories. This survey was definitely one of a kind this year! Beautiful sunrise at 3:30 in the morning. Calm, peaceful seas. Deploying the plankton net Figuring out how to best release the shark Dogfish among mackerel Relaxing in the homemade hammock as we approach Stokmarknes to change out crew Hiking in Stokmarknes Identifying zooplankton Sailing around Jan Mayen North of Jan Mayen, but it's still visible in the distance. As we got closer to the Barents Sea, we caught a lot of young fish. A good sign for cod and haddock stocks! After 32 days, we see Tromsø and the end of this year's mackerel survey I always take a hike up Fløya when I arrive to Tromsø after a survey. It helps me de...

Friday night Marius and I packed out packs for an over night near Flåm. We chose Flåm because it was near where we were supposed to meet the Metzs. We drove about two and a half hours out of Bergen and started hiking in the thick mist. The grass was really wet so we got soaked on our legs and feet.  We got out fairly late and were eager to find a suitable spot for our tent pretty quick. We thought we saw a plateau above some loose rocks and decided to climb up. Maritime me to keep left and he would keep right, in case any loose rocks would tumble down into the valley. Soon we realized that we were just asking to get into a dangerous situation, so carefully went down to the trail and continued on.  A beautiful waterfall caught our attention and Marius decided to see if it would be possible to camp near it, a bit uphill from the trail. When he got to a certain point, he took off the pack and set it down. I thought this meant he was set for us to camp up there. Sudd...

We have come a long way since we moved into our house about 9 months ago. We are about 85% done with the upstairs. We have renovated the bathroom and two upstairs bedrooms. All that is left are the walls and ceiling in the hallway. Before During After Next step is constructing the closet tomorrow. But first, sleep!