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.
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| 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 it passes. I learned from my doctor that I have low blood pressure and just need to remember to eat and drink frequently when we are working.
Midway through the trip we got up to 80 degrees North and rounded Kvitøya. That was the farthest north I have ever been! There were chunks of ice in the water and the island was covered in snow - hence the name ("kvit" - white, "øya" - island). We hoped to see some polar bears, but were still satisfied to spot some seals and whales.
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| Jostein and the crew shaking the capelin from the net. |
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| Massive isopod from the depths of the Barents Sea |
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| Grumpy fish on a Monday morning |
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| Blood red sunrise on the Barents Sea at 80 degrees North |
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| My first sighting of an iceberg! |
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| Plenty of seabirds as we round Kvitøya. |
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| Rounding Kvitøya |
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| We finished the survey in Kirkenes. Things are written in both Norwegian and Russian here because it is so close to the Russian boarder. |
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