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 ...

I threw together a video from my GoPro clips I took when I was working in Tromsø earlier this month. Tagging herring in Kaldfjord, Norway from Justine Diaz on Vimeo .

Pardon any wild yelling in the whale video. It was just way too cool!

The past few days have been all dependent on the weather. If the winds came from the west/northwest, then the platform we worked from would be too unstable to work on. Another delay was if the fishing vessel did not find us any herring to tag. The weather in northern Norway changes very quickly and we just had to roll with it. So we had a day of only a few hours to work, and the following day we tried to work since the wind was coming from the south. The platform was then pretty stable, but the wind was gusting snow and rain into our faces. It was a rough night, in my opinion. This morning we packed up most of the gear. The weather was just too unpredictable and unstable to guarantee work today and the fishing boat wanted to get headed south again. We had to fill up more water and diesel in the sailboat after loading up the fishing boat with some of our equipment. I managed to shower (only the second time since I have been on board) while we filled the water tank. When I was finishe...

Last night was rough! Yesterday we managed to tag 1047 herring. A new record number for this tokt! When we take breaks and the end of the day we release the herring we have in the nets. Somehow during that process I jammed my thumb, and it's now swollen and painful. Black and blue. After dinner the winds picked up. We knew this would happen so we moved the boat over to the docks connected to land after releasing the herring and before dinner. Then the winds began gusting! I'm sleeping in the bow of the boat. The sail came loose and had to be tied in again. Without the use of my left thumb, I'm incapable of helping and thus a pretty useless sailor again. I've been so accident prone on this tokt. The guys and our skipper (a tiny woman from Switzerland) got the rigging secured and now the boat is a little bit better. The winds continued howling all night, and I was glad we did not tag herring today, although we had a few hours of ok weather. Light breeze and a littl...

Pancho did much better than expected on the plane from Bergen to Oslo! He got out of his crate and was so happy, and I was glad to not find puke in his crate. When we got to the Engebrethsen's house he had so much energy, and we finally got to bed around 11:30. At 5:45 my alarm went off. Rigmor was dropping me off at the bus stop for the airport bus at 6:15. I landed at Tromsø a little before 10AM. There was light in the sky, but the clouds make it quite dark and gloomy. I was picked up by a girl working for the yachting company we are renting the sailboat from, and we drove about 25 minutes outside of Tromsø to an area called Kaldfjord. She and I waited by the dock for probably at least an hour while the fishermen brought some herring over to our nets for marking. And we spotted a lone killer whale. He hung around for a couple of minutes, and not long enough for me to get out my camera. We are sleeping on a 50 foot sailboat for this tokt/excursion. It's tight, but quite n...

Tonight Pancho and I are flying to Oslo. Pancho will stay with Rigmor while I work in Tromsø tagging herring. Fingers crossed that he is ok this time around on the plane! I have been in touch with my colleagues a bit about this "tokt" because I have never tagged fish before, and I have been told that it is very different working conditions from a normal survey ("tokt"). We are sleeping on a 50 ft. sailboat that is attached to a floating platform where we will work from. Out in the elements! It is around freezing temperatures with a little wind, rain and snow; so, I've been well informed to bring lots of wool. Four of my colleagues have been up there since November 21st, and as of a couple of days ago they just had their first shower. One of them said that it is pretty cool the first night, but from day to onward it is pretty tight in the boat and comparable to camping. It isn't possible to wash clothes, but at the same time I was told not to bring too...

With the 6-on-6-off shifts, it's hard to remember how many days have passed and which day of the week it is, but I think it was the day before yesterday when I finally got some sunshine and saw some whales and dolphins! We have had cloudy skies the whole survey period except for this one day. Meanwhile, in Bergen, record high temperatures have been set all week as one last week of summer visited the city that also set records in July for the rainiest July on record. This particular day we finally had some bits of sun. Mostly cloudy, however, I saw a chance to put on my winter coveralls and sit outside for a few minutes. I saw a few fin whales in the distance, likely feasting on krill. I only saw the plume of mist when they surfaced. On the opposite end of the boat a small pod of dolphins was getting closer. One got close enough that I thought the picture would turn out way better than it did. Still need to share. It was the best day at sea! We only have five more sampli...

[Preliminary survey tracks for the vessels involved] Tomorrow we get into Tromsø for the end of the survey. I didn't give any updates because, well, it was about the same everyday. So the last 3+ weeks have gone by quite fast and it will feel weird to be back in Bergen Monday night. I have gained many new skills on this survey, and my colleagues hope that the institute will have a place for me because I am also "efficient, positive and hardworking" (not to toot my own horn). We are currently headed south from Bjørnoya (Bear Island) located approximately 74 degrees N and 16 deg E. We have hauled in tens of tons of Atlantic mackerel (makrell), slightly less than optimal amounts of herring (sild), lumpsucker (rognkjeks), and wild Atlantic salmon (laks). Some of the more interesting fish we brought in included:  håbrann (Lamna nasus), English: mackerel shark (possibly porbeagle) langebarn/snake blenny torsk/cod (juveniles less than 10 cm long) hyse/haddock ...

I knew that one of these days of my 4 weeks at sea I would be obliged to try whale meat. Today was the day. I did not know it was whale meat when I put it on my plate and started cutting into it. Gunnar, who's father was a whaler, asked me "Do you know what kind of beef that is?" I said no, and he replied "good". So I had a couple of bites not connecting the dots, then Øyvind (another older scientist) said "Oooh! You are trying whale meat? The food of the Eskimos! They say there are many good minerals in whale meat." ...yup, I had done it. I ate a piece of whale meat....but it wasn't bad. It tasted like an overcooked steak. It was not what I had expected. I felt guilty when I had finished my dinner and started to think about the politics, morals, etc. behind whaling. First of all, you should know that Norway is only allowed to take 1400 whales per year, and the meat is very expensive. It is not an economically valuable meat, but has some culture...

Every day has been special so far on this adventure, but today stood out above the rest. Today I had a small sample to process, but BIG mackerel (= great data for my thesis)!!! And then I had the day to relax on deck because we weren't going to do many trawls. The sun is shining and it's warm. I fell asleep on my towel and then I was woken up by someone yelling "Wake up, Justine! Whales!" There were at least 6 pilot whales swimming in front of the ship. It was very exciting since I had never seen whales in the wild before, just dolphins. One group of three came on the port side of the ship and I saw them dive under - VERY COOL! Just a shame that my camera was too slow to get the shot! --- I do have a couple of good pictures though. Whale meat is on the menu for dinner tonight. I think that out of principle I will not have any of the whale meat. We got 130 kgs of fresh meat brought on board today and it is possible for scientists and crew to purchase a couple kilo...