Day 3 R/V Point Sur

It was a beautiful morning. Our goal was to first recover the camera. Dr. Drazen and John sent down the acoustic signal to release the weights. It only took a few minutes for it to resurface since it was only at 100 m.





Unfortunately, the camera did not take any pictures. There was a problem with it. The camera has been fixed and hopefully it will work during the next deployment to 200 m. It will be recovered tomorrow morning.

The first otter trawl was released at 11:00 to 200 m. Some fish were caught, but not enough. The second otter trawl also went to 200 m, and again, it was not as successful as we had hoped.



In the first photo, you will see a sea cucumber. The second photo has little polychaete worms. You will also sea small sea star. When we identify the fish, many times we need to use books to help us determine the exact type of fish. The last photo is of a heart urchin sand dollar. I’ll be bringing the sand dollar back to school with me.











During the third and fourth trawl, more wire was sent out and we also went at a slower speed during the trawl. Our trawl catch was still small, but we did get some fish Dr. Drazen needed tissue samples from. In these photos, you will see a beautiful sea star, skate egg cases, spot prawn shrimp, California octopus, box crab, and another crab.



















The longline was deployed today with the hopes of baiting sharks and rays. The short video shows how the longline is released.









The sunset was beautiful tonight. The weather was a little chilly today with some high swells. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow. We got to see many Humpback Whales breaching and tail fluke dives throughout the day. Even a few dolphins were seen cruising in the water.







Around 8:30, the longline was recovered. It did catch a couple of sun stars, but no sharks or rays yet. We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for tomorrow’s longline deployment.





:)



“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”