Day 6 R/V Point Sur

The weather forecast was to be pretty bad off shore, so we decided to stay closer in shore today. The first 100 m camera deployment did not have any pictures. Today we deployed the camera again 100 m in hopes to get pictures this time.

We were unable to recover the respirometer today since the weather was supposed to be bad. Hopefully we will be able to retrieve it tomorrow.

Today, there were three otter trawls, two at 100 m and one at 500m. The two trawls at 100 m had more sea nettle jellyfish, a rat fish, a crab, and skates.









Again, we measure what was caught and take samples from some of them.









The last trawl of the day was the most successful for Nicole and her research project. She has needed shark samples from various species, but has only had dogfish shark and cat shark caught in the trawls. This trawl was different. Two huge sleeper sharks were caught. Nicole was very pleased. Not only were there sharks, but also 6 more skates for her to record for her research project.











Tissue and blood samples were taken from the sharks. Look how enormous the stomach is on this shark! Wow!





This is the heart of one of the sleeper shark.





After all the excitement from catching the sharks, it was time to do more measuring and taking tissue samples from the other fish caught.







The rat fish is a very interesting looking fish. It even has its own fish paparazzi. Look at those teeth on that fish!







Tomorrow’s weather is supposed to be pretty rough as well. We need to recover the camera in the morning, and then head off shore to retrieve the respirometer. We are getting ready for a crazy roller coaster ride tomorrow.

:)

While I was in the wheelhouse taking notes for the trawl, I saw a sea lion following us.





“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).”