It’s a New Year

For a number of reasons, I decided (both intentionally and unintentionally) to wait until over a week into 2015 to do a “year in review” post.  Part of this is because I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything up to New Year’s Eve. …

Spring Break: Continental Shelf – Scoreboard and Conclusions

Now that I’m back in NC and (relatively) settled, here’s the scoreboard and final thoughts on my time aboard the Bigelow.  Gut content samples collected – 146 Dissections to verify efficiency – 32Stations towed in North Carolina waters – 40Stations sampled for gut contents –…

Spring Break: Continental Shelf – Day 16 – Heading for Home

Sunrise on the last day of sampling. Well, all good things must come to an end and Spring Break: Continental Shelf is no exception.  The last sampling station was towed earier this afternoon off of Delaware Bay, and now the Bigelow is steaming back to…

Spring Break: Continental Shelf – Day 15 – Winding Down

Sorry about the lack of updates yesterday.  There were two deck tows and all the rest were huge hauls as well.  All I wanted to do after my shift was sleep.  Also, the last North Carolina station was towed at the beginning of my shift…

Spring Break: Continental Shelf – Day 12 – Southern Safari

Most of day 12 was spent south of Cape Hatteras trawling some very interesting subtropical species.  With the exception of one tow, spiny dogfish were virtually absent from the area (though when they did decide to show up they showed up in numbers).  Which isn’t…

Spring Break: Continental Shelf – Pictures from Day 10

As promised yesterday, here are pictures from yesterday’s sampling fest.  Behold the glory of gastric lavage. Thanks to Geoff for helping with the photography while I was busy inducing vomiting.   First you’ve got to get the tube in.  It looks uncomfortable, but it beats…

Spring Break: Continental Shelf – Day 10 – Sampling!

Just got off a watch and a half of dogfish sampling, and it was encouragingly productive.  I had been intimidated by the low catches we were getting off of Delaware and north of the Chesapeake Bay but as soon as we crossed the North Carolina…

Spring Break: Continental Shelf: Day 9 – Heart of Darkness

The ship is currently hanging out at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay to avoid some weather, so sampling has been suspended for the day.  For a while the seas were among the roughest I’ve seen, and then when snow started flying I just had…