Diary

R/V Pelagia Cruise HERMIONE /CoralFISH – Diary

4/5 November	Wednesday/Thursday
The end of our expedition is inevitably drawing near. Although it still takes the entire Wednesday and early hours of Thursday to cover the more than 200 miles… Read more…

3 November	Tuesday
We are still at the 3000m station south of Galicia Bank. To collect extra material for our foodweb studies we need tissue from larger bottom animals… Read more…

2 November	Monday
Early in the morning we beep the mooring. It immediately answers that it is 3058m away from the ship, which means that it is almost straight down below us… Read more…

1 November	Sunday
It is a nice bright day, and after breakfast we command the releaser of the mooring by means of a sound signal of a special frequency to drop its heavy weight of 260kg… Read more…

31 October	Saturday
As expected we arrive at the 1900m mooring station south of the Galicia bank at 16:00. We send a sound signal through the water to the acoustic release… Read more…

30 October	Friday
We are sailing to the south to the Galicia Bank area. The Galicia Bank is a seamount that rises from 5000m to about 600m below sealevel… Read more…

29 October	Thursday
Following yesterday's adventure with the runaway BOBO lander, a multibeam survey was carried out during the night in the upper canyon area… Read more…

28 October	Wednesday
In the early morning we arrived at the Whittard Canyon about 400 km south of England. The Canyon consists of a couple of deep “gullies” along the slope… Read more…

27 October	Tuesday
Let's set the scene… I am writing this in a shipment container that has been modified into a small lab. It is currently on the lowest deck… Read more…

26 October	Monday
Today is the last working day of the CORALFISH portion of this cruise and a very busy day it turned out to be too. We had to recover all of the landers… Read more…

23 October	Friday
Rainbow day. We have the typical Irish weather. Short and long showers beat the ship. When they are gone there are always dark clouds of rain in the distance. Read more…

22 October	Thursday
I am in the CTD lab. Looking out the porthole ahead of me there is little reference of our location or direction other than the angle of the rolling waves… Read more…

21 October	Wednesday
Today is Rachel's birthday and we were welcomed this morning at breakfast by balloons and lines of flags. Apparently the crew had needed some very feminine... Read more…

20 October	Tuesday
For most people, the day started at 6:30 when the ship was lifted by a very big wave. Things were flying through the cabins. Not only cabins turned into a mess… Read more…

19 October	Monday
We have had the luck of the draw with the weather for the first few days; but on this, day 4 of the HERMIONE/ CoralFISH survey, the Atlantic swell has won. Read more…

16/17 October	Friday/Saturday
Today marked our first day of work on the HERMIONE/CoralFISH cruise; these overlapping projects focus on areas of biological wealth. Read more…