Introduction

Diary

Participants

 

R/V Pelagia Cruise HERMIONE /CoralFISH
	Diary overview
Tuesday, 27 October	A six-gilled shark attracted by the bait of the Aberdeen lander…
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 within the hold of the research vessel Pelagia. Around me are the usual signs of any workspace I inhabit, a mix of tools, deep sea equipment and notes on scraps of paper. This is where I have been spending much of my waking time aboard the vessel trying to keep track of the huge amount of data that has been created by the lander I am here to operate.
As the description of my desk may hint at, I am not a particularly organised person, so this has required a fair amount of focus.   Yesterday represented the end of the CoralFISH portion of this cruise and therefore the part I was directly involved with. These first 10days were particularly significant as it was first field work on this project for both me and the lander that I have been building for the past few months (unfortunately it still doesn't have a name, that's the one part I have struggled with). The lander worked very well and I managed to deploy it 5 times, gathering over 6,300 images of the seabed and of the animals that were attracted to the bait. Processing all of these images is going to take me some time but I have managed to make a start on it while being out here; more to get me familiar with the procedure and the species I have encountered.   Some of the images recovered have been truly beautiful. One of the first significant discoveries was a large Monkfish (Lophius piscatorius), exceeding 1m in length. These animals are rarely seen on baited landers and it may have been attracted to the commotion around the bait rather than the bait it's self. Other methods of video assessment used on this cruise have shown us that these fearsome predatory fish are abundant in the coral areas. Our most regular visitors were the Common Mora (Mora moro) and the Greater Forkbeard (Phycis blennoides). The Mora's possess very large eyes that glow red under the light of the camera's flash. Somehow this doesn't make them look evil, it is a soft, warm red and with their habit of looking quizzically into the camera; these are among the cuter deep fish species. But maybe I am bias, I have a tendency to find the unusual cute. Unlike the Mora with its large eyes the Forkbeard locates the bait with its long, branched and wip-like pelvic fins acting as whiskers; giving the animal its name. These are just a few of the species seen. We have seen eels of several species, dogfish, rat-tails and even a small black fish that I was unable to identify who would regularly come out from his cave within the coral, grab a piece of bait and then hurry back to safety. But with all these amazing species to show you I have to make a decision. Due to the limited internet connection, I have to select one image to accompany this blog. Luckily, this is easy. By far the most impressive visitors we have seen are the sixgill sharks (possibly Hexanchus griseus). As the bait attracts more and more attention, more fish arrive but every now and then the area seems to clear and soon after something of a completely different scale is captured in an image. These animals have been seen at almost all sites. Some may well exceed 3m and often are too large to fit into the view my camera offers. I hope you agree with my choice, that if I could only show you one image, this would be it. The reference cross in the foreground is a metre long and the markings on it 10cm.   Today we continue our transit south to the Wittard Canyon area where the second half of this cruise will take place. Here we will look at the ecology of marine canyons as part of the HERMIONE project in a similar way as we have looked at coral habitats in this first section. Both represent distinctly different habitats likely to contain features unique to them and provide little that is familiar. Thom Linley