By Susan Evans, PERG, University of St Andrews
Today was a really nice sunny day onboard the James Cook! We definitely haven’t seen many of these since coming to sea. The first of 3 scientific meetings took place after lunch, whereby each group present’s their preliminary findings from this cruise to the rest of the scientific party. Today was the turn of the primary production group consisting of Gavin (sporting a rather fetching beard, more on the beard later), Victor and Alex who were joined by the Pelagic Ecology Group from St Andrews. Following these talks most people were busy packing away their equipment and sorting things out in preparation for our arrival at Falmouth. Martin, Tom and I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing the calibration winches for tomorrow’s calibration of the EK-60 scientific echosounder at Bantry Bay. This proved to be very frustrating, with several technical difficulties… The gear we will be using is basically 3 fishing rods which will suspend a tungsten sphere under the ship. The sphere will then hopefully be detected on the EK-60 control computer screen without too much trouble.
The calibration winches for the EK60 calibration.
Away from the science… and onto the ‘Beard Society’. Since the beginning of the cruise 5 guys: Will, Ben, Rob, Gary and Gavin have relentlessly been growing their beards, and now as we approach land their beards are being gradually shaved off with a new design each day (5 deisgns over 5 days). I gained an exclusive interview with Will who informed me that it’s not actually so easy to grow a beard and the week of itchiness requires inner strength to persevere on through.
The Beard Society, from left to right, Rob Simpson, Will Reid, Ben Wigham, Gavin Tilstone and Barry Simpson.
Dinner was a special meal today and consisted of a starter of a seafood medley, individual Beef Wellingtons and an amazing chocolate fondue to follow. It was a great meal, and my compliments go to the chefs who have been up since very early this morning preparing the food. Great job guys! This evening we are having the RPC (request the pleasure of your company) as a celebration of the end of the cruise. It should be a really nice evening – even better as Monty pays for it!
Beautiful sunset.
As we are nearing land, I decided to ask a few people onboard what were the best things about being at sea. Here are a couple of responses….
The wildlife
Seeing the amazing creatures that come up in the trawls
The proximity to nature
Being away from Manchester
Getting home again (Jimbo)
Feeling privileged to not have a nine to five job, and actually being here where many folk have never been.
The excellent food…
But, for me it’s been an amazing experience coming to sea for 5 weeks. I have really enjoyed it and it’s been great to see and be part of marine research first-hand.
