As a crew member and onboard scientist, I have been spending the vast majority of good weather days at sea on NEG. This meant learning the ropes, literally and quickly!
Ropes and mooring- The 24m beauty that is our IFCA's patrol and research vessel requires careful and organised mooring and casting off procedures. Docked past the bridge in Whitby harbour requires me and the rest of crew team to communicate with the skipper via radio and to ensure all roles at complete (fenders, mooring lines, shore power and others).
Navigation- Due to a relatively small and interchangeable crew roles are often shared and swapped. Often I find myself in the navigation chair next to the skipper. Acting as his eyes I monitor the radar and Transas navigation system.
Maintenance- There are the two onboard engineers. I often assist them in routine and more pressing fixing and maintenance in the engine room or other areas of the ship. Each month we also perform safety checks ensuring fire alarms, batteries, bilge pumps, and other safety equipment is fully functioning. Every day is a school day onboard NEG.
Crab and Lobster Potting:
To monitor the health of the lobster and crab stocks in our district we conduct our own lobster and crab potting surveys. This entails deploying, baiting and retrieving our own fleets of pots. Each time we retrieve the pots we count, sex and measure all the red edible crab, European lobster and velvet swimming crabs. Other bycatch is also recorded. All animals are returned to the ocean when they have been measured and recorded. Any berried lobsters bearing eggs are V-notched preventing them from being landed by fishermen.
The potting days are tiring and often long but I found it really interesting to see what comes up in the pots and enjoying being out at sea with the team. Also, the data collected is vital for us to understand what is happening within our district and can tell us information on a variety of population dynamics.
Environmental Data gathering:
Each month we collect environmental data at different locations along our district. This involves deploying a SWiFT SVP probe which takes various water quality measurements as you let it free fall through the water column.
Temperature, salinity, sound velocity, and pressure are all recorded and the location of the probe in logged with GPS before connecting to the computer via Bluetooth.
Camera Work:
These past few months I have also been in charge of preparing and deploying some framed baited camera systems to capture footage from the seabed. In collaberations with a PhD student from Northumberland university, we have deployed the cameras at 6 locations and captured 2 hours of footage each time.
It really helped to have some prior experience with underwater video and maintainence of cameras and we were able to collect some great footage of lobster, crabs and even dogfish coming to the bait.
What a great first three months. I really feel I have been able to contribute to tasks at hand and feel although I am still learning the ropes and have lots more to learn I have been trusted with responsibility which I am really grateful for. I have made new friends, drunk tea and even had cake!
