Ran Seafood: suistainable lobster fishing

After a somewhat tough lockdown and trying out a couple of jobs for the council I have been happy to team up with a friend in Whitby and join his lobster fishing coble.

In Norse mythology ‘Ran’ is the Mother of the oceans, storms, and protector of all that lives within.

Built in 2002 ‘Ran’ is a study fishing coble. Cobles are the traditional style boat to Yorkshire coastline and has a small diesel engine and a hydraulic winch. Two men and one simple boat.

I'm learning alot about the lifestyle and work habits of fishing. It is hard graft, flexible pay and non-stable hours however the teamwork that Damo and I share and the time spent at sea make it all worth while.

We are commited to suistainability and ensuring we go above and beyound the suistainable rules set by local authorities.

British Antarctic Survey Marine Assisstant: Application and INTERVIEW

Well it's my dream job and one I have worked towards for many years. I finally had a shot at working in the Antarctic, spending 18 months positioned at Rothera research station. 

I had been granted an interview after spending many hours deliberating over the application form. I was prepping like crazy, my office wall covered in blue tac backed pieces of paper covering topics like "what are my strengths", "what are the key values BAS work towards" and others. 

The interview drew closer and the tension grew. I had alot riding on this job and with over 300 people applying for one job was luck enough to be offer one of the six interviews. It would turn out to be unfortionate for me that I was up against my good friend Ryan whom I had spent 3 years studying and even 1 year living with in Plymouth.

For me the interview felt like it went really well. I was stumped a little but some of the diving questions as I wasn't prepared to answer questions relating to full face masks or how to survey ice underwater but generally I was happy with how it went. 

Then came the wait... we waited... and waited... two weeks later I recieved the interview expressing my unfortionate failure to succure the job. I was truly disappointed but also relieved to hear my friend Ryan was successful. As we have such similar experiences and education I can't help but feel I was very close. Ryan has had two previous interviews with BAS so this time persistance paid off and I wish him all the best down in the wintery cauldren.

Speaker at the Local Conference of Youth (Manchester Nov 2019)

In the time before covid when life seemed to be normal I spoke at an event in Manchester. 

My talk was titled "The anthropacene Climate Change and Ecology"


A very attentive audience listened to my view on ecology, ecosystems and the impact of current and future climate change


https://lcoyuk.wixsite.com/lcoy

Enforcement, boardings and boats

Spent the morning conducting boardings South of Whitby. Boarding small fishing vessels using our RIB and working with crew onbaord NEGIII. 

Sun was shining. My colleuge got a great panoramic pic of the cliffs and got an pic of NEGIII from an angle I don't oftens she her by. 

1000 Sea Hours!

In my current role I have just achieved 1000 hours and over 100 days at sea.

A mix between vessel hours on the patrol boat (NEGIII), our boarding RIB (Bravo 1) and onboard industry scalloping boats.

During these how's I've left some extremely valuable skills and experience for my collegues and time spent on industry boats.

Some other stats and figures -

I have measured and sexed 

European Lobsters
Edible Crabs
Velvet Swimming Crabs
identifying and measuring many bycatch species

Additionally, I measured and aged -

King scallops

My Cold Water Reef Tank 💕

Since moving to Whitby I inheritted an old modest sized fish tank from a friend. I have always wanted a small tank I could house some local species and this was the ideal opportunity. 

I've had the tank for over a year now and have had many occupants! It gives me so much joy to look after the critters in there and I find it really beautiful to have in my home. Recently I collect some beadlet anemones which they spawned in the tank producing many tiny anemones. 

I've had crabs and lobsters both shed their shells in the tank and can see the growth in size between the shells. Really interesting for a marine bio geek!

Collecting new beadlet anemones for my tank. Ensuring to not damange the animal and return any rocks to orignal positions.

Lobby McLobster Face

Fishing vessel 'Our Sharon' caught a 1 in 100 million albino lobster off the coast of Scarborough this month. Recognising it's rarity he saved it from the dinner plate and handed it over to us at N-E-I-F-C-A. 

Steve organised for the lobster to be on display at the National Trust old lifeboat station in Robins Hood's Bay where they have a small display tank. The subsequently ran a lobster naming competition on facebook. 

To go with the display I produced a poster to provide information on the lobster and it's unusual shell colouration. 

Scallop Video Work Analysis

Now the data collection has been complete the analysis of data and report writing must be done.

Working in a team the other environment officers and I have begun to conduct statistically analysis and compile a report. 

With vast amounts of data there are many options to look at such as abundances, species richness and biodiversity indexes. 

I suggested looking at the height differences in Dead Man's Fingers (DMF) as I observed from the video analysis that they height in DMFs varied massively between areas with little or no scallop dredging and areas with high levels of scallop dredging. 

Using ImageJ software I measured the heights of over 1000 DMF selected from random specimins over the video footage from 2019. The data was analysed using an ANOVA which showed significant difference between areas of varying dredging activity. 

Basking Shark Encounter

On the 26th September around 1 mile of the coast of Runswick bay we had a amazing encounter with a basking shark!

I've never seen one before and I never would of thought we would encounter one off the N. Yorkshire coast. The first mate spotted it first and shouted out. I didn't believe it but jumped out my seat and ran out to the back deck to take a look. 

There it was by the side of our vessel, around 4 m long a feeding basking shark! What an amazing thing to see it feeding and relaxed alongside our boat. We floated there and watched it slowly swimming through the water. 

The encounter was uploaded to the Shark Trust Basking Shark Project. To help keep track and monitor the populations of these threatened yet beautiful animals we are luckly to encounter around the UK coastline.

https://www.sharktrust.org/basking-shark-project

Ceatacean Watch UK

This summer we have seen an array of different ceatacean in relatively high abundances. We've seen bottlenose dolpins, harbour porpoises and minke whales. 

One particular encounter was around 10 miles of the coast of Whitby where we were surrounded by 10-12 feeding minke whales. As Skipper tracked the bait ball on the fish finder, I was flying the drone to attempt to capture the feeding behaviour of these majestic creatures. 

Unfortionatley, it proved to be too difficult this time around to capture any great footage but the experience was exhilerating. Next time I will get the footage I wanted after some futher practice. 

I uploaded all sightings of ceatacean to Sea Watch Foundation UK, a citizen science project aimed to "improve the conservation of whales, dolphins and porpoises in the seas around Britain and Ireland."

https://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/recentsightings/