Day 4

Well it was full steam ahead to the first destination, the southeast area of Anton Dohrn seamount. Breakfast consisted of pancake and syrup and roobios tea, quickly followed by walking back into my bed. The Galley is located to the front of the ship and it is not a good place for me. A Qwell tablet was ingested at speed and I lay back down to read Advice for a young scientist, by P.B Medawar. Thanks Prof Burkill, it’s a great read.
However, sleep called and I have to say under the influence of Qwells, I am having some whacky dreams. I also fell asleep with my binoculars around my neck, ahhhh, the eternal scientist. Jaime looked after me with clementines and water and I had my lunch alone outside to keep my eyes on the horizon; burger and salad at the back of the deck with gannets and fulmars to keep me company.
So back to bed for a little while until we stop at the chosen destination. In the Galley I can hear the sound of jumping or something, I go to investigate and it’s exercise time. I find, Emma, Therese and Beth in the middle of stretching.
Neil and I took some time wandering around the decks looking for wildlife and I did laugh when Neil did say that he found what looked like a finch. To my surprise, it actually was a member of the finch family. It was male and either a Scottish Crossbill or a Common Crossbill as I know these species are hard to separate, but what the hell was it doing out here! If it was a Scottish Crossbill, then these are not known to migrate……..Even if it was a Common Crossbill, they also would not migrate across the Atlantic, yes I feel we had a little stowaway!
It was such an exciting find, since the Scottish Crossbill and Tony John you can correct me if I am wrong, is unique to the British Isles. It is described as unique due to its distinctive bird song. The poor thing was exhausted, so we tried to give him water and bread. We named him MJ, after the King of Pop, or maybe it was the King if Pop! Aoidhin Gallen, you were right he is taking a break after all, well don’t worry we have him on board M/V Franklin……somewhere……..
Back then to work and a full biological data gathering brief, as Jaime heads the group and gives us the complete low-down on how to acquire our data. As Biologist On Shift (BOS), we have a lot of responsibility during the camera/video tow. On this first mission, the camera will be taken down to approx 1700 m, down the south-east flank of Anton Dohrn, then 500 m tows will take place on the deep areas and then back up to about 1000 m in the shallows (yes this is shallow in the context of deep sea video/camera analysis). Everything has to be synchronised (overlay time on video, USBL, CTD) and everything recorded including the regular 20 m photographs and other interesting photographs of choice. It will mean that I work in a pairwise motion with someone from JNCC with close input from the MMT guys and careful communication with the winch driver.