26 & 27 July - Saturday/Sunday

Well, how do you follow a day like Friday?

We steamed back up onto the Jones Bank in mirror-calm conditions, and saw a couple of great shearwaters. One of these was flew past without flapping its wings once, even though there wasn't a breath of wind for it to catch. How do they do that? The second was sitting on the sea (it obviously couldn't do "that") and it looked odd - we hazarded any number of guesses as to what it was before it was close enough to see properly. The third flew past while we were having a "scientific team" photo taken. I think we ruined the last shot as all the birders were suddenly looking and pointing out to sea. Once a birder, always a birder. Anyway, here's the group shot below.


After the group photo, we took the recording equipment to the box for the last time, and did a brief spell of observation. We suddenly picked out a pod of killer whales, far enough ahead of the ship for Mark to race up to the bridge to phone down to the main laboratory and let everyone else know. As he put the phone down, Clare had already scaled three sets of steps and run the length of the ship to get to the front viewing positions. She has never seen orcas after all her years of cetacean watching, so this was a truly special moment for her, especially as a bull orca showed itself well to the appreciative gallery. That's how you follow a day like Friday!

Young male orca (per Matt)

We had to disassemble the bird boxes and pack away all our other kit as Sunday would be a very busy day.

Some of us managed to go onto deck first thing on the Sunday morning. I saw a Cory's shearwater first thing, just south of Lizard Point. There were a few Manx shearwaters and storm-petrels about, but no basking sharks or Balearic shearwaters to see. But it was a cracking morning, and a gannet flew past the bows, touching distance away, and glided gently toward Falmouth harbour. Perhaps it was trying to guide us home. Probably not! As I write this, the pilot is on board and we're about to throw the ropes ashore and all our bags and equipment, possibly not in that order. We will fly home to Aberdeen this evening and back to our normal lives that await us.

It has been a fantastic cruise. An interesting start, a fairly tedious middle and a tremendously exciting ending.

Dawn light on the bridge of RSS James Cook

A few gratuitous sunset photos

Signing off. Over and out

25 July - Friday

Since my last installment, we steamed away from the Isles of Scilly back to the Jones Bank to resume recovery of moorings. It all went incredibly well, and we even managed to retrieve the ADCP we thought was stuck in the mud. Lots of relieved physicists on board, who could turn their energy to boxing up equipment ready for our return to Falmouth on Sunday.

Not so the seabirders. We had got hold of some mackerel left over from Inigo's experiments and proceeded to chop it up, mixed with cooking oil and cornflakes. If we were going to go over the continental shelf edge, we wanted to give ourselves a fighting chance at seeing some good birds.

Dawn of 25th - approaching Little Sole Bank

I'm somewhat surprised to find that in spite of all the good words said in the bar last night, I'm the only person up in time for dawn. Eventually a few bed-heads stagger to the observation boxes once it has got light. We arrive at the first CTD station just before breakfast, but we've seen a group of common dolphins approach the ship. Reasonable omen.

At the station, we start to throw small quantities of mackerel and our "chum" mixture over the side, and gradually the nearby gannets and fulmars cotton on to what's happening. Then the local storm-petrels start to patter and dip on the slick of mackerel bits spreading from the rear of the boat. We scour the flock looking for an unusual petrel, when a Cory's shearwater flaps lazily past, interested by the smell, but not really that interested. A reasonable attempt at luring something rare to the boat, but not quite the full cigar.

Stormies LOVE our chum

We steam to the next station for a few hours. The main interest on passage is a sooty shearwater near the point where the continental shelf edge starts to drop away. The physicists are getting excited, because sand-bank ripples are setting off tidal circulation and mixing of the water column. We're getting excited because we see a notable increase in storm-petrel numbers. It's all getting very busy and we stop at the perfect spot. Over goes the chum and mackerel bits, and we've soon accumulated a flock of twenty or so stormies behind the ship, some coming incredibly close. We're so busy chucking chum over the side, we forget to keep checking the flock. Mark remembers and plonks his binoculars straight onto a Wilson's storm-petrel. Woohoo!!

It doesn't seem to fly particularly differently from the other stormies or use the characteristic "hanging" feeding method or butterfly flights. However, it is noticeably larger than the stormies, with broader wings, a distinct paler carpal bar, and a forked wing tip on both sides where it is moulting its flight feathers. The legs are very long and project well beyond the tail, and the white of the rump wraps a long way round toward the vent and a little up the flanks. It also lacks the white stripe on the under-wing. A wee cracker and well worth the wait.

Andy, Adam and Mark celebrate the Wilson's storm-petrel

Once the CTDs and the plankton samples have been taken, we continue over the shelf edge and into deep water. I notice that the water is starting to come over the top of my wellies, so it must be deep here. Three sooty shearwaters drift past, and we see plenty more stormies. A few groups of dolphins put in a brief show, but we never get good enough views to see what species they are. Then John Beaton, who is sunning himself on the observation deck shouts "thar she blows". He's seen a whale blowing in the far distance. We alert the other scientists and wait until we get closer. Eventually we see the classic sequence - a tall blow, brief wait, long rounded back, then see a fairly tall pronounced sickle dorsal fin, dark grey back. FIN WHALE. Woohoo. But it doesn't stop there. We see another eleven before we reach the final CTD station.

We put out the remainder of the chum at a spot where the sea is 1500m deep. And we manage to attract absolutely nothing. Zilch. Nada. Rien. Sweet Fanny Adams. Oh well. But a small group of dolphins show a bit of interest in the ship, and we continue to see fin whales keeping their distance as they pass us.

Common dolphin by the ship

There were a couple of other rituals to complete. Firstly, we attached one of the alarm watches to the CTD before it goes down to the depths of 1500 metres to see if it still goes beep beep beep (see earlier postings). And lots of the scientists scribble onto polystyrene cups and attach these to the CTD.

Two things happen - the cups shrink to about one quarter of their original size, and that watch still goes beep beep f***ing beep.

But what a fantastic day, and wonderful reward for the long, dreary hours we spent on the Jones Bank

See what happens to you when you go to deep water - your head gets bigger!

We finished the evening watching the sun go down, the distant blows of fin whales and five Cory's shearwaters that came to take a look at us. As the sun set we all saw a bit of a green flash. Woohoo!

24 July - Thursday part 1

At breakfast, we find ourselves just south of the Isles of Scilly on a pleasant day. I can see St Agnes and all the other islands and can make out my favourite pub, the Turk's Head. I can smell the crab salad sandwiches from here. It's all rather nostalgic and I know I must return some time soon.

After breakfast, the Isles of Scilly RNLI lifeboat comes sweeping out and takes the stricken Crystal Sea's ropes and tows them into St Mary's hopefully to cut free the rope from their propeller. They've suffered some very bad luck on this cruise. I spent some of last night trying to persuade Beth that she isn't jinxed and that this doesn't have anything to do with a gypsy curse. I'm not sure she's convinced though.

We're free to go back to the Jones Bank and recover the last few moorings. I see a nice sooty shearwater and arctic skua in the space of a few minutes.

RNLI towing the Crystal Sea into Hugh Town past the island of St Agnes

23 July - Wednesday

Today was a bit of an odd day. Both Mark and I were feeling under the weather. Although we were both in the bar last night, it wasn't anything to do with the 25 cans of beer we had each. Actually (serioushly), I think I had a migraine, which is very unusual for me.

The crew of the ship and the physicists have been recovering moorings and other kit from the seabed all morning. They're having mixed success, and we've been called up to the bridge on a couple of occasions to help search for frames that might have surfaced. One of the key ADCPs appears to be stuck in the mud on the seabed.

The Crystal Sea under tow

At lunch I see Beth, who is trying to collect fisheries data on this cruise, looking like thunder. The trawler that had to have a crew member winched off, had been doing very well, but they have just run over a stray rope in the sea and got it wrapped around their propeller. They're trying to free it, but not very hopeful. Later, they radio the ship to report that the rope is firmly around the propeller. The coastguard is completely swamped with a mayday call for a missing yacht, can we tow them into the Scillies please. We don't have much choice, and have to break off from the mooring recovery to attend to the striken trawler. We throw a rope to the Crystal Sea and start to tow them back to the Isles of Scilly, ETA some time in the morning. The three birders and Clare, the cetacean-listener look glum at the prospect of missing out on our jolly to the shelf edge.

While waiting to get the ropes sorted I see and photograph an odd looking gannet (see left). Look at the dark line extending down its throat, and the dark feathering around the eyes. And here's a photo of a similar aged northern gannet (right) for comparison. What chance of this being a Cape gannet I wonder? I'm not certain, but I think I saw this bird fly up from the water and show a few white secondaries, which would rule out a Cape gannet if true. Please feel free to express opinions on the identity of this bird in the comments.

I'd just finished photographing this bird when Deborah passed and asked if I had seen anything interesting. I was about to explain "probably not", when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something else. Yippeee, a great shearwater. I got the others, and eventually, we were treated to a superb fly-by after it refused to give up any meals to two bonxies (I once saw a bonxie chase a great shearwater for 40 minutes near the Hebrides once, and still not get a meal out of the shearwater. Apparently they're past masters at not giving in to the bonxie bully-boys). We have a go at chumming to see if we can get the odd gannet back, but with no luck. We later here that the shelf-edge trip is still on. Yippee.

In the evening, the Aberdeen team slaughtered the POL and SAMS teams at Trivial Pursuit, even though they had several hundred people each in their teams to our six.

22 July - Tuesday

You wait and wait for a no 18 bus to come along, then they all come along at once. And so it was on the boat for us, waiting all cruise for something to happen, then everything happens at once.

As part of the study, two Cornish fishing boats have been hired to catch fish in the area, so that we can confirm the identity of fish shoals we have seen on the echosounders. Modern echosounders are pretty sophisticated and can be used to identify the number of fish under the ship, and hint at what species they might be. to be certain of the fish species, it is important to try and catch samples from different parts of the study area. There have been a number of French fishing boats in the area, and we had to ask them to avoid the area where all of our moorings are set, for the safety of our kit, and also for the safety of their fishing gear.

One of the fishing boats failed to make it out here - they had engine trouble and had to limp back to port. The other made it out here this morning and duly started fishing in the areas we needed information from. Eventually, the French boats were clearly getting a bit miffed that this Cornish boat was allowed to fish on "their patch" and started using aggressive tactics to try and shift him, such as cutting across his bows. Eventually, one of the boats managed to catch one of the moorings in his net, and dragged part of it to the surface. You could hear the blue language from the physicists throughout the ship at the thought of all their expensive gear eventually being damaged.

We steamed over to there to warn off the aggressive boat, and attempted to recover the mooring. It was an ADCP device. There, so now you know. OK it stands for Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (thanks Clare) and measures water turbulence from the sea bed in the water above it. Because the French boat had cut a rope down to the mooring, they had to deploy an emergency recovery procedure. You send an acoustic signal to the device to uncouple it from weights that hold it down, and in theory, it rises to the surface. After an anxious wait, this indeed worked, and the crew were able to recover the ADCP onto the ship.



Still bristling from the unsavoury incident, we continued on our way to the next point for stationary counts. Then an urgent message came in from the fishing boat we had chartered. One of the crew had got his hand caught and lost the tops of his fingers. Ouch. Within half an hour, a helicopter arrived on the scene from Culdrose, winched someone down on the trawler, winched the poor guy onto the helicopter and off to hospital. Wow, that was efficient. Apparently the incident wasn't too serious, and the Maritime Coastguard Agency didn't want the boat to come back to port for an investigation. The price of fish is higher for some than others.

We were all feeling a bit shitty, but something started to go right. As we turned away from the fishing boat, we suddenly realised we were surrounded by common dolphins, and some of them came to the side of the boat to play. Dolphins have an unerring ability to lift the spirits, and today was no exception.

A common dolphin

Fulmar, aka TNB
It has been mirror-calm today, and we have been able to spot birds some considerable distance away. Apart from the usual gannets, we have seen lots of fulmars, a lot of storm-petrels - still no Wilson's petrel for me and a few other nice seabirds. We saw something I have never seen before, a couple of breaching sunfish. Yes, jumping clean out of the water. According to Wikipedia, they can jump over ten feet high. A racing pigeon landed on the ship - its feet were covered in oil - and tried to befriend Mark. Well he needs a few friends.

Over tea, I learned of the third thing that had gone wrong. The ADCP suffered a serious formatting error on the data card - all the current data it had been logging was lost. Corrupted. Completely B******ed.

20 & 21 July - Sunday and Monday

I'd like to report that we've been seeing wonderful seabirds and there have been dolphins dancing on the wave tops, but it's not been like that.

On the Sunday, we steamed in a circuit around the flat "control" site that is set away from the main bank. Only trouble is that its not a true control site because the oceanographers discovered an unexpected flow of the currents from the edge of the bank to this particular area, presumably enriching it with nutrients. So that scuppers that plan a bit. We didn't see anything special in the area although Mark and Adam saw an unidentified large shearwater in the evening around a French stern trawler that strayed into our area.

A young gannet


On Monday, we did stationary point counts on the edge of the bank. This was a repeat of stationary counts we did at the start of the cruise when the weather was quite bad and adding its own mixing to the water column. The weather has improved considerably, and it has added a lazy Sunday afternoon feel to proceedings, except its Monday. Our stationary counts have been punctuated by occasional stray trawlers through the area, which is a bit of a pest. It has been interesting that we have also seen quite a bit of searching and feeding behaviour during these counts, and that these birds were continuing to feed even when a trawler passed through the area. It must be a bit like birds sticking to the healthy food even when there's a relatively easy, relatively unhealthy meal available nearby. The equivalent to salad v's BicMac.

Oi, that trawler's stolen our birds!

Mark and I saw a couple of very distant large shearwaters while watching a rather spectacular sunset. They were far too distant to do anything with.

19 July - Saturday 2

A few more sadistic suggestions have been put forward on the boat for the fate of the errant watch. The worst appears to be to dip it in liquid nitrogen.

Today we have been doing point counts and line transects around the north side of the Jones Bank and in a line over the bank. When we reached the bank, all life seemed to have been sucked from the sea. It was as if the Dementors had paid a call. Our point counts from here were Dull Dull Dull with no birds over a three hour period, apart from one associated gannet that was stupid enough to be in the count area at the time of a count. Here is the datasheet as proof. In case you were wondering what FFS stands for on the sheet, it was Adam's hand-writing and I didn't understand what it meant.



At the start of the day, Adam picked out a very distant group of gannets that were swooping low over the sea as if there were dolphins, but they were just two far away to tell. We called in Clare and she decided to see if she could hear them vocalising. To do this, she used a sonobuoy. These are derived from devices that used to be thrown out of military aircraft to listen out for enemy submarines. It was discovered that you could also hear whales, and with modification of the electronics to listen to a wider range of sound frequencies, it is possible to hear smaller species.

The photos illustrate the sequence for deployment of a Sonobuoy. It is a metallic cylinder that looks like a mini depth-charge and is thrown over the side of the ship. Then there is an anxious wait to see if the a small inflatable bag bobs to the surface (not guaranteed). The bag contains an antenna that connects to the electronics and the hydrophone. The device emits a radio signal to transmit all the noises in the water detected by the hydrophone. It is Clare's job to listen out for any noises that would come from a whale, dolphin or porpoise. In this case, unfortunately, we drew a blank.