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| Me and the SWMS - the entrance to Little Jason Lagoon is visible in the top right. |
One of my infamous catch up blogs after not updating the site for an embarrassing number of months... The time which has elapsed since the RAF air drop can accumulate a lot of waffle in my world... I must remember to blog little and often.... little and often....
November saw
the arrival of an exciting project being undertaken by BAS Scientists Gabbi
Stowasser and Chester ‘Cheps’ Sands and a Biological masters student Jana
Doemel from Germany.
The team wanted
to undertake sampling of the seabed at various locations around the Cumberland
Bay area to investigate the local benthic (meaning sea-floor) flora and fauna,
and the project required a boat to carry out trawl work with a ‘Benthic sled’
and some accompanying work with a domersal trawl net . It was therefore up to
me to convert one of our RIBs in to a suitable trawler work platform. I decided the most suitable boat for the job
would be ALERT with her dive rib layout and open aft deck. So with some cunning modifications, she was
transformed into perhaps the world’s first RIB trawler (!) making use of some
now rarely used fishing tackle in the net store, including floating line, heavy
trawl line, cheek blocks and swivel shackles. The makeshift system worked
perfectly and boat proved very capable whilst accumulating around 13 hours of
trawling. The team were overwhelmed by
the samples that were recovered and they will provide a significant
contribution to the marine science being undertaken by many nations around the
Scotia Arc. The trawling was great fun,
and we were very lucky with the weather.
The RIB actually coped incredibly well with bottom trawling, and with
both engines in slow ahead, made a perfect 1.5 knots with the trawl sled fully
deployed on the seabed. It was fascinating
to see the diversity of life that was bought up and put into sample buckets. Jana’s particular area of interest is sea
spiders, and we actually recovered many different species much to Jana’s
delight. In addition we found many
varieties of copepod, isopod, amphipod, echinoderms (starfish!) and other bits
and bobs. 
Of
particular interest to me was the requirement for the boats to go and explore
some lesser frequented spots around the coast.
We spend a fair whack of time cruising in to beautiful spots like
Sandebugten cove, Moraine Fjord and even little Jason lagoon. Little Jason is a tidal lake in Jason harbour
on the Busen peninsula, and is only accessible by RIB on spring high
water. As there is usually no reason to
make the journey in to LJ lagoon it is almost certainly the case that no boat
has been inside since HMS endurance made some soundings of the lake in the
early 1990s. Crossing the bar was
exciting, as fur seals leaped from the water across our bows and the last of
the late flood poured in through the entrance making rapids on the shallower
eastern channel.
The trawls
inside the lagoon were somewhat disappointing, as it was hoped that because the
lagoon is protected from ice scouring, the benthic marine life could be
abundant. In reality, what was recovered
was a large amount of pungent smelling sludge.
It is my (non-scientific) opinion that the shallow ledge at the
entrance, the small change of water each tide, and the abundance of fur seals
around the lake have eradicated much of any marine life in the cove. Due to tidal constraints we only had time for
one trawl however. Before leaving, I
drove the boat around the perimeter of the lagoon and photographed the beach
for the seal biologist. On returning to
base I counted around 750 fur seals on the beach.
