Information
Comments
Day 25 finds us doing a MIDOC trawl as we approach way point 0604 at a trawling speed of 2.5 knots. Overnight we crossed our previous track of the 27th January and continued northwest carrying out the usual round of deployments.
As we continue our tour of the scientific sampling systems found on board this voyage, we come to the "Bongo net".
Ah, the Bongo Net! The very name conjures up visions of wading in a tropical lagoon on a warm summer’s night while listening to Jamaican music gently floating across the moonlit water. The reality? You are standing on the trawl deck of the Aurora Australis, it's roughly zero degrees, it's wet and you're hauling in a net trying to catch critters that you can barely see while avoiding ice. What's worse? - You’re hauling in it by hand!
So why it is called a Bongo net? Because it is round like a mini hula hoop and the net sort of looks a bit like the skin of a drum and ... Oh I give up. Frankly, you'd have to squint pretty hard to see the resemblance to a bongo drum. On that description, it could just as well be known as the "round net" (which has one less syllable).
There are two Bongo nets. The standard Bongo and the baby bongo which, as the name suggests, is simply a smaller version and a little easier to haul in; for which the gear officers and deck crew are truly thankful. Jake, Jess, Paige and Dani are using the bongo nets to supplement the samples that are taken with the Rectangular Midwater Trawl. Specifically they are looking for Copepods. These tiny creatures make up about 75% of the zooplankton species found in the ocean. Christine describes them as the insects of the ocean. Jake was kind enough to show me the beating heart of a Rhinocalanus gigas under the microscope, which we surmise, may have been going a little faster than usual given the situation.
These creatures can also be found in the returns from the RMT but the RMT takes a lot of time and effort to deploy and is not as opportunistic as the Bongo net which can still be deployed to a depth of 75 metres and is a lot less damaging to the catch.
We continue northwest under broken blue skies. All is going suspiciously well.
Lloyd and Brett
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.