Information
Comments
The wind remained strong for all of yesterday and we decided to transit to the west to give it a chance to abate. We entered the Krill Box at approximately 5am this morning. This is a square about 35 nautical miles a side and involves cruising 8 x 35 mile tracks spaced 5 miles apart. Think of it as a giant lawn and we are the large red lawn mower.
However, we aren’t trying to mow the krill, we are trying to assess the krill stocks in this area using acoustics. If we see any strong targets, we’ll use the Rectangular Midwater Trawl to try and scoop some up. This is not just to confirm that it is actually krill that we are seeing but also to allow us to correlate the size of the krill with the acoustic signatures that we observe. For example a swarm of younger krill will return a different echo than a swarm of larger individuals and this is the kind of detail you need to address if you want to do it properly.
This same krill box was measured in the same way last year and the opportunity to repeat the same measurement 12 months later is a valuable one which we are trying to grab while we can.
We are currently on the second leg and we haven’t seen any significant krill yet. However just before we entered the “The Box”, Martin observed the largest krill swarm that he has ever seen. Stretching from 20m below the surface down to a depth of 200m and 600 metres across where we passed over it. But it wasn’t in the box, so we had to pretend that we hadn’t seen it and carry on. Martin reckons that the krill will move into the krill box at about lunch time when Tom, our krill whisperer comes on duty to replace Martin. The krill seem to flock to Tom whereas Martin seems to be more of a salp kind of guy based on results obtained thus far.
The weather is expected to remain lumpy until Saturday when we may get a break.
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.