Information
Comments
The krill fishing campaign continued last night however the returns were disappointing to the extent that we can say that we have seen more individual whales than individual krill on this voyage so far.
Last night our hopes were high since a number of promising krill-like signatures had been observed on the sounder in the late morning after the team had completed their 12 hour shift. These soundings were plotted on the chart and in the early afternoon we backtracked so as to be in the right place by 6pm.
On arrival, we found a large number of humpback whales which is always a good sign since these guys do this kind of thing for a living. But these whales were not feeding but holding position, seemingly also waiting for the krill to turn up.
Sadly on this occasion, the crustaceans ultimately prevailed over the combined efforts of the mammals. We made one cast of the net early in the evening and took the net down to 170 metres where some echoes were seen. And after we opened the net, the camera showed a few luminous flashes in the darkness which are characteristic of krill trying to evade a predator (in this case - us) and we felt reasonably confident that we might make a small catch. However when we hauled it in, we found no krill at all - just some small jellyfish. At least the net wasn't full of ice which is a major concern during this type of operation.
While subsequently zig-zagging across the area where krill had been seen earlier in the day, we saw very little action on the sounders and consequently decided on a new strategy. At 2am, we stood down the team and started heading east along the pack ice edge. This serves the twin purposes of getting us closer to home while taking us into new territory where perhaps the pickings will be better. Nothing was seen overnight or this morning so far.
When it comes to krill fishing lore, the ancient ones tell us that the "night time is the right time" but this hasn't really been working for us and what we've seen suggests that the mid to late morning might be better for krill right now. We're going to perform the experiment and find out.
Lloyd and Andrew
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.