Trawl Nr. 10
During the
fishing operation we had to think of a plan on how we were going to continue
the survey the following day. With the Russian facing some mechanical problems
and the Irish progressing slower than expected, we had 3 options, in order to
guarantee a good synoptic coverage of the area, either we slow down (which is
not a preferable option as this might cause the towed body to tilt), to extend
the transects westwards (which is not a necessity as we would extend them
anyway if we would continue to see some fish), or to go an calibrate in the Bay
of St Kilda, just as we did last year. We agreed that the third option would be
the most sensible thing to do. 
Marine mammals
Prior to arriving in St Kilda, we spotted some dolphins of which Matthias managed to get a few nice shots and observed them to have a good look at our towed body.
The condition where not as good as last year but
still seemed acceptable. The bay seemed reasonably sheltered from the south-eastern
wind but as we had to anchor relatively close to the shore, the wave kept
hitting us in random directions and moved the ship quiet substantially. Luckily
after a couple of hours we managed to get two calibration runs done on our main
frequency, the 38 kHz echosounder.
For those
who were not too busy, helping out with the calibration at least the sight of
the bay was satisfying…Some impressions from the calibration and St Kilda below…
