We’ve started to develop that sexy red eyed sleepless look, well me with my getting up early to blog has. Oh it’s a good look. However, we have woken up in the middle of a new fjord. Kongsfjorden, where there is a permanent research station with a bunch of different nationalities (not Australians) working here. It’s snowdusted, it’s extremely pretty AND we had pancakes for breakfast, so the world is starting to look up.
Today things are starting a bit later because people are going diving to take some photos of the sea floor. Just in case you didn’t already think things here are sufficiently hardcore, these guys are going down in wetsuits, that’s right wetsuits, not drysuits. It’s between 2 and 4 degrees down there. I’m starting to suspect they aren’t human. So after the dives we will be trawling for shrimp, and the things that eat shrimp.
This happened as expected. The first note is probably that it wasn’t nearly so smelly as expected. However it was messy, slippery, slimy and a bit hectic. Basically a net full of everything it caught gets dumped down a chute and into a sorting (fish) room.
Today things are starting a bit later because people are going diving to take some photos of the sea floor. Just in case you didn’t already think things here are sufficiently hardcore, these guys are going down in wetsuits, that’s right wetsuits, not drysuits. It’s between 2 and 4 degrees down there. I’m starting to suspect they aren’t human. So after the dives we will be trawling for shrimp, and the things that eat shrimp.
This happened as expected. The first note is probably that it wasn’t nearly so smelly as expected. However it was messy, slippery, slimy and a bit hectic. Basically a net full of everything it caught gets dumped down a chute and into a sorting (fish) room.
We then sort through it and group it into.. well groups.
Then there is a little bit of the old fashioned retro book checking to see if things are what we think they are. It’s probably worth reminding readers that there is no internet on board, ships can’t get internet above 80 degrees due to the lack of satellites.
Then there is the sorting out of the shrimp into different life cycle stages, of which shrimp have plenty. They are particularly flexible about the whole male/female thing.
From there we measure a subsample of the shrimp. Why only a subsample you say? What’s with you lazy scientists? Because there is a freak load of shrimp and after a certain point you aren’t learning anything new, you’re just creating busy work for a smart fella who could be doing something more meaningful (possibly, or eating biscuits).
Whilst that is happening there is also the dissecting of the fish that are big enough to eat the shrimp. We’re curious to see how the shrimp differ from fjord to fjord (ie. No. of big/small shrimp etc.) and then what the animals that could be eating shrimp have actually been eating. Are there few shrimp around but a lot been eaten? Are there lots of shrimp around but the fish would rather eat rocks than eat those shrimp? (N.B most fish don’t really go in for rocks.. it’s a joke there) So to do that you must have a look at the insides of the fish. I’d prefer to just watch the fish and see what they choose to eat, but what with it being about 2 degree water and dark that might be the slow way. So first you remove the stomach, then you have a look at the insides of the stomach. After gutting that many fish I suspect I’ll be smelling like fish for the rest of my life.
Then some things have to be looked at closer under a microscope, where in one instance one of my colleagues said there appeared to be such a range of gut parasites that they were waving at her from the petri dish.
The lesson I learnt today was: Fish can’t wash their hands, this might seem like a bloody stupid thing to say, but I think there’s actually an important lesson there. We’ve seen a lot of shrimp and fish with different kinds of parasites, a lot more than you would see if you were to investigate the health of a similar number of people (or even pets) in developed countries. I think a big part of that is that we are able to be picky in what we eat, we have basic hygiene (so we don’t tend to accidentally eat worms) and also we have opposable thumbs which allow us to pick off parasites and bugs that might cause troubles.
I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate this fact. Also to remind people as to WHY we practice hygiene! Cause we don’t want stomachs that look like, well I’m not going to show a photo cause it was super duper manky, but it wriggled, even after being removed from the fish and soaked in alcohol. Do you want a wriggling dead stomach? I think not!
All this stomach analysis did make me wonder a little bit what an alien coming down from outer space would think if he analysed my stomach contents (particularly straight after lunch) and one of the other girls who is a vegetarian. Would they think we were a different species? Would they draw conclusions about our sex based on stomach contents? Suffice to say I think really deep thoughts whilst analysing things. And do have a tendency of thinking of myself as an alien to the fish.
The geographical excitement of the day was seeing some ice, like real ice, including blue ice!
I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate this fact. Also to remind people as to WHY we practice hygiene! Cause we don’t want stomachs that look like, well I’m not going to show a photo cause it was super duper manky, but it wriggled, even after being removed from the fish and soaked in alcohol. Do you want a wriggling dead stomach? I think not!
All this stomach analysis did make me wonder a little bit what an alien coming down from outer space would think if he analysed my stomach contents (particularly straight after lunch) and one of the other girls who is a vegetarian. Would they think we were a different species? Would they draw conclusions about our sex based on stomach contents? Suffice to say I think really deep thoughts whilst analysing things. And do have a tendency of thinking of myself as an alien to the fish.
The geographical excitement of the day was seeing some ice, like real ice, including blue ice!
And the Kongsfjorden glacier up really really close, you could hear it crackling and rumbling and bits fell off! It was the kind of thing that makes people talk about the majestic wonder of nature. Personally I think that’s a pile of gizzards, its humbling because a) it could kill you without a thought b) it doesn’t need people to exist. If all the people suddenly disappeared the glaciers would be fine, they would rumble and crackle on without us, I suspect that’s the humbling thing. We aren’t required for such amazing harsh beauty to exist. That said, being humans and being excellent at destroying things like kids and sandcastles, we do have the ability to delete all the glaciers from the world. We have the capacity, and apparently the desire, to remove these things that we can’t recreate. There’s a message in there.
But for a happy thought, lunch finished with an ice cream, it started with a very typical Norwegian meal and finished with ice cream, maybe the world will be ok after all. That said.. if aliens decide to dissect my stomach.. who knows what they're going to be left thinking..