Nephrops (scientific name Nephrops norvegicus) are also known as langoustine, Dublin bay prawns, Norwegian lobsters or the more familiar scampi. They have a wide area of distribution across European waters, from Iceland to the southern coast of Portugal, Morocco and throughout the Mediterranean. As well as being one of the most valuable catches for the UK fishing industry, Nephrops are the only crustacean fishery in European waters subject to EU quotas.  These are decided acting on the advice of ICES (the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas) member countries with interests in the fishery, who perform standardised surveys to obtain an index of the Nephrops population status. Our Nephrops TV survey contributes population estimates for the biggest Nephrops fishery in English waters in the Farn Deeps, off the NE coast in the North Sea.

Nephrops excavate burrows in soft muddy sediments.  Their burrow entrances have a distinctive appearance, with a semi-circular "arched" entrance and a "driveway" formed from excavated material and usually showing their tracks. With training and practice, it is possible to distinguish between the burrows of Nephrops and those of other bottom-dwelling creatures. So that is our task for the next 10 days; staring at a TV screen, counting holes in the seabed, and taking pictures of mud, 24/7.   Ah the glamorous life of a fisheries biologist!

Work is progressing very well at Mid St George's Channel rMCZ. We are approximately half way through the survey and again have surveyed many different habitat types. The survey design was based on acoustic data (Multibeam bathymetry and backscatter)that had been perviously collected from the site.

Having this data to use when planning our ground-truthing surveys gives us more confidence in which habitats are present and more importantly where the different habitats are within the site.This allows us to focus our ground-truthing effort to ensure that our habitat mapping team receives enough data to validate the presence and extent of each habitat type that has been identified.

The image below shows the planned survey stations (white circles) placed over bathymetric data previously collected from Mid St George's Channel rMCZ.

On a totally different matter a very close friend and colleague has decided to hang up his sea-going and habitat mapping boots and take a well earned early retirement. I know he will hate me for doing this but there are many of his friends and colleagues onboard that wanted to send Roger their best wishes.

Bye for now

Paul

We arrived at the Mid Saint George's Channel rMCZ yesterday morning and began our ground-truthing survey (underwater camera tows and grab sampling). The weather is set fine so hopefully we will get our planned survey completed before we dock early next week.

Unfortunately I have to report that during 18 hours of observer effort no marine mammals were observed, lots of birds were seen and recorded one of which was a Manx shearwater. This bird feeds on schooling fish such as sprat and herring making use of the presence of marine mammals to push prey species to the surface. Hence, when we observed this bird we thought it may have been an indicator that there were marine mammals in the area.

We have had two birthdays onboard this trip. Alex, had a birthday last week and creeps ever further away from the 30 mark and yesterday we had Niki's 30^thBirthday. To celebrate Niki becoming 'middle aged' (I am sure she won't mind me saying that) Shaun our Chef rustled up an amazing cake.

I will update you all soon on our progress

Paul

We are still conducting an underwater camera survey at North St Georges Channel rMCZ. We have now conducted well in excess of 100 video camera tows over sand, mixed sediment and rock. This new data will be used to accurately characterise the sedimentary habitats within the boundaries of the rMCZ.

The weather took a turn for the worse yesterday with strong 40 knot northwesterly winds. The sea state became rough making it more difficult to keep the drop camera hovering nicely above the sea bed. However, this moring I woke up to bright sunshine and now the wind has dropped away the sea is nice a calm again, which is allowing us once again to get some great video footage and still images of the sea bed.

during transits between stations one of the deck crew (Paul) has been doing some rope work to attach to the ships bell (see image). It has been amazing to watch the rope develop. I will post another image when it has been attached to the bell

I nearly forgot to update you on the quiz. It was a three way tie between the deck crew day shift, scientific day shift and scientific night shift. The tie break will take place tomorrow.

The answers to the pictures I posted were 'Key, Pencil with rubber, 2p coin and the end of a tape measure.

Will blog again soon to further update you on our progress.

Paul

I hope you are all making good progress with the quiz. I cannot tell you the answers yet as I am sure they will finish up back here before the closing date tomorrow.

We have been very busy collecting side-scan sonar and underwater video and stills data from the East of Haig Fras rMCZ. We began the survey by running the side-scan sonar survey lines to help us define boundaries of different sediment types (sand-rock).

The image below gives you some idea of what the seabed looks like both acoustically (black is hard and white is soft) and photographically. The arrows define the direction of the camera tow and the order in which the still images were collected.

             START

We spent around a day on this site before we transited north to North St Georges Channel rMCZ. If we had arrived a day earlier we would have been sampling North St Georges Channel rMCZ on St Georges day. Note to self: must try harder during planning!

I will blog again soon with the answers to the quiz.

Paul

We have just about completed our acoustic survey at East of Haig Fras rMCZ. Enroute from South Dorset we were joined briefly by a few common dolphins, unfortunately it was a little too dark to get any good photos of them. Hopefully they will come and visit again.

To entertain/frustrate the crew I have put together a micro quiz. This contains 12 photographs taken under the microscope of everyday objects found on the boat. I have added a few for you all to have a look at. I will let you know how the crew get on and who wins the chocolate prize.

Bye for now

Paul

We have been working around the clock to get the survey work at South Dorset rMCZ completed.

We finished the last drop camera deployment just after lunch-time today. The grand total of gear deployments was just over 100. These included both grabs and underwater cameras.

We have surveyed several different habitats which have ranged from bedrock out crops, stoney, gravelly and even sandy areas of the seabed.

We have also managed to snap a few interesting animals. I think my favourites are the lobster and the ray. Even though I have been surveying these types of habitats for a lot of years I am always still surprised by the diversity of habitats and animals we observe in such small areas.

The competition between the night and day shift is starting to build though I think the day shift have the edge with a total of 20 stations in one shift.

We are now transiting into the Irish Sea to begin work at our second rMCZ site (East of Haig Fras). I will let you know how we get on.

Bye for now

Paul

We sailed from Lowestoft yesterday at just after 15:00. We had to wait for the pilot (the person that is responsible for safely navigating the vessel through the bridge) to come onboard and decide if the strong winds would prevent us from sailing. To get into the North Sea from where Cefas Endeavour docks a road bridge has to be opened and as you can see it is quite narrow on the way through. We were all relieved when the pilot gave us the go ahead to sail.

As we sailed past the Cefas Lab one of our colleagues (Jo) took a picture of us as we passed under a rainbow (hopefully an omen for the rest of the trip)

Once the pilot had been collected we headed south to carry out a quick check on the multibeam system before we started our long transit into the English Channel and to our first survey area (South Dorset rMCZ).

We have made great progress over night and are now just carrying out a full multibeam calibration before we start work within the South Dorset rMCZ. We are planning to carry out a benthic grab and underwater video/stills survey so hopefully (fingers crossed) I will have some great images to show you all soon.

Bye for now

We have been able to identify a number of interesting features on the seabed within this site using both the multibeam bathymetry and backscatter data.  The seafloor areas characterised by chalk outcrops and cobble have a number of interesting creatures associated with them including several crustacean species (see below - you'll notice we have been rather spoiled by the clear waters around the coast of Cornwall, and we are now back in the slightly more turbid conditions to which we are accustomed).

We have also encountered a number of species of anemone and patches of the Bryozoan Flustra foliacea (shown below).

So we will continue with our multibeam survey during this rather blustery night after which we'll be making our way back to our home port of Lowestoft.

So, we'll say bye for now and hope you have enjoyed following our travels during this rather wintery blog....

We are now a good way into our current survey and I am aware that most of our blogs so far have focused on us sharing our images of the marine life that we have encountered during this current survey.  So, my intention today was to have a change from the underwater scenes but, alas, I find that I must let you have sight of these latest glimpses of the spectacular rocky reef around the 'Seven Stones' located in the northern extent of our survey area, just to the north of the Isles of Scilly.

So, with our survey here complete and with the ever deteriorating weather conditions drawing nearer we are on our way back into the western Channel where we plan to make best use of this poor weather window to do some preliminary survey work at the South Dorset rMCZ. 

The South Dorset rMCZ is situated just south of Portland so we are, once again, battling against the elements.  However, we have managed to acquire a number of grab samples and also some video and still images across the western portion of the site.  A number of the grab samples we collected were found to contain small cobbles, covered with various encrusting fauna (shown below), which will be extremely useful in helping us to identify some of the species that we have seen in our video and still images.  Whilst we have had some really good close up encounters with a variety of creatures during our drop camera surveys, it is not always possible to identify the species (particularly sponges) from images alone (we really need to be able to examine them under a microscope to identify them accurately).

So, as the poor weather has, once again, caught up with us we are now making a retreat back through the Channel and into the North Sea where we will begin survey in the calmer waters off the North Norfolk coast at the 'Cromer Shoal and Chalk Beds rMCZ'.

A variety of sponges, of various shapes and sizes, ranging from thin encrusting species to upright, branching forms.

Also, we have seen a number of species of anemone, including the Dahlia anemone (Left) and, once again, large extents of the Bryozoan Pentapora foliacea (or Ross Coral) (Right).

We have also been joined on survey here at Padstow Bay by several species of fish including a bib (Below, Left) a Plaice (Below, Middle) and a shimmery shoal of sandeels (Below, Right).

We have also encountered a number of species of crustacean, including the Edible crab shown below.

And finally, we have once again encountered the Pink Sea Fan Eunicella verrucosa during our survey here at Padstow Bay (shown below).

So, with our survey here at Padstow Bay complete, we'll be heading back out to the Isles of Scilly to make the most of this good weather window which will hopefully allow us to finish off our survey at 'Bristows to the Stones'.  Join us again soon to follow our progress…..

The BRUV is baited (in this instance) with mackerel which is intended to lure in those species of fish which feed on other fish (known as piscivores).  Today the BRUV has been on the seabed for approximately 3 hours now so it's time to recover it back onto the survey vessel to see who (if anyone) has been tempted by our bait.

So, Sophy (our resident fisheries scientist) wastes no time in removing the video camera from the underwater housing to see if any fish have paid the BRUV a visit.  Once downloaded, we are able to view the footage which shows a rather hungry shoal of bib (Trisopterus luscus) enjoying our mackerel bait (see below).

Tomorrow we will be continuing our survey here at the Padstow Bay rMCZ.  Join us then to meet the interesting creatures that make this rugged coastline a home……

So, once again we have wasted no time in getting the drop camera into the water to see what we can find below the waves.  Unsurprisingly, the rocky seafloor habitats we are exploring during this survey are a real contrast to those that featured in the previous blog from the (rather muddy) Fladen Grounds.  The rocky seabed habitats here at the Hartland Point to Tintagel rMCZ are proving, once again, to provide a home to a diverse array of fauna.

During our survey here we have observed a number of fish species (see below):

Bib (Trispoterus luscus) (Left) and Dragonette (Callionymus sp.) (Right).

We have seen large extents of the bryozoan Pentapora foliacea (also known as Ross Coral)(Left) and also dense patches of the brittlestar Ophiocomina nigra (Right).

And, once again we have seen the Sea Fan (Eunicella verrucosa) (Below).

So, we'll sign off and say bye for now but join us again soon to find out 'what lurks beneath the waves' at our next survey area in Padstow Bay……

The drop camera is an extremely reliable too for surveying these upstanding rocky reefs where a towed camera (e.g., camera sledge) would most certainly be damaged.  The drop camera is hovered at a consistent height above the reef to allow video of the seabed along the transect to be obtained along with still images of the habitats and their associated fauna.

So, as promised here are some images of a few of the residents of the rocky reef that we captured during our survey.

 Top Left: Sea Fan (Eunicella verrucosa), Top Right and Middle Left: Jewel Anemone (Corynactis viridis), Middle Right: Seven-Armed Starfish (Luidia ciliaris), Bottom Left: Spiny Starfish (Marthasterias glacialis), Bottom Right: Ross Coral (Pentapora foliacea).

As perhaps may be expected for this time of year, the weather has taken a turn for the worse so we have decided to move onto our next survey area on the North Coast of Cornwall where (hopefully) we should be able to begin survey (weather permitting).....

On arrival at the site, we wasted no time in commencing with our multibeam survey to explore the seafloor topography within the area.  I am always amazed at the ability of our multibeam system to pick up the fine-scale intricacies of the seabed features that we are interested in exploring.

It is no surprise, when you consider the name of the site, that one of the seabed features we are hoping to find is rocky reef.  As you can see from the image below, a large portion of the seafloor within this site is characterised by a large extent of upstanding rocky reef so we can't wait to explore the beasties lurking within the nooks and crannies this habitat provides…

So, we'll proceed with our multibeam whilst the weather is on our side.  Once complete, we'll begin our 'drop down' video survey to explore the creatures which make this interesting habitat a home.  Join us again tomorrow to meet some of the residents of the rocky reef…

So, the Cefas Endeavour set sail once again, through a flurry of snowflakes, to embark on this current voyage to the rMCZ survey areas located around the south-west coast of England.

During the transit to the first survey area we tasked ourselves with finding a suitable location 'on route' where we could perform the necessary calibration of our multibeam echosounder (see the previous survey blog 'Mystery Wreck' from the Fladen Grounds SMPA survey for further detail on the importance of these calibrations for setting up our highly sensitive acoustic systems).

Whilst the wreck we selected for the multibeam calibration was not a mystery in the same sense as the one employed for calibration ahead of the previous survey (the wreck we selected was exactly where it was reported to be located), we still waited in eager anticipation to see how the wreck appeared in the multibeam bathymetry data (see below).

So, with our calibrations complete we are now able to embark on the remainder of our journey to the first rMCZ survey area, situated to the north-east of the Isles of Scilly.  Join us again tomorrow to follow our progress during this chilly January survey…..

With the scientific part of the survey over, today's blog post is about the men and woman who made this survey happen in the background.  Scientists without the vessel and its crew, is like a fish without water.  Without the crew, us scientists would probably still be trying to get out of the narrow entrance at Lowestoft port or be drifting across the North Sea nowhere near our survey stations...

Captain Paul (second from left) with his bridge officers and chief engineer (first from left).

The deck crew who deploy and recover equipment for our scientists.

The galley staff who ensure everyone is fed during the trip.  The most talked about menu item this trip must have been the chocolate sauce that came with the raspberry cake.  Bowls were licked cleaner than clean!

And the engineers who keep the electricity running, the water flowing and the boat running.

Thanks to all for making this a succesful trip!

Thanks for following the blog and remember to come back soon for more.
All the best from the scientific team.

The "day shift" in the dark...

and the "night shift" blinded by the sun.

The last day of survey work however had some great surprises in store.  Some fantastic underwater views, more of the tall seapens we wanted to find, and a welcome change from the muddy habitats that have dominated the last twelve days.

Thanks to the data we collected over the last weeks, we gained a better understanding of where the tall seapen is present at the Fladen Grounds.  So much so that our additional survey stations where we were expecting to find the seapen were quite successful at finding them.  At some stations Funiculina quadrangularis was abundant and so we had a good chance to get a few nice images.

The images below show the tall seapen (Funiculina quadrangularis) with a brittlestar (Asteronyx loveni) wrapped around it.  On the second row, the image on the right shows the rare cobble habitat (in the context of the otherwise muddy Fladen Grounds) with a ling (Molva molva) hiding in between the rocks.

We did of course also collect multibeam echosounder data during this survey.  On this trip a surveyor from MMT NetSurvey has been helping out processing all the bathymetry and backscatter data.  Conditions were not always ideal, but he still managed to produce some stunning 3D visualisations which are extremely helpful in understanding the context within which the habitats seen on the video occur.

With the survey completed, we will be steaming back all day tomorrow.  This time will also give us a chance to check all data collected so far, make sure all databases are up to date and data entered correctly, and make that final data backup to make sure none of the data can be lost.

To finish of this blog series, tomorrow's blog will be dedicated to the people who made this cruise happen.

The title of the song just happened to be the first thing that came to mind when it started snowing today.  Snowing is maybe a bit exaggerated, but it was enough to make a few of us smile when a few flocks of snow fell out of the sky earlier today.  As more snow is forecasted across the UK for Tuesday, I wonder whether we'll get more snow on deck tomorrow?

What didn't make us smile was the change in weather.  We probably have been extremely lucky to get such nice calm seas for the last 10 days in this part of the North Sea at the beginning of January.  So for now we have stopped collecting seabed samples and images, as safety of people and equipment comes first.  Weather conditions were just about good enough to continue collecting multibeam data.  Using the acoustic equipment we have gradually been building a 3D picture of the seabed, which will help place the samples and video observations in a wider context.  Data collection is still underway and once processed, we'll get a few images online.

I did promise a few more underwater images today, so below a selection of the seapens and shrimps we encountered.

On the first few days of the survey, we could occasionally see the horizon light up at night, but weren't quite sure what was going on.  As the survey progressed, we started to see a few platforms and large vessels on the horizon and realised that the it was the gas flare that was creating the light.

Near our current location, we are surrounded by platforms and vessels, bringing gas from beneath the seabed surface to our homes.  Especially now the weather has cooled down significantly, I guess at home you're all keeping warm thanks to the work of the men and women on these structures!

Working on deck in these cold and breezy weather conditions isn't easy to keep warm.  So we make sure we rotate around the different work areas, some of which are inside, and give people a chance to warm up again.  And in between stations, there is of course for a quick cup of tea.

Over the last few days the underwater images have accumulated, so tomorrow a few more images showing you what we've seen.