6th August 2009

90% of the fish we catch are Toothfish and the rest are classed as by-catch.

The main by-catch species we catch in South Georgia are Grenadier (Rat tail), Skate and Rays, Antimorid cod, Ice fish and a few Crabs.

The Grenadier are filleted and sold to the local market in Port Stanley,Falkland Isl.

The crews share of the sales money from that will go toward crew entertainment. One suggestion from the crew for this seasons “Rat Money” is to buy one of those fancy Media-gate hard drives so the team can watch a movie or mini series during meal times or shift change.  Most of the crew also have DVD players in their cabins.

Masa in the factory holding a Grenadier that he is about to fillet. We usually get a 20kg box of fillets from a days fishing.

Sue in the hauling room holding a large Spider Crab (Paralomis Formosa). We only catch about 10 of these a day and this is a reasonably big one. As a rule, all Crabs are removed from the hook and thrown back over the side, but sometimes we do keep a few for a feed. ( Sue hates Crabs...and it's a real pity I'm not allowed to show you some of the other shots I got while getting this one.....maybe latter when she's not watching).

Rgds: John B.

1st August 2009

There are some days you would rather not be here. Today we have a Southerly storm blowing 50kts and 8meter seas with sleet and snow straight off the pack ice. We know, from satellite images, that the winter pack ice is now only 200 mile to the South of us.

The air temp is -8 outside and water temp 0.

Crew in the hauling room have to rotate every 2 hours so they can thaw out with hot coffee and get dry gloves before going back on deck to finish their shift.

On the bridge it gets difficult for the driver to see through the icy windows and keep the ship on the line without letting too many big buggers (waves) pore in on top of the hauling crew.

Sam, the observer, is doing his line observations for this line from inside today. Meanwhile, in the factory and hook room, the rest of the crew are getting on with their jobs while holding on with one hand as the ship rocks, pitchers and rolls through another rough day.

Shane, the 2nd mate, driving on the line. He must concentrate on every wave and anticipate every move the ship makes. It is so easy to get it wrong and fill the hauling room with water, or worse, he could break the line...that's not a good look. Sam in the back ground recording everything caught on this line segment,shortly he will go down to the factory and collect the biological datahe needs from the fish we've caught off this line.

 

From the driving position the driver has a good view of the hauling room and the oncoming weather. You can see the gaff man with orange wet weathergear at bottom of the picture.

When the windscreen wiper stops working we can't see, there is a mad panic to cut the line and buoy the end off. Then we drag the chief out of his warm engine room to fix the problem while we give helpful instructions from inside.

Rgds: John B.

30th July 2009

We can’t let this day pass without giving special thanks to Emma Jones.

Emma has been one of the Chief Fisheries and Customs Officers at King Edward Point in South Georgia for the last few seasons and today is her last day before heading home to warmer climates and, no doubt, a change in life style.

Every day we send our daily catch reports to the team at KEP; from there they monitor the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for the fishery and advise all vessels when fishing areas are about to close as the TAC for that area is reached. In return we get a comprehensive news bulletin every week with local and international news reports from around the world, mainly those countries that have vessels licensed in the South Georgia Fishery. The open and friendly working relationships between fishers and fisheries management in South Georgia is a great example of how a sustainable fishery should be managed.

This photo was taken during our preseason briefing and customs clearance in 2007. From left: Andrew (MRAG observer) Me, Emma, Sarah (British Antarctic

Rgds: John B.

27th July 2009

The weather hasn’t been that great lately. We’ve had a series of frontal systems passing through bringing gales from all directions. This morning, an occluded front brought a period of heavy snow with reasonably calm conditions and patches of blue sky behind it. This is the first time we’ve seen the sun for, at least 2 weeks, maybe longer.

Someone mentioned building a snowman.. it took 1 minute to get volunteers.

Shane, Juliet and Jake built something and called it a snow Penguin…

Anyway, it was welcome relief from below decks when the crew came up for the photo. It’s a pity I didn’t get a good shot of the snow fight that happened next. As you can imagine there were no holds bared – resulting in one decapitated snow Penguin.

It started snowing just on daybreak.

All crew from the port watch, left to fight; Aaron, Grant, Jesse, Adam, Jake, Shane, Sandy, Dave (at the back), Chevy, Juliet and Penguin with Noel's hat on.

Rgds: John B.

25th July 2009

It can be pretty boring at sea, especially during a 3 month voyage. But South Georgia is different in so many ways. Whales, Seals, Penguins, Orca sea birds and Icebergs are all common in these parts. The Icebergs do come and go depending on the southern ocean currents and weather patterns. We don’t see as many this season, but last season, there were hundreds scattered about the fishing grounds. We never seem to get tired of photo opportunities with an Iceberg in the background. This is a rare shot, not only because of the technicolor Jade-Berg in the background, but look who is leading the paparazzi..

Its Mr P (oops) Francois him self..

These Bergs are fascinating, and usually, if we see one in the distance, we will ease over and take a closer look. (Please don’t tell the boss, he thinks we never stop working J) The few we have seen before were totally green.. or Jade, but this one was regular on one side and Jade on the other.
When you get close, these Bergs appear more like glass, you can see right into them.

We don’t worry about the big Bergs, they are easy to see and track on the radar. It’s the growlers and Bergy bits we have to watch for. As the Icebergs drift onto warmer water they break up and become real dangers to navigation like the one in photo #2, if we ran into this at night we would certainly do some damage to the hull or worse.

For safety at night when growlers are about we use huge stadium lights to help spot them when we’re steaming between fishing lines.

Rgds: John B.

23rd July 2009

Research fishing, the collection of biological data and the tag and release of Toothfish and Skates are just some of the many responsibilities we must undertake so this fishery continues to be properly managed and compliant with (MSC) the Marine Stewardship Certification authority.

Sam is our official observer for this trip. He is appointed by a British “Marine Research Advisory Group” (MRAG) to help us comply with all the relevant fishing regulations, collect important biological data, record species by-catch, details of tag release and recaptured fish. Every week Sam sends his report to the South Georgia Fisheries base, at King Edward Point where his records are compared with our daily reports for accuracy.

Adam (on the left) is assisting Sam by writing down the details of a small recaptured Toothfish as Sam calls them out (weight, length, sex, gonad state, general condition and tag numbers). You can just see the little yellow tag behind the fishes dorsal fin.

Each time a Toothfish is recaptured the crew get $10US. Sam will hand out the cash to the crew that spot the fish when we get back to Port Stanley. This is a good incentive for the crew and helps create some interest in the tag and release program. After all…it is their wages that gets put back in the water in the first place.

Rgds: John B.

20th July 2009

Adam (aka Sharp shooter) in the hauling room with an XXXL Patagonian Toothfish, (Dissostichus eleginoides if you happen to speak Latin).

Some of these fish grow to 150kg and bigger, this 85kg Toothfish was caught in 1,800m deep water where most of the big fish live.

In shallower water, between 800 and 1,000m, the average size fish is 7 to 9kg. We are not permitted to set lines or catch fish in water shallower than 500m within the South Georgia, South Sandwich fisheries management zone.

The main Toothfish spawning grounds are to the North West of South Georgia, around the shag rocks area between 200 and 400m.

Once Shooter has cut its throat, the fish is placed on a conveyor to the bleeding tank. From there it will be moved into the factory for processing, then weighed, labeled, packaged and into the blast freezers, usually within 2 hours of being caught.

The water temp ranges between -0.8 and +0.8 for most of the winter season so our product quality is as good as it gets.

Adam says Hi to his family back in NZ.. He’s a hard worker and always ready with his camera when something interesting is going down. (Unless he’s right in the middle of the action that is).

Rgds: John B.

PS: I did have a nice (proper photo) of Francois, but it seems to have gone missing from the photo files. Something fishy happening here.

19th July 2009

When it’s blowing a 45kts Sou’wester with 10m swell running and the hauling room bilge pump stop pumping, its time to stop fishing and close the hauling doors to keep the water out while the chief fixes the problem.

There are several pumps through out the factory, the hook room, line deck and the hauling room. The hauling room is the only working space open to the sea for long periods of time, (hauling lines occupies about 70% of the
day) and is designed to be a wet area.

When water comes in the hauling room, it comes in fast. Sandy is somewhere amongst that lot.

The hauling room pump is the biggest pump aboard, it can shift 4,100 liters a minute, and in bad weather with water pouring in every few minutes, we can’t operate without it. The vessels stability is not affected by having water in the hauling room.

These big pumps do not normally fail, for that reason we don’t carry a spare. We could use a smaller pump but that would limit the amount of weather we could work.

The chief will just have to repair that pump.

Greg with the repaired pump impellor, note the brazing work around the boss.

Greg tells me the cast iron impellor was shattered in two places around the boss or where it connects to the shaft. He was able to make a support ring and braze the shattered bits together around it, then fill the gaps with plastic steel, machine the impellor to fit the shaft and put it all back together with lock-tight. We have now removed the smaller standby pump and put the big feller in and we’re back in action.. thanks to some classic engineering skill from the Chief.

Rgds: John B.

18th July 2009

At the start of setting each line, first the floats and GPS beacon are thrown over, then around 2 kilometers of down line to reach the bottom. Each end of a line is held by two 40kg anchors and two 40kg chains. Usually we work between four lines in the area we choose to fish. That is around 1.3 ton of anchors and chains that have to be manhandled about the deck every day just to hold each line so it doesn’t move. When the weather gets foul we put extra chain on the down lines to be sure they stay in position.

On their shift: Chevy (right) and Aaron are responsible for connecting everything together as it goes over the stern while setting. They need their wits about them, a rope turned about a wrist or a foot in the bite of a line would have them over the side in a flash. For this reason that part of the setting operation is monitored by two closed circuit cameras and continuous voice communications monitored on the bridge. The skipper or 1st mate must watch and listen to every move while the stern doors are open for setting.

Note: The lead core back bone or main line is to make the line sink faster and stay out of reach of foraging seabirds. We are proud to report we have not caught a single seabird during 11 years of Toothfish operations. The CCAMLR and MFish observers monitor our activity very closely when it comes to seabird safe fishing practice.

15th July 2009

The Antarctic Pilot describes South Georgia well.

General description;

South Georgia is a barren, mountainous island laying about 700 miles ESE of Falkland Islands, and has an area of 1450 square miles. It is about 100 miles long between Cooper Island (54 48s 35 47w) off its SE end, and Willis Island, off its NW end, and 20 miles wide, is high and consists of very steep glacier-covered mountains. It presents the features of a deeply dissected upland. The snow line has a general elevation of about 460m but may be as low as 300m along the S coast of the island.

The island is said to have been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci, who possibly sighted it in 1502, and by Antonio de Roche when in command of a British expedition in 1675. It was not explored until Captain Cook made the first survey of the NE Coast between 14th and 23rd January 1775, taking formal possession on 17th January of that year in Possession Bay (54 07s 37 07w).

The coasts, especially the N, are deeply indented, reducing the island in places at the W end to a few hundred meters in width, but the large quantity of loose ice in the bays renders them inconvenient during a great part of the year for a vessel to lie in on account of the calving of large parts of the ice cliffs, which break off and float to sea. The second largest glacier in the land is the Nordenskjold Glacier, in Cumberland East Bay, the largest is the Esmark Glacier in Holmestrand. During summer the heat of the sun causes large pieces to break off the glaciers; the large icebergs, however, originate from Antarctica, but they are too great draught to penetrate far into the bays.

Sue and I at Shackleton’s grave stone with San Aspiring in back ground alongside the loading pier at King Edward Point in Grytviken Harbour. We must call in at KEP before the start of each season for our compliance inspection and receive our license for the new season.

Rgds: John B.