You will be pleased (hopefully!) to hear I got some new species, some of which are quite cool (at least I think so).
One of the coolest fish I got was this:
It’s a pigfish (Congiopodus peruvianus). It’s about 30 cm or so long and as you can probably tell the skin is really tough. I think they look a bit like punk rockers with the huge dorsal fin!
The following fish became a bit of a pain, literally. It’s a redfish (Sebastes oculatus) and it has sharp spines on the dorsal fin and the anal fin, and two spines hidden in the operculum (the gill cover). This means that whenever you pick it up to sample you are bound to get stabbed. Redfish are quite interesting as they are internal fertilisers, which is quite rare amongst fish.
This is another cool fish:
It’s a type of dory called Allocyttus niger. The reason it looks so strange is that the stomach is distended after a very large meal of copepods. It’s only a juvenile, and is around 20 cm although adults can reach over 40 cm.
We got a lot of rays on this trip and I have started to be able to recognise the main species quite easily now. This is just one of them, called a starry ray (Raja doellojuradoi). I really like it because it’s very easy to identify, although its another painful species as the thorns are extremely sharp and it’s difficult to pick it up without getting stabbed. It’s got thorns around the eyes and all down the centre of the back and tail. Luckily it’s one of the less common species!
I didn’t get to just see new fish species on this trip – I also got to see some new birds. This is a white-chinned petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis). I think I saw some on my other trips but was never able to confirm their identity.
They are probably one of the most stupidly named birds because the ‘white chin’ is absolutely tiny and you really need to be within touching distance to see it. They look very similar to giant petrels and it’s only their size that really tells you that they aren’t – they are about half the size of giant petrels.
This is a really bad photo but the subject is just too cool not to include it! I was working late in the factory one night and left around 3am (the things I do!). As I was walking back to my cabin I saw this thing fluttering and realised it was a Wilson’s storm petrel (Oceanites oceancus). It had done that thing that all birds do – fly into a wall and then instead of turning around tried to fly through it. After I’d taken a couple of photos I took it to the side of the boat and let it go.
As you can see they are tiny birds. I’ve seen a lot of them this trip and from the ship they look even smaller than they really are. They flutter near the surface of the water picking up detritus and look like butterflies. They are the smallest seabird I’ll see out here.
I wanted to end by showing a couple of the views I got to see. I really want to show you how bad the weather can get but somehow the camera can never capture just how high the waves are so it all looks a lot nicer than it really is. This is probably the best photo I’ve got of the bad weather. You’ll notice that although I call it bad weather the sky is blue. I’ve found that there can be huge swells and the wind blowing a gale but the sky be perfectly clear. In fact, I’ve had very little rain during any of my trips. The wind is much more of a problem.
That isn’t to say I haven’t had any rain. I have. And where there’s rain sometimes there’s rainbows. I got this photo which I thought was really fun. It’s not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – it’s a trawler!
As always, I got to see some amazing sunsets. I don’t know what it is about sunsets at sea but they are just spectacular. I think it’s because the horizon is unobstructed and the air is clear. This is my favourite sunset from this trip:
Well that’s it. I hope you’ve enjoyed the photos. I had an amazing time on this trip. The people were so friendly and I got to see all these amazing things! I was sad to leave but after five weeks I must admit I was looking forward to getting home.
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