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MISSION DISPATCH 1 June 2, 2005 | Dr. Tammy Frank | San Clemente Basin (off the coast of S. California) I'm a little behind on updates because we've had a lot of problems to sort out, as is always the case when using new gear for the first time. We got a late start yesterday, due to the illness and need for a sudden replacement of a crew member, and didn't make out to our first station until well after dark. Upon the first deployment of the net, it became apparent that the trawl was too big to lift over the back deck with the A-frame, and an alternate strategy had to be devised. This required Scripps resident technician Brent Remer to go up a ladder, in not terribly calm seas, and hang a new block 
on the A-frame. Due to the relatively rough seas, and the fact that half the
science party were in their bunks due to sea sickness, we decided to wait until first light this
morning (5 a.m.) to send Brent up the ladder. The science party wasn't needed to help hang the
block, but their mal de mer factored into the decision to wait until morning, as few could generate
much enthusiasm for sorting sloshing plankton in the wee hours of the morning while their stomachs
were sloshing as well.
So, at 5:30 a.m., attached to a safety harness, Brent clambered up a ladder and managed to maintain his balance while putting up another block. The net we're using is called a Tucker Trawl, and is designed so that it can be sent down closed, opened at depth, and then re-closed just before the net is brought to the surface. The net consists of a tow bar, top and bottom net bars, and a weight bar. 
The distance from the top of the tow bar to the bottom of the weight bar is approximately 20 feet, but
by attaching lines to the side bridles and running them through blocks, we could collapse the trawl to
a more manageable height and swing it over the stern with the A-frame. With all those lines attached
to the net, it took many readjustments to the net lines and net timer, but we finally had the net fishing
properly in the water for the first time. This being a practice trawl, the net was at a depth of 50 m for
only 10 minutes, but the micro-zooplankton group was quite excited about the microscopic plankton (larvae
and copepods for the most part) that were caught in addition to a large number of salps and tiny jellyfish.
I'm used to working on the charismatic megafauna of the pelagic zone (shrimp, fish, squid), so I found it hard to generate a huge amount of enthusiasm for the contents for the trawl bucket, but it was fun to see the excitement of our student volunteers examining their first (albeit tiny) open ocean plankton. It's now almost midnight, and we're waiting for the first "real" trawl to come up. 
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