Russ Vetter from Leg II NOAA SHARK CRUISE. Well, here we are locked and loaded for Leg II of the Shark Cruise. We have some new personnel and some old hands from Leg I. I am new for this Leg, but I am an old hand at the Shark Survey. My job is to guide the shark up onto the tagging cradle. A task that sometimes goes easy and sometimes turns into a shark rodeo. I missed Leg I due to a backpacking trip with my son, but it is nice to be at sea despite missing the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

If you calculate the expense of doing science at sea, (in terms of ships crew, fuel, food and scientific time) you soon realize that every minute on a ship is precious and must be used to the best advantage. We got a late start yesterday due to fueling and ship repairs, so we were unable to make a shark set our first day out. However, we were able to use some of the shiptime to collect rockfish fin clip samples for our genetic studies of a new species of rockfish on the 43 Fathom Bank. We then transited to our first shark study site off the south end of San Clemente Island arriving before dawn.

As we expand our knowledge of mako and blue shark movements, we are making greater efforts to understand why sharks use certain areas. We want to document the physical oceanography and the biological oceanography (the things the sharks eat) that might provide clues to why areas of the Southern California Bight are more valuable as feeding habitat for adults and why other areas provide good conditions for the birth and future success of sharks in their first year of life.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that to document the physical oceanography Darlene and I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to put the CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth meter) over the side and lower it to 500 m. This expensive and temperamental piece of equipment is gradually lowered through the water column where it records information on seawater properties at different depths. It is even able to collect water samples for future analyses by remote control. Despite my grumbling, it is a great opportunity to see sunrise on the back deck and the first slice of a waxing crescent moon.

Our first set of the day yielded a few very small blue sharks and one large male blue shark.The male measured more than 6 feet (2 meters) from the tip of the nose to the fork of the tail. In general, blue sharks like to squirm and spiral around in the shark cradle, and make life miserable for the scientists, but this fellow was reasonably well behaved and accepted the indignity of receiving a fin-mounted SPOT tag and a pop-off archival tag with relaxed resignation. He swam off unperturbed and should be a fine animal to track. We are all looking forward to following his adventures on the TOPP web site.

Wow! The second set of the day was a home run. We began hauling after dinner and did not finish until 7:30 PM. That is before all of the equipment is repaired, tissue and blood samples are stored, and data sheets are put away. We captured more mako sharks on one set (30) than on the entire First Leg of the Shark Cruise (27). Most were typical 3- to 4- foot juveniles, but we successfully landed and double-tagged a large mako around 6 feet (2 meters) long. Unlike blue sharks, makos are round as a tree trunk, so they Oweigh significantly more at a given length. After successfully and safely handling over 37 sharks, everyone is ready for a shower, a bowl of ice cream, and a movie.
ABOARD THE R/V DAVID STARR JORDAN, Off San Clemente Island.