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Kermadec voyage blog

Live from Tangaroa. Amelia from the The Pew Charitable Trusts will keep you up-to-date with all the action from RV Tangaroa through her regular blog posts. 

On the road again

We have reached the end of our sampling program up in the Kermadecs and we’re on our way home

It’s a small world after all

For the last couple of days we have been sampling near L’Esperance Rock.

Caught on camera

We have multiple tools on ship for the voyage to sample the ocean, from nets, traps, sleds and trawls to the deep towed camera (imaging) system (DTIS).

DTIS is a very useful tool! It allows us to get a realtime look at the seafloor before sampling it with other equipment, like trawls or the epibenthic sled.

There be dragons!

We’ve been sampling at Macauley Island for a couple of days now, but before we left Raoul and headed south, we deployed a surface plankton net at dawn.

Using a 2x1m rectangle net we collected all sorts of animals that live at the surface of the ocean, providing food sources for seabirds, fishes and other animals.

From shallows: moving from the familiar shores of Raoul Island to lesser known higher latitude Islands

Over the last few days the “dive team” have been recording corals, fishes, urchins and other invertebrates from the shallow waters (0-30m) surrounding Raoul Island to complement the biodiversity records from the deeper ocean collected by the other scientists onboard.

It’s a bit fishy up here in the Kermadecs

We’re into our fifth day of sampling up here at Raoul Island and all is going well.

Raoul Island whales

During September and October Raoul Island is like Grand Central Station for humpback whales.

Releasing Koha the turtle at Raoul Island

During the middle of last night we arrived at Raoul Island.

Easing into the Kermadec Ridge expedition

After the flurry of activity and excitement when Koha the rehabilitated turtle came aboard, it has been a relatively quiet couple of days.