Welcome to the 2017 monitoring survey by Marine Scotland and
JNCC onboard RV Scotia to North-East Faroe-Shetland Channel Nature
Conservation Marine Protected Area (NCMPA) (Figure 1) and Wyville Thompson
Ridge Site of Community Interest (SCI).
Figure 1. North-East Faroe-Shetland Channel NCMPA sampling locations, shown as ‘Box A’ (red points), ‘Box B’ (blue points), ‘Box C’ (purple points) and ‘Box D’ (green points).
The survey is split in to two legs, ten days for the
North-East Faroe-Shetland Channel NCMPA and a further ten days on location at
Wyville Thompson Ridge SCI. Leaving Aberdeen at 5am on Friday 19th
October meant that during the 36-hour transit we had time to prepare all of the
equipment, familiarise ourselves with the data management processes and
standard operating procedures, and get our body clocks into our various shift
patterns allowing us work around the clock (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Familiarisation with (A) the equipment and (B) relevant processes and procedures.
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We arrived at North-East
Faroe-Shetland Channel NCMPA at midday on Saturday 21st October. The
first shift lasted from midday until midnight using Hamon grabs to collect
sediment samples from ~660m for particle size and infaunal analysis and working
alongside colleagues from Marine Scotland Science who directed the chariot tow
video equipment operations (Figure 3B). The video footage from the chariot tow
showed coarse-gravelly sediment prevailing, a variety of sponges (potentially including
massive, pedunculate, papillate, and flabellate sponges) and multiple sighting
of chimera fish. With the first shift over, all chariot tows within ‘Box A’
were complete (Figure 3).
Figure 3. (A) Hamon grab being deployed and (B) Chariot tow set-up.
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As the first night shift began the weather took a turn for
the worst, with Storm Brian becoming ever closer. This meant that the nights
sampling had to be postponed from midnight to 8am on the 22nd
October. During this time, the JNCC night shift collated all the metadata from
the previous shifts work, backed everything up on multiple hard drives, and
ensured all positional information relating to the day’s sampling efforts were
stored and correct.
Figure 4. (A) Hamon grab being deployed at night and (B) sea swell preventing further chariot tows and grabs today.
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As the first night shift ended, the weather had calmed down
considerably, enabling us to begin chariot tow work in ‘Box B’.
To find out more information about North-East Faroe Shetland Channel, check out the JNCC Site Information Centre.
For more updates from the team, make sure to follow @JNCC_UK on twitter and this blog by entering your email address on the right hand side of the screen.
By Bekah Cioffi
All images property of Bekah Cioffi.
