We ended up departing again after two days. In the days that we stayed docked in Egersund we didn’t really have a lot to do. I took the opportunity to catch up on some reading for a subject and went for some walks in town, but it was freezing! I have to say that I was very happy that we left because I enjoy doing the lab work on board and sitting around all day was getting slightly boring and due to the side effects of the sea-sickness plaster I was having a bit of a hard time focusing on the reading. They made me very drowsy and my vision was blurry.
The next trawls were very productive for us, we were able to collect whole buckets of sharks. In one trawl there were around 200. I do have to say, that seeing the amount of sharks or fish in general that are being brought up by the nets and the have to die kind of took a toll on me. I do realize that it is for science and research purposes but it still makes you think. We found a lot of parasites which is very good so we could “make up” for the slow start. And I have to say that I enjoyed the feeling of being busy! Everyone told me not to worry as there is a second leg of the cruise in which parasites will still be collected, but as it is the topic for my thesis, I would like to experience the work as much as possible and get the most understanding of all the methods used.
On the last day we stopped trawling pretty early, as the waves were very high and we were already on our way back to the port in Kristiansand to dock. We arrived there around 10 p.m. For our last shift we cleaned the lab thoroughly so that it was ready for the researchers in the second leg of the cruise. Luckily, I had packed all mu bags in the evening, as I was woken up by the text of another researcher saying that we had to empty the cabins as soon as possible to give the board staff the opportunity to clean everything for the next crew coming on in the next few days.
One of the “weird” things we found was a single parasite with eggs. This seems highly unprobeable as they need another individual to fertilize and produce eggs. I will be taking that one parasite back on the plane with me on the plane so I can bring it back to the lab as soon as possible. Our guess is that the outer part just fell off and that once we properly dissect it out, we will still find the peduncle. If that is not the case then we really do not have a valid explanation for it at the moment. Hopefully once we are back in the lab we will find a plausible explanation for this.
