More Tansei maru

We've done ane re-done the Tansei maru in safe and local Sagami Bay,

and we've done the Tansei maru off of possibly a little less safe Fukushima,

so for a change we decided to add the active volcano element, and start a cruise out of Kagoshima.

Kagoshima is an absolutely beautiful town.

But it does have one negative point: it happens to be located downwind from Sakurajima, an actice volcano,

Sometimes even quite active.

And there it goes again....

After a short delay caused by an incoming typhoon, we were all roaring to leave beautiful Kagoshima, and get out to sea where we could finally wash all the ash off the ship.

Pumice bobbing around in Kagoshima port

The cruise went very well for everyone except the group whose idea it had beed to do the cruise in the first place.

Despite having spent a lot of time getting plankton pumps installed aboard the contraption carrying the VPR, they discovered there just were'nt enough particles down at 1000m to catch anything at all during the one hour alloted. But last I head they were making plans about how to improve things and go back next year.

Not for me, though, as I have had more cruises than I think is really wise, and although I am endlessly grateful to Nishikawa-san and Dhugal for getting me all this ship time, I do not think I'd have the courage to do it all again next year!

Archery in Aburatsubo

A cute little find from one of the girls at the house, perfect Sunday outing,

equestrian archery contest

it's a long story....

This is the captain of the Tansei maru, and it's a long story...

May 14, a clear, sunny morning after a cold, wet, windy and movemented night, just moving out on deck to prepare the next multi-corer station, some 250km offshore of Shiogama.

Little-prepared were we to find our preparations hindered by the presence of a pigeon, asleep atop the multi-corer! Calling crew and researchers out to show off our find, it was not long before we discovered a second pigeon, huddled behind the IKMT net. And finally a third was unearthed by the crew going about their daily routines.

Us all being proud scientists engaged in scientific activities aboard a research vessel, upon discovery of the birds we naturally started discussing whether or not they should be roasted for lunch.

But that discussion was quickly abandonned, because although they were weak and haggard, they did have leg bands... And said leg bands had a contact telephone number on them!
So the captain took it as his duty to use the emergency satellite telephone in order to find out more about these birds! Turns out they were from the northern-most tip of Hokkaido, and had been engaging in a pigeon race, when the big low-pressure zone sent them off track. They suggested we let the biggest and strongest bird fly home, and promissed to send a messenger all the way to Daiba to pick up the other two, very weak at that point.

May 15, sheltering from the high seas just offshore from Shiogama. More rain and cold. The biggest pigeon is ceremoniously taken out of the carboard box they are kept in, and thrown into the air. It did not appreciate this treatment, and after several unsuccessful pigeon-launching, it was decided all three pigeons would be delivered in Daiba.

May 18, three rested, large pampered pigeons, and their doting captain, at dock in Daiba. The two he is holding were last seen sitting atop the crane, showing no sign of getting ready to head North.

And as we all agreed that, although amusing, the report that we caught nothing but pigeons during our cruise would not go down well with office people back home, we did a bit of plankton and water sampling, too! Sampling which turned out, by pure chance, to be one of the most fruitful and interesting we've ever had!

We caught sharks, ...

... a beautiful and completely undamaged anglerfish, ...

... a siphonophore colody that had shed some parts, but was still in beautiful condition

(most detached bits were subsequently salvaged from the bottom of the sample bucket)

... and last but not least, a team capable of measuring up to the craziness of the cruise!

PICASSO Tansei maru cruise

Just back from another fun week on the Tansei maru, and taking some time off before packing everything up for yet another Tansei cruise in 10 days.

This cruise was all about trying PICASSO out on the Tansei maru, and testing a new size callibration system, so you can actually guess how big objects are by the video, without using the old techniqhe of running over them so you can measure them when they hit the video lense.

Although PICASSO is a beautiful little machine, and it sure looks cool on paper, it has a tendancy to not actually work very well, and so our cruise lived up to what I am now starting to consider the PICASSO optimum: most of the instruments working only half of the time, but never all failing at once.

They did manage to do a bit of work with their callibration system, and did get down to the seafloor and find a few sea urchings and a stalked sponge to measure.

And after a few stressful 'It's bound to surface somewhere over here' moments,

PICASSO was successfully recovered and packed away untill they find time to patch it up enough to be safe to take out again.

As well as the PICASSO project, and t make full use of the ship time (PICASSO can only dive during the day), we had also planned to do plakton net hawls, to help complete my siphonophore collection.

This was more of a success than I had ever hoped for. I had been wanting to do a couple deep tows, and after a few toothing problems, I got 3 buckets brimming with wonderful samples.

There were various deep-sea fish,

This one be a jellyfish-eater!

remains of ctenophores,

jellyfish,

We got this one at the surface with a dipnet while waiting for PICASSO to come back up....

and tousands of beautiful siphonophores, that I cannot wait to study in more detail!

All those thousands of animals of course take a long time to find and identify, and I cannot thank Nanae enough for all her help sorting those 3 bucketfulls. We were working full out as it was (Nanae thought she saw jellyfish in her mis soup the last day) and I could not possibly have gotten even half of it done alone.

Alone is what I will be on the next cruise, though, and I have a feeling it won't be nearly as fun sorting through all that plankton.

Shimoda

They sing April in Paris….

But April in Tokyo is actually very very busy, with cruises to prepare, meetings, poster presentations, and various projects to finish 'by tomorrow'! So it was quite lucky that the hotel I had booked many weeks ago, when my calendar was still empty, happened to fall right at the end of one of the busiest weeks!

Trip was planned to be 100% relaxation, with sun, beach, and huge dinners, and it totally lived up to it’s calling.

The small village where my hotel was.

The huge 'crab special' dinner, followed by an equally large breakfast.

Early on Saturday morning I set out on an Odoriko express from Yokohama to Izukyu-Shimoda, at the tip of Izu peninsula, between Sagami and Suruga Bays. Just 2 hours away from Oppama on the express train, you could easily have been on the other side of the world, so different was the countryside.

Although, naturally, a volcanic island, one tends to forget that on Miura peninsula, as most of the outcrops are sedimentary or clay. In Shimoda, it is basalt, and basalt that had clearly been ejected from a volcano rather forcibly, and not given much of a chance to flow and smooth out. And, in fact, the very tall and steep hills surrounding the city are no more than a collection of volcanic plugs: the magma that consolidated in the volcano chimney now standing exposed after the rest of the volcano has eroded away.

As well as being a little geological treasure, Shimoda is also a historical heritage spot, where you can walk down charming, old 19^th-century cobbled streets,

... and admire models of Commodore Perry’s ‘Black Ships’ chugging around the bay.

But what better, on a warm, sunny spring day than to simply sit down in the shade of a sakura tree and watch the hundreds of birds and insects out and about in the blossoms?