the crew decided to celebrate it by completing 6, yes SIX, sites today. After a night anchoring off Cojo Anchorage with only claustrophobic showers and toilet on the R/V Yellowfin, we set off at 5:30am again and started the first of the SIX trawls promptly at 7 am. Long story short, instead of a war between the FISH and INVERTS ppl like how the writer pretended to depict last blog, the whole day built on a perfectly coordinated collaboration between two groups! Since each trawl brought humongous (I thought this wasn’t an official English word!!!) TONS of either fish or inverts, never balanced amounts between the two. One group once finished with their challenging work would promptly run to the other side of the boat to help out the other team. With only a 15-minute lunch break, the R/V Yellowfin aced its record-breaking 6-trawl run by late afternoon! Our formalin, tags, waterproof papers and jars intended by the whole week were almost all gone by the end. As a reward for our hard work preserving hundreds of thousands of fish generations in one day, Mother Ocean sent her loyal right-handed pelican to the deck to destroy our gloves and legs (pictures below). The night ended with addicting pasta by chef Jessica and friends of Sam coming over to visit us. Can’t wait for sorting flatfishes and urchins again tomorrow! (Says NO ONE EVER but us nerd marine biologists).
-Binh Vuong '14
