Leg 2, Day 1

Hilarious, am I right?

After hearing rumors of tumultuous seas, knee deep catches of urchins, and hours spent measuring 3,000 pacific sand dabs, we began our first day of trawling slightly apprehensive. Lucky for us, today could not have gone better. First stop: 493m down off the coast of Point Dume, Malibu. For invertebrates, our trawl yielded a fair amount of fragile urchins; really cool, weapon like, pancake style, flat sea stars; cute and adorable octopuses; a few sea slugs, and a couple shrimp. As for the fish, we caught rock fish, pacific sole, a slimy hagfish, poachers, a big sand paper skate, California headlight fish, and sable fish, just to name a few. On this first trawl we also dropped five regular sized styrofoam cups along with the net. All five were beautifully decorated by our artist team (Adrienne, Morgan, Ryan, Kirk). Once they were brought back, they all shrunk about 70% of their original size! Check that pressure out!

Finishing by lunchtime, we decided to get ahead of schedule and complete another trawl. The morning gloom had vanished and we were greeted by bright sunshine. This shallower catch at 188m off of Ventura consisted of a similar assemblage of organisms. However, we came across a moon snail (with HUGE mantle and a tiny shell) and two itty bitty squid.

We’ve travelled past Anacapa Island and are anchored alongside Santa Cruz Island for the night, enjoying some fishing on the way. The full moon holds promise of a "squid float," where hundreds to thousands of squid are known to rise to the surface in response to the night glow.