Hello,
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| Oban from theMcCaig Tower |
I am back! I am so sorry I have not been posting but I am hardly finding the time to sleep...and I LOVE sleeping my beloved 8 hours. 7 I can get away with but 8 it's perfection itself in my eyes.
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| Lighthouse view from the MV Calanus |
Anyways, what have I been up to? Well I have been working hard, I have been to Scotland; to Oban to be more precise, for a week long field course for 1st and second years undergraduates. I really enjoyed demonstrating. The Students were really lovely and we managed to do some really fun activities. We had 3 groups that took turns each day on different field data collection events. We had 5 events in total:
Activities:
- Frontal features (MV Calanus) - mixed versus stratified waters, CTD+rosette, light, phosphate, chlorophyll, oxygen – compare spatial transect / across front, compare over 3 days, learn to calibrate fluorescence and oxygen sensors
- Hydrographic survey (MV Seol Mara) – Loch Etive
- Fish farm ecological footprint
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| CTD + Rosette sampling |
- Chemistry lab – analyse phosphate / chlorophyll / dissolved oxygen
- Tides and currents – make CTD and current measurements from jetty
The students were asked to come up with their own sampling plan before we set off. They looked at the data collected in 2009 and then decided on an hypothesis and planned the data collection. We all worked really hard but we had our fun too.
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| Happy Students |
I was in charge of the MV Calanus activity and after that I was just helping around with the tasks/students that needed assistance. Looooong days.
3 of us arrived in Oban the day before the students turned up so we stayed in hotel in the town (City??!) centre...The hotel had one of those 1970' names like "Queen Victoria" or "Regent Hotel" or "Royal Hotel"...something like that! The deco was most definitely 1970'...and the guest average age was around 70 years old! Probably all coming from a organised tour involving a traditional Christmas meal, in June! Just in case you felt you wouldn't make it to see December the 25th 2011...*cough cough*. Thus, the atmosphere was a little decadent but I had fun having a drink at the bar were all the elderlies were entertained by a Scottish back-piper, the true essence of SCOOOOTLAND that is!
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| Fish larvae and small fries |
Anyways...the day after we moved with the group to a hostel on the seafront, run by this old and bitter Scottish lady who was a little abusive to us and generally disliked having guests and people in her house, which it's a bonus if you are running a hotel business. Ahhh sweet memories.
I really enjoyed the visit to the fish farm where the owner took us around the "nursery" and talked to us for ages about how things are run and how difficult the business is. Still he has contracts with Waitrose and Asda...surely it is not that bad??
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| Halibut pocking out |
The cages where the developing young adults are kept were out in the lochs. They keep Halibuts, amazing enormous flat fish, who like to pop at surface for a bit of a breather and to satisfy their curiosity (I like to think), just like sunfishes! They also have rainbow trouts, who like to leap out of the water an breach, and other species scattered along the area. A bit of a smelly place near the warehouses but all in all very interesting.
On Thursday night Chris and I organised a little BBQ for the whole group. We had it on the beach in front of the SAMS institute where we were based. I must say the word "Summer" somehow doesn't cut it in Scotland. Chris and I drove back from Oban, where we left the place under torrential rain and 12 degrees centigrades and we arrived in Norwich with scorching sunshine and temperatures hitting 30 degrees...
