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April 30, 2011

Kattegat

BY: Iben Rathje

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I woke up happy knowing that I should experience Kattegat on the depth of 100 m via the ROV. In the dark container on deck, where we steer the ROV, we have different screens, from with we can follow the shootings of the ROV. Today, the work with the ROV was thrilling because there was a lot of current in the water. This means that the ship is drifting and sometimes suddenly makes a big jerk in the ROV, and then all the fish are gone. We started with lowering the ROV into the deepest spot near Groves flak, and was very surprised that we saw a haploops community, dominated of the haploops, small crustacean sitting in a tube and filtering food with their feather formed antennas. It didn’t look like there had been a trawler for a long time. The area was not beautiful as it was covered by small particles and alga. But it was fun to see the small crustaceans put their feather shaped antennas out of the tube they live in. In this way they collect nutrition from the water. We let the ROV move to more shallow water. As it moved it passed a haddock which was easy to recognize with the black spot, a greater weever with the characteristic angry face and two eremite crawfish that attacked the ROV. The eremite crawfish are special because they live in old shells and run around with them on their back. When the ROV reached a depth of 60 meters we saw some very beautiful starfish.

Tomorrow, when the film has been downloaded, we are going to find our exactly which species we saw. After lunch the divers had their best dive so far. They thought the water was quite warm, since it was only 6 degrees at the bottom, so they were diving 45 minutes more than they were used to in the cold water of the Baltic Sea. They discovered a lot of species that Ricky and I still have to take a look at. Although we have experiences a lot of exiting habitats today, it is still choking that there is no cod.