April 26, 2011
Moving South
During the last couple of days we have been moving south. As we are moving south the salinity changes and the biodiversity increases.
We took samples from the seafloor and did video recordings, including ROV and divers, in different spots near Öland in Sweden. We saw river netrite (Theodoxus fluviatilis), hydroids (Laomedea loveni), red seaweed “Rusty rock” (Hildenbrandia rubra) and acorn barnacles (Balanus improvisus). After the recordings in the Öland area, we sailed south during the night to a bank in the middle of the Southern Baltic Proper, called Södra Midsjöbanken. In the morning we collected data with ROV filming, the dredge and made measurements of physical properties such as temperature, salinity, PH and depth with equipment called CTD. We saw different species such as the characteristic sponge Ephydatia fluviatilis.
Until today we had been lucky with the weather, but today the wind was increasing, and the fieldwork was made difficult by waves. We continued sailing south to do recordings on a sandbank in Poland called Slupskbank. When finishing these recordings, we start sailing towards Flasterbo in Southern Sweden to make some last ROV recordings before entering Copenhagen, where we will make a stopover Thursday to Friday.