Day 3 - Lobstering to trawling

Reflective Journal:
I think today was our most intensive learning day, and our most difficult from a weather point of view.
Last year I bought a children's book, Going Lobstering, by Jerry Pallotta and Rob Bolster, when I realized that I had no concrete idea how a lobster trap actually worked. Should I have admitted that???? Today I got just a tad more info and hauled a trap. The gear was a mini Dangerous Catch version. Using the Otter trawler to dredge the bottom yielded a few sand dollars which I forgot to take home, some flounder in different stages of development, small lobsters and crabs, and a hermit crab. Hopefully, the sand dollars will still be there tomorrow.
The instrumnts were very interesting. from the Secchi disk, to the captains navigational gear. This afternoon, we got out of the weather and took a look at sand specimens from Smutynose and Plum Island, and talked more about seaweed. We didn't get a chance to press seaweed, though. Too much to do.

Daily Log: Things I've found most interesting:

• Lobster and crab sex ID.
• Lobsters can be either left or right crusher clawed.
• Lobsters regenerate.
  
• Lobster traps have kitchens and parlors - how civilized.
  
• The two different kinds of trawlers.
• A huge specimen lobster that sand fleas had completely cleaned out.
• Bivalve age is determined by counting the rings on their shells.
• Barnacles are arthropods, related to lobsters and crabs, and can be as large 4 to 5 inches.
  

How Lobsters molt:

• Lack of enzymes soften the shell
  
• They then split their shell down the middle and back out
  
• They fill themselves with mass quantities of water
• The shell grows back and hardens
• They expel the extra water which gives them room to grow.
  

Vocabulary:

• Plankton net - small funnel net with a plastic bottle at the end, and used to trawl on the bottom to trap plankton and other small marine species.
• Secchi disk - round black and white weighted disk which determines the depth of sight in a body of water. Concentrations of plankton determine depth of visibility.
• Chite - a protein which determines the color of a lobster and the red color they turn when cooked.
• Otter Trawler - trawler that is towed on the bottom of the ocean. It has 2 doors and weights and scoops up whatever is on the bottom. Ours was small compared to huge fishing boat trawlers.

More movies:
Day 3
Day 3 Otter Trawling