Hi again - the last trip was the shortest of the three trips, only 10 days. But it was very interesting as it was located on the north-east coast of South Africa, in an area very different to the west coast in terms of sea temperatures and the currents that influence the species found and affected by this fishery.
Fortunately, we didn't catch a single bird, dead or alive! It's my first trip with no casualties. We did get two turtles but they were de-hooked onboard and released alive.
Although there were always birds around the boat, the skipper said he never uses the tori line and he never catches birds (which was proved to be right).
Anyway, as the tori line is part of the permit conditions and since they do fish sometimes in places where a lot of birds forage, I gave them a tori line and tested it at sea.
The skipper and crew were incredibly co-operative and did everything they could to help me with my work.
One juvenile Indian yellow-nosed albatross was photographed with a fishing line around his feet.
That's all for now...
Wow - I actually don't have words, mostly images. It was harrowing! Never have I pushed myself to such limits before.
The extreme emotional and physical boundaries of being were reached over the past three weeks. I came to cracking point many times - 'rough' described all aspects of this trip! The sea, the food, the bunk and the smell. The swell reached 5 m on good days and the winds blew up to 40 knots on bad days.
Even though I had my own cabin, this was right up in the bow of the boat, where the swell could be felt most! Food was cooked in lard and it was difficult to wash with the constant pitch and roll of the boat.
The smell was concocted by the processing crew in the slaughter-house. It consisted of shark flesh, urine and faeces and was ever-present. I suffered nausea pretty much 70% of the time, but felt incredibly welcome by all on the vessel, who gave their all to assist me.
This fishery is a longline fishery that fishes off the coast of Namibia. Most people would think that it targeted swordfish and tuna, as do its neighbours, the South Africans, but here, sharks were the 'catch of the day'. Hundreds of shortfin mako and blue sharks were caught, slaughtered and frozen every day.
The only good news that came out of this trip (along with the two interviews I conducted with skippers) was that this fishery rarely catches any birds. According to them, they caught on average one every six months. However, coincidentally, I managed to come along on a trip that did catch an adult shy albatross.
Now this hardly made any sense to me. How does a typical longline fishery, using a standard longline system, not catch seabirds that I observed to be ever-present? Numbers around were not great, but one of the 30-50 albatrosses around the boat is likely to be hooked, especially since these vessels shot their lines at dusk.
I then realized that skippers rarely spend the entire day on watch, while hauling takes place. Of course there's a raucous shout when a bird is hauled up, but this is not loud enough to wake the skipper.
As I spend time reviewing images, data and thoughts, this question will be answered and I hope to have an answer for you next time. Thank you for supporting me in my work to help save the albatross.