The last post

In the end, the balance was for 55 samples from Portimão, adding up to 92 in total for this year. It was a marginal increase realtively to last year, but it has a sour taste of disappointament. Not that we didn't do all we could, but the exact opposite. Fieldseason 2009 finishes with the grimm feeling that we did all that we possibly could, but that it was still not enough. Now it's back to the lab to try and turn those little pieces of skin and blubber into science! As for now, I'll leave you here with some pictures of this year fieldseason.

"Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; the ocean is not silent. But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of the ocean."

"That's it!!!"

After the last successful day in Portimão, we already had more samples from there than from the rest of the coast. The forecast was good, which meant we could relax a bit now. That meant we could stay in port to do a few stuff that got consistently left behind, such as doing the laundry. It was also the day to change the crew. That day, Eva, Diana and Joana left, giving way to Diana's sister, Cláudia, her friend Marília, and Mariana, a friend of Margarida. Given that the day before we had reached a round number in samples, I decided to offer a pint of Guinness to. It was one of the very few opportunities we had to truly relax.

This picture is going to show up in facebook anyway, so I might as well put it here first!!!!

The next day was off to the sea again though, and we had the same weather as before. Absolutely no wind, flat sea, great visibility, and dolphins... loads of them. It was like that until the end! It was so easy that we could afford the luxury of choosing which ones we wanted to sample. It was only made difficult by the extreme heat. It was so hot that I was dripping sweat just by standing on the side of the boat aiming. It was near to unbearable! Still samples were increasing, we were cataloguing the animals we saw carefully, and it finnally looked like a proper research fieldwork. It almost made me forget how difficult it had been for the rest of the season. One day, Daniel and his girlfriend Tania came to spend the day with us (Daniel is the only other Portuguese in the biology department in Durham), and at some point everyone went for a swim to be able to cope with the heat.

Cláudia Canas

Mariana

Dolphins...

Lots of dolphins!

On that day I got an unexpected gift from Diana and Eva. It had a special taste as that would be one of the last days of fieldwork, and we finished it by making a small tribute to one of the greatest sailors that ever crossed the oceans.

"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea."

Until finnally, the wind came. It was just me Margarida and my father, and we found dolphins really close to Portimão. We took 3 samples, but then they decided to join the Audi Medcup Regatta, and we had to back off. Also the wind quickly picked up, and it was obvious Nortada was here once again, at least for a couple of days. As we were coming back to port, we still found another group,but with the strong winds it was the all too familiar "too difficult". Thus, fieldseason 2009 finished as it started, with no hype, no celebrations, just the constant effort of getting as many samples as possible, despite the difficult conditions. As we moored in Portimão the GPS that was turned on for the entire project marked 6776 miles.

The final stretch!

Sagres was looking good, but we shouldn't keep our hopes high. Joana Fernandes joined us to complete the crew. Joana is a biology student at University of Porto, and contacted me last year. Unfortunately, I had no space then, and so we arranged for her to have a space this year. We did get more samples from Sagres, but only at the end of one good day. Dolphins were either not cooperative, or the wind was just too strong where we were trying to sample. The forecast was also grimm, as Nortada would be settling in strong. One highlight though was a day when we saw a mother-calf pair of porpoises, and were able to get close enough to take some nice pictures.

Joana Fernandes

Porpoises off Sagres

Also, after a few days in Sagres, we were running low on fuel, water and supplies. One day we went out but found the wind was just to strong to work, and it was obvious our time in Sagres was over. As such, around 1200 we put sail up and raced torwards Portimão. However, and just like before, we arrived at Portimão with absolutely no wind. I'm always amazed at how different the weather patterns change in just 20 miles off the coast of Algarve!

The next day we had what was probably the most amazing day of this fieldseason. We found dolphins off Portimão soon after leaving. The weather was brilliant, and we spent the entire day in the company of dolphins. We were able to collect all the kind of information we wanted, and also collected a very good number of samples. We also witnessed a large variety behaviours in what almos looked like a class in dolphin social behavior. The heat was also almost unbearable, and the crew collected water from the sea to try and cool off several times! It was also the day in which the on board camera reached, and passed, the 2 million pictures mark!

With the extreme heat, and the long hours of work, exhaustion quickly sets in.

This leaves in our last stretch of fieldseason. Coming back to Portimão after being around the whole coast makes it feel like we are coming back home. The forecast is good, and it looks like we will have a quite end of fieldseason. After 6600 miles, it is a welcome change in routine!

Shutling between Sagres and Portimão

When the North wind reaches the shores of Portugal, after several thousand miles unimpeded by land, it faces several miles of cliffs being forced over them... or around! That's what happens in the southwesternmost tip of Europe, where the land does a sudden complete 90º turn, forcing the north wind to suddenlly compress around cape St. Vincent. That's why Sagres is usually so windy, and a winsurfing haven. What most people don't know, is that just 5 miles off Mareta bay (between cape St. vincent and Ponta de Sagres) it's always worse! Unfortunately, that's also where dolphins hang around. We did try to sample, and did get some samples here and there, but it was just too hard. Laura and Heather left shortly after arriving to Sagres, and were replaced by Mário and Pedro Silva, a masters student and CIBIO, doing genetic research on iberian wolves.

Pedro indicating the direction where dolphins are going

Unfortunatelly, the forecast was for even stronger winds for the next week, only calming down after that. At the same time, we could see that just 20 miles to the East, in Portimão, the weather was quite fair. The decision was easy, we had to move to Portimão otherwise we would only stay in port hearing the wind wisthling in the mast. As such, one day, after trying to get some samples and seeing it was hopeless, we set sail and headed to Portimão. We arriving with absolutely no wind! It was looking good for some successfull sampling in Portimão. However, we had still another chalenge in Portimão. This is the area of the Portuguese mainland where the most dolphin-watching companies operate. Unfortunately they have a strategy of, once a group of dolphins is found, they communicate their position to each other, and never leave the group until another boat is there... this all day long. So the first day in Portimão, me Mário and Pedro had a nice dolphin-watching-watching, as we waited in vain to get a breach to do anything. It happened at lunch time, but then dolphins were too sick of boats to care about us, so we did the reasonable and left. We did find another group, but it was late, and the conditions were already harder. We did get some samples though, and we weren't that pressured to be worried.

One of the many dolphin-watching boats we saw that day

Shearwaters, a common companion of dolphins

The next day though, we had it brilliant. We moved somewhere far from the salphin-watching boats, and got enough samples to reach 30.We were delighted. It seemed that the weather and the dolphins were finnally cooperating, and we could have some nice working days.

Photo credit: Mário Mota

Pedro and Mário eventually left, and were replaced by Margarida, Eva and Diana (these girls just can't stay away from this boat!). The forecast for the next week was for no wind, and it started looking as a good chance to do Sagres. As such, one morning we left at dawn and moved to Sagres. Our idea was to get early to Sagres and still try and sample something.

Our plan went better than expected. We found a group but it was just racing through the ocean and paid us no attention. After several hours seeing nothing but wind and waves, I spot a group at the distance. It was far, but worse the try. However, getting clos seemed near to impossible, and everyone else in the boat thought I was seeing things. Just as I was about to give up, the change behaviour and I notice whey were getting closer and closer. Some of them were even discretely approaching the boat, studying if it was worth a visit. Eventually they thought it was and got closer. Little by little, our samples increased. We circled around the same area following the dolphins until we reached the 30 samples. We were all quite pleased, and the outlook was now much better for these two southern locations.

The crew relaxes after a successful day!

However Sagres should never be underestimated, and as we would see, it was not going to be that easy. It seemed we took one of the few opportunities we would have to complete Sagres.

Fast pace in Sines

We had no time to loose in Sines. There was still Sagres and Portimão to do, time was running short, and the weather we could now be quite sure it wouldn't cooperate. It was also Tom's first day out. Ironically, we saw dolphins just outside Sines port entrance. When when I say this, I mean 50 m out of the entrance!!! I couldn't believe it. However, and as I have learned so many times in this project, having dolphins and sampling them is a different matter. They were extremely fast and it was obivous they had somewhere to be urgently. This together with increasing wind, made it really dificult. Eventually it became to strong to continue, and we headed back to port. This weather pattern would follow us all the way to Sagres. Fair weather in the morning, with the wind increasing so much during the afternoon, that it was impossible to continue. We still got two samples. Next day I took Neftalí to Pessegueiro Island and he stayed there the whole morning sampling reptiles. And then, again, the wind picked up and it was back in port for us.

Tom wearing his sofisticated system developed during the trip to avoid scalp sunburn!!!

Next day Laura and Heather arrived. Laura did her PhD in the same lab as I'm doing mine, and then proceeded to work as a pos-doc there. Heather is working as a techincian in the lab as well, in the same project as Tom, woth genetics of deep-sea fish. They came in the best time! In one day we saw a nice group of Bottlenose. Unfortunately, the rifle decided to stop working again! I was furious. Even more so that, when we arrived in port and I prepared to disassemble the rifle (yet again) it was fine! I have no idea what went wrong! Luckily, the next day we found a nice group of commons and got 8 samples, and we passed the 30 for Sines before the wind picked up. It was a brilliant day!

The next day Tom left and the rest of us went to Sagres. We had a quite day motorsailing, until we crossed the cape S.Vincent. There the wind picked up consistently until it reached 35 knots. Has we approached our destination with the wind wistling in the mast and the waves splashing over the bow straight in our faces, I turned to Heather and Laura and said: "Welcome to Sagres"!!!

Lightning visit to Peniche.

Our last days in Figueira were very frustrating. After everyone left, me and Karis and two difficult days. Bad weather stoped us from doing much on one of them, and on the second I realized the rifle problem wasn't still quite sorted. I was told the manufacturer that the problem lied in on of the seals, and they sent some spares. Unfortunately, these didn't seem to be working that much. In addition to that, I got seasick. It was the first time this year it happened, and in relatively calm conditions. This meant I had to take some time to recover from it before I could try and fix the rifle. I eventually did, but the dolphins were gone. In the end, no samples was the out come. The next day, Pedro Neves came on board with his girlfriend, Cátia, and Neftalí joined us later on. Margarida also came for a few days, but stayed in Port more than out in the sea and saw few dolphins. I our last attempt at getting more samples from Figueira, we saw some porpoises but no dolphins. It was unfortunate, as the weather was perfect for sampling.

Porpoises off Figueira. Yes, that's how close we were able to get!

The last crew of Figueira all wearing a funny hat. Margarida's idea (who else?!)!

Karis and Margarida left, and the rest of us went down to Peniche, but not before staying in port with very rough weather and pouring rain. I started wondering if it was really summer we were in and not winter. This meant that when we went down to Peniche the sea was still a bit rough, and seasickness was the norm on board. Fortunately not me!!! Pedro and Cátia left the same day. So the plan for Peniche was simple. Given we alreadyhad 30 samples from there, me and Neftali would go out the same day and get what we could, Zé would join is in that same day, and then it was down to Sines taking advantage of the Nortada that was forecast. It all went according to plan, excpet the fact that we couldn't sample any dolphins in Peniche. We did see them, but uncooperative behaviour and a dodgy rifle set the pace. Yeta nother disapointment. The sailing however, was brilliant. Down to Oeiras we had a brilliant sailing day. We hoisted sail outside of Peniche, and dropped them in front of Oeiras. Everything went smoothly. To Sines it was only motoring until Espichel, but after that the wind picked up and off we go. Spinnaker up, course set to Sines, and at 1800 we were mooring in Sines. Tom arrived that day, and we all went for the famous Sines lasagna. We all agreed that it keeps its reputation for yet another year!!!!

Figueira and the North wind

Nortada had come to stay, and although me and Mário did get out, we had little hope of getting anything. We were forced to stay in port longer than we would have hoped. One day, the same couple that had changed impressions about the sailing conditions early on, gave me a book about the Golde Globe race, the first round the world race, and the first time someone sailed around the world single-handed, nonstop (the book is called "A Voyage for Madmen") and I read it in two afternoons that we were forced to stay in port! We did find dolphins, but the difficult weather conditions and a leaking rifle meant no samples. I contacted the manufacter of the rifle, and was told the problem lied in one of the seals. They were sending some, but until then I tried to make a few from some pieces of rubber I had available. At some point I thought I fixed it, only to find out I hadn't in front of a pod of dolphins. It was frustrating, but at least the dolphins were where we expected them to be. Not so bad. Mário left, and was replaced by Eva and Cristina, two biology students whe heard about the project from Margarida. They arrived just in time for the good weather.

Eva

Cristina

On the first day we did see some dolphins, but they never allowed us to approach. This was typical behaviour of dolphins in Figueira, and I was expecting it. The next day though, we found a nice group. However, using the pole is far more difficult than using the rifle, and we got only 2 samples. It was clear that stocking up on gas canisters was the way to go! Cristina was replaced by Diana (another student from Aveiro), and Karis and Ben joined us again this year. After two days with no dolphins, and one forced to stay in port due to the big waves (we faced two that were well in their 5 meters!) we finnally had a great day. We got 10 samples, and again reached the magic 30. The pressure was off as for now. Unfortunately, Nortada came back and we were forced to stop. Yesterday, the wind inside the marina reached 30 knots, meaning outside it was building up to gale force!

Diana

Karis

Ben

Dolphins

Eva and Diana eventually left (they were reluctant to do so, but I explained they needed to get a life of their own!) and so did Ben. We are staying here for a few more days after which we move to Peniche. We won't stay there for long, and will then move to Sines, the last difficult location. After that is Sagres and Portimão, where we expect much easier conditions, both weatherwise and dolphinwise. Let's hope this remains true!