The Italian GAP2 case study, based in Chioggia conducted the second (ever) Adriatic Trawl Survey on 19th August 2013 (video here). GAP2 Scientist Saša Raicevich was onboard, and blogs about his experiences below.
What Happened
“OK, the first day of trawl survey is done! We left Chioggia harbour at 1:30am, after loading all the technical material and food for a full day at sea on board of the Drago FV.
The weather was perfect (maybe too hot) but the sea was spectacularly calm. Some dolphins visited us in the first haul we shot at 06:00 a.m.
On board – three fishermen (Daniele, the captain, and Diego and Federico) and four ISPRA scientists (me, Gianluca, Igor and Camilla, already graduated with an MSc on the GAP2 projects). We spent all day fishing, sorting fish, measuring it without any rest!
What I must say is that we really have a perfect days (despite some troubles with the net in a couple of hauls).
As always when at sea, we spoke a lot with the fishermen – chatting about life, fishing, management, food, soccer and women. But fundamental to this job, was that all the fishermen helped in all the sampling activities. By the end of the day we were a perfect sampling machine, most often the fishermen taking the measurements, and the “so called” scientists writing the notes.
The fishing day finished at 09:00 p.m. when all the fish was stored at the fish market and we went back to our institute.
A long day, a very good day.”
