Winter scenes, New Brunswick, December

A white Christmas in New Brunswick

When I first started working as an offshore Marine Mammal Observer (MMO) I knew it was very likely I would spend many Holiday seasons away from Canada. In fact, 2009 was my first year working as an MMO and I did spend Christmas offshore on a seismic vessel (see post on my first Christmas offshore). It was wonderful though because the crew decorated the galley and the cooks made a Christmas feast although, for some reason, it definitely catered to a carnivore's taste and consisted of turkey, ham, roast beef, suckling pig, ribs, salmon, crab, prawns and potatoes (I don't recall their being other vegetables?)! That's right! The only thing a non-meat eater had to  choose from at this Christmas dinner were mashed potatoes! I enjoyed the day though which was made extra magical and Christmas-ey when one of the other MMOs surprised me and the other MMO with a stocking stuffed full of treats hung on our cabin doors :) 

Luckily, the way the rotations landed on the Egypt contract this winter (see previous and following posts) I was able to come back to Canada and spend the holidays with my family in New Brunswick. This would be my first Christmas in Eastern Canada and my first white Christmas in ages. 

So why did I end up spending Christmas in New Brunswick instead of Vancouver Island? When I completed my undergraduate degree in 2004 I ended up working and studying in various places until 2008. During this time I worked at the Center For Whale Research on San Juan Island, WA, with the Coastal Ecosystem Research Foundation (CERF) on the central BC coast and San Ignacio Lagoon, Mexico, with Global Vision International (GVI) in Kenya and then studied my masters course in Marine Mammal Science at St Andrews, Scotland. Until I completed my masters nearly all of my immediate family were on Vancouver Island but within a couple years of me returning to Victoria my parents and then my brother and grandparents moved to eastern Canada where the family had a fair sized piece of property that needed attention i.e. somebody tending to it once in a while!

Vancouver Island, on the very southwest coast of Canada
New Brunswick is in red 

Although I couldn't really complain having been away for so long myself, I was sad most of my immediate family now lived on the other side of the country. The full trip from Victoria to New Brunswick takes more time than it does to fly from Vancouver to London! With all the connections and the fact that the distance from Victoria to New Brunswick is 5353 km (this trip would take a full 2.5 days to drive) they journey by plane is one very full day. Of course, I was willing to make the trip to spend Christmas with family this year and was certainly glad I did!

Following are some photos from this lovely WHITE Christmas!! Something we don't really get on Vancouver Island...although we nearly missed out in New Brunswick too as the snow arrived later than expected this year!

Yoko, my parent's (and sister's) sweet Shiba Inu

Scenes around the Village of Gagetown (not CFB Gagetown!), New Brunswick

Doctor's Hill B and B - lovely, lovely home!

Beautiful but c-c-c-cold!

The Village of Gagetown is a busy place this time of year!

Gas dock - in hibernation mode, onshore, in the winter

Taking some time out :)

Visiting my parents' friends' farm where they bred fine quality Percheron horses

This big guy, Chicago, was the prize winning stallion. A big, beautiful horse indeed!

Absolutely loved this photo...so New Brunswick! Randy, the breeder, and my grandfather sitting under all the 'trophies'

MMO rotation, offshore Egypt, November/December

MMO job on Ramform Valiant in the offshore Mediterranean waters of Egypt

In early November, after spending nearly a week in Valletta, Malta (see previous post) the vessel left port to travel to Egypt and begin the job I would be working as an MMO on. The transit took about 4 days and then, when we arrived at the site, it took the seismic crew roughly another week to get all the gear deployed. These ships tow hydrophone cables, which can be many kilometers long, and take many days to deploy. The crew must slowly let out the cable from large reels on the ship and it is important to have control of them (there can be up to 14 or more!) so they do not do not entangle...very expensive and time consuming if this mistake is made! 

'Expensive spaghetti' 

What happens if you're not careful! streamer cable entanglement :(

Source

The hydrophone cables are used to record the sounds, created by air-gun arrays also towed behind the ship, that are reflected from the seafloor. Using powerful onboard computers and then further processing onshore they can obtain a 3D image of the seafloor and find the geological structures likely to contain oil and gas deposits or whatever geological features they are interested in. The majority of the time seismic surveys are used for offshore oil and gas exploration but there are occasions when air-gun seismic operations are also used for research on earthquake activity (see post from one of my previous MMO jobs) and understanding unique habitats such as the magmatic structure under underwater deep sea hot thermal vent communities (and another post when I worked as an MMO on one of these surveys).

Typical layout for a 3D seismic survey: 

The objects towed directly behind the vessel are the air-guns while further behind are the hydrophone cables

  

Movement of sound from the air-guns towed behind the vessel 
You can see the direction the sound waves move from the air-guns, through the seafloor and back to the hydrophone receivers where the signal travels back to the ships onboard computer processing system

 

The eastern Mediterranean Sea, known as the Levant Sea, is an area not known to be especially rich in marine mammal activity; this is mostly due to the fact that the Levant Sea has the lowest levels of biological productivity in the Mediterranean (due to poor mixing, high salinity, low oxygen levels in addition to pressures from human activities). Another important consideration, and part of the reason why I was interested in working in this poorly studied region, is that there has been little research conducted in the offshore waters of Egypt. There is one marine mammal research organization, called IMMRAC, which is conducting studies on the marine mammals off coastal Israel. They have done a lot of great work in the coastal waters of Israel contributing to the small body of knowledge on marine mammals in the Levant. Additionally, IMMRAC was the organization to have the first observation of a gray whale in the Mediterranean Sea (and in waters outside of the Pacific Ocean!) since the Atlantic Gray whale was extirpated during whaling in the 1700s) in 2010. Here is a popular media article about this exciting and fascinating sighting.  

Map showing the Levant Sea at the eastern end of the Mediterranean

One marine mammal observer (MMO) was on the vessel throughout this survey; I was on the first five weeks and last month. Even though there were no requirements for us to be present during seismic surveys offshore of Egypt the client chose to have an MMO as a 'best practice' approach and an important part of their HSE (Health, Safety, Environment) policy. Mitigation rules vary depending on the location and requirements of each country. During the survey my role was to look for marine mammals and sea turtles and inform the crew and report on the use of the agreed on mitigation guidelines, in this case the UK's JNCC Guidelines. We would be implementing measures such as a a full 60 minute pre-shooting watch (before the air-guns were turned on), a delay to starting the guns if marine mammals or sea turtles were withing 500 m of the guns, and utilising a 'soft-start' (building the noise level gradually) before starting full production. I also spent as many hours as possible observing for marine mammals and sea turtles during all daylight hours. 

Unfortunately, and as was suspected, I did not have many marine mammal or turtle sightings during my first rotation offshore Egypt. I did have some fun sightings of birds  during the transit and the rotation including many entertaing observations of sparrows, an unidentified hawk and unidentified falcon, a great horned owl and some greater flamingoes. I also had three sightings of dolphins but I was unable them to identify to species level due to their behaviour and distance from the vessel (as you will see in the single photo in this post!). 

In addition to these sightings we also had two sharks attack the gear within the first 24 hours of  deployment! The first attack was relatively benign causing a little damage to one of the 'birds' (used to control the depth movement of the cables) but the second attack resulted in one of the cables being sliced completely in half with the rear end floating away and the chase vessel had to be sent to retrieve it! 

Following are photos taken during transit and my first rotation on this survey:

Some very entertaining Spanish sparrows (Passer hispaniolenses transcapicus)

They were around the vessel for a few days and a great source of entertainment while I was on my visual watches!

Unidentified  hawk sp.?

'Levitating' Spanish sparrown :)

Beautiful sunset

My office

Following three photos: helicopter bringing Egyptian immigration officials

Warbler spp.

Sad but true...this is the only photo of dolphins I got! 

Perfect conditions but not perfect distance and behaviour

My office at sunset :)

Long-eared owl (Asio otus)

More fun(ny) sparrow (house sparrow?) pictures 
Apparently house and Spanish sparrows commonly hybridize making it difficult to confidently ID them, especially during the winter season when their markings are not as distinct

This one was trying to stay on the rail everytime the ship would roll  resulting in the long neck stretch in the following picture - very entertaining to watch!

 And then they discovered the ashtray and proceeded to stick their heads in and try to pull out cigarette butts!

The ABs hard at work painting and making the ship look great!

The moon

An unidentified falcon 
possibly a Peregrine falcon? (Falco peregrinus)

Still can't get sick of the offshore sunsets!

And I saw the 'green flash' when I took these photos

More sparrow shots
Who would've thought they would make such great subjects!

Two of the seismic crew, obviously good friends, enjoying the sunset :)

A not-so-great photo of some greater flamingoes (Phoenicopterus roseus) flying past the ship 

Just prior to the end of the rotation we tried to get into port for our crew change but sandstorms meant we had to wait offshore Port Said for a couple days. The Suez Canal had been closed for a few days so there was a bit of a wait for ship's wanting to get through the canal and into port. Here's the story of the sand storms as reported by BBC.

Finally, we were given a berth in port so headed to shore in Port Said where we did our crew change and went home for Christmas and New Years!