I’m telling you about my first at-sea experience as ATF Instructor on a freshie trawler (the catch is stored fresh on ice) departing from Mar del Plata in October 2009. During the first trip, about 5 days of work, I understood how to apply the at-sea protocol in my new job. I was very nervous before because I had to go up to “espardel”, the place where the crew leave nets, which is about 7 metres high and it made me dizzy! Fortunately I could get past this to get the work done.
The vessel was good; my cabin was big and I had a comfortable trip. The crew were 20 strong, and some were interested in the conservation of seabirds. Two sailors helped me with my work and they also contributed good ideas during the trip.
I have recently started with the ATF and my last trip before this position was in October 2008 so I suffered the consequences, being sick for the first three days! I couldn’t eat, but after these initial days, I got my sea-legs back.
I observed the interactions with the trawl warp cables, but the main problem I found on this vessel was the interaction with the net sonda cable. This cable relays information from gadgets on the net back to the bridge, and drags in the water 50 metres or so behind the vessel. Because they are so far aft of the vessel, they can cause real problems for large albatrosses. They are relatively rare in the Argentine fleet but as most of the interactions that I recorded were with this cable it could be very relevant.
However, on this trip the fish discard was very low, so there was little interaction with seabirds overall. In these trips, we were operating in “El Rincón” an important fishing area that is located off Bahía San Blas in Buenos Aires province.
The experience was very satisfactory for me. I really enjoy my work and I could appreciate that there are many things to be done as we move forward. It was a starting point for my work with the ATF.