Arriving on Monhegan Island

Today I caught the 9:30 ferry out of Port Clyde for Monhegan Island, ME. Here as in the fall, I’ll be conducting the spring iteration of a baseline survey examining lobster catch and population dynamics in the Monhegan Island Lobster Conservation Area.

The ferry ride out was calm with water flatter than a summer day on Lake Sebago but we are in for some wind tonight and tomorrow. It sounds like we’ll be getting the traps set on Wednesday after tomorrow’s gale. Before then I still have a lot of preparation to do.

After sending out sampling locations to the captains I am working with I will also send out a schedule. Then I’ll make a backup Rite in the Rain copy of all the sampling locations for myself in case their are technical difficulties accessing the document once on the water. Finally, all of the HOBO temperature loggers (36 MX-2203 sensors) need to be assigned to a study site, prepared for deployment, reconfigured, and started. To keep things simple, I will use the study sites from last survey session. To prep them for traps zip ties are inserted through the holes on each monitor’s jacket as shown below. Reconfiguration for a new deployment is easy using the HOBO mobile app. Once they’re configured, I just press the rubber HOBO button to the body of the sensor and it begins logging.

HOBO temperature logger ready to be attached to the inside of a lobster trap.

It doesn’t seem like too much but I have another 5 hours of pre-survey work cut out, good thing I have this gale!