The End

Our voyage of exploration has come to an end.  Last night we had our last supper, a traditional dinner of bright red Danish sausages.  To be honest the food was generally pretty decent, not just hotdog-style stuff.  We then took it upon ourselves to finish all the remaining beers, a tough job, but somebody had to do it.

The Last Supper

In a muted ceremony, myself and Joanne (UK scientist) recevied official recognition for our maiden trips up north.  King Neptune's representative above the water (first mate Olaf) bestowed the Order Of The Polar Circle on us, for whom this was the first time crossing north into the polar Arctic.

It's Official!

I shall hang the certificate in my office.

It has been a good couple of weeks at sea.  Dissappointing not to have seen any herring, but then we did spot the odd blue whiting and were spoilt for choice with redfish and lumpsuckers.  And little squid.  Basically those formed the contents of the last trawl we did a few days ago:

Final Catch: Lumpsuckers, Redfish and Squid

We fried up some of the squid straight away.  Still cool and fresh from the ocean, a bit of a rinse, then onto a hot pan with garlic and butter. Delicious, and very tender.  The eyeballs stick in your teeth a bit, but you can remove them easily enough.

Squid: Delicious

As Hirtshals got into sight we gathered on the top deck for a final team photo. The weather was cloudy, but the sea was calm, a good break from the constant side-to-side rocking of the last 3 days.

Arriving At Hirtshals

The Scientific Team

Parallel Parking

After the captain efficiently pulled the boat in to it berth at Hirtshals harbour, I set foot again on dry land.  After two weeks on a boat, walking in a permanent semi-drunk stagger, it felt good to be on solid land.  

So for now I bid you farewell.  This blog ends here, but no doubt some time in the future I will return to the blogosphere when I feel I have another story to tell.  If this is your first time reading, probably best to begin at the start, or the end in blog order.

Dave On The Norwegian Sea

Dave And The Dana

The star of the show didn't show up unfortunately.  Though from previous post you can gather that this is not as big of a disaster as it may sound.  So I leave you all with a final picture, of the only herring I saw this trip.  Let that be a lesson to the rest of them!

Herring: Pickled

FIN