Off the deep end

The WP3 team started day 1 of their 14 day research cruise. This part of the KELPEX project will look at the movement and influence of kelp on deep-sea communities.

We boarded the UiT’s R/V Johan Ruud in Tromsø and headed out to Malangen. Our first goal: verify that kelp is actually present in our 400 m deep 'kelp area'. After some trial and error getting the Yo Yo camera up and running, we finally were able to take a look at the deepest part of the fjord.

Although they had been trawling in the area for years, this was the first time anyone on board had seen the bottom of the fjord. After four hours of work we finally got to see the camera images. We were a bit too excited to see kelp at 400 m depth!