View of the back deck of NOAA Ship Henry B Bigelow
Posted on by Melina Vella

Melina Vella: Southern Stations – Hot or Not? September 20, 2026

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Melina Vella

Aboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow

September 10 – 30, 2026

Mission: Northeast Fisheries Science Center Bottom Trawl Survey – Leg 1

Geographic Area of Cruise: Northeast Atlantic U.S. Coast

Date: September 20, 2026

Weather Data from the Bridge

Latitude: 34º48.0551’N 

Longitude: 075º48.6160’W

Air Temperature: 25.5ºC (77.9ºF)

Science and Technology Log

It’s human nature to want to celebrate a big milestone. There’s a reason we look forward to birthdays and holidays. Studies show that it’s good for the brain to have checkpoints to mark our accomplishments. The big landmark (is it still a landmark if we’re at sea?) we’ve all been counting down to has finally arrived: the southernmost stations!

A closeup of a monitor showing the Coastal Explorer navigating system. The ship’s current location is represented by the lime green ship icon. Each set of blue circles represents a sampling location.
A closeup of a monitor showing the Coastal Explorer navigating system. The ship’s current location is represented by the lime green ship icon. Each set of blue circles represents a sampling location. These seven stations shown are the furthest south of the entire mission!

As you may recall, the range of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center Bottom Trawl Survey spans from Maine down to North Carolina. The past few days everyone onboard has been abuzz with excitement about the potential for some unique critters as we continue heading south. The novelty for me still hasn’t worn off—every item we bring up is equally thrilling—but the idea of even more rare species is enticing.

map of the east coast of the United States from Maine to North Carolina, with yellow coloring filling in the continental shelf offshore of the coast. the shelf is widest east of Boston, and narrower down near North Carolina.
A very basic map I made to visualize the general area covered by the survey using the publicly available polygon layer (NOAA NEFSC).

As we head towards the equator, we’re also heading towards much warmer water. The sea surface temperature on the first day of our trip was a chilly 20.9ºC (69.62ºF). In contrast, the sea surface temperature measured 29.2ºC (84.6ºF) on the day we reached the southernmost stations. That difference of about 10ºC (15ºF) has the potential to make a huge difference.

view of sunrise from the flying bridge of NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow. we see a man in a baseball cap standing at a railing, looking toward the sunrise, in silhouette.
You can’t beat the view of a sunrise from the flying bridge. It’s the perfect mid-watch pick-me-up after being in the lab in the middle of the night.

About a week into the mission, everyone’s settled into their sleeping and meal routines. We’re a well-oiled but exhausted machine. 

It’s around midnight on the 17th and we’ve just switched shifts. A few members of the day watch have already retreated to their rooms after a long day while others are lingering to fill us in on the day’s trawls. From what I can tell, it was a day with just a couple of stations, but a lot of time spent in the wet lab.

Extended time in the lab can mean a couple different things:

  1. Giant tows with an overwhelming quantity of biomass. See my last blog post, featuring the Great 3000 Pound Scallop Tow, for instance. It simply takes a long time to process the sheer number of organisms.
  2. Back to back stations that are close together. The first few days our distances between stations (steams) were very long, sometimes hours apart. In contrast, some stations are only a few nautical miles from one another.
  3. Smaller tows but with high biodiversity. In other words, even if there are fewer fish overall, there may be lots of different individual species. Each of them will be sorted as precisely as possible, and the extra minutes it takes to tell them apart adds up quickly.
view over the aft deck from an upper deck, down at a sorting table containing some fish. two crewmembers wearing hard hats, life vests, and gloves stand at the sorting table and look up and smile for the camera. another crewmember similarly dressed walks along the deck, heading out of frame.
Joey Dunphy, Mei Lin McLaughlin, and Ben Tuttle around the checker pen (where the net deposits the haul of fish for processing) working on the back deck.

The watch leader of day shift, Jenn, said that there was a very high amount of diversity on their shift. They pulled up some unique juvenile fish alongside a large sea sponge which caused some major excitement.

view down over the aft deck from an upper deck as perhaps 12 crewmembers wearing hard hats (many with gloves) lean over bins to examine the catch
I was able to observe the day watch team from an upper deck, giving me a bird’s eye view. They’re all working diligently to examine every tiny nook and cranny of the sponge for any animals!

We’re hoping that the night shift will be filled with just as much excitement. The door to the acoustics lab bangs open and the night watch survey technician comes in announcing with fanfare, “Almost to the southernmost station!” He and an experienced sea-going science team member are chattering away about what we might catch. We’re all throwing out things we desperately hope to see (on my end, the biggest shark one could possibly catch), and ones that we would rather not deal with (anything too venomous or bitey).

There’s an equal amount of skepticism and optimism. Another science team member, Joey Dunphy, calls the southernmost station “the most overhyped station.” He says that “sometimes it delivers, but other years it falls flat.” 

So what was the verdict this year?

I know this is my first rodeo—but I’d say that it delivered above and beyond. From the tiniest of crabs to cornetfish a few feet long, there was something for everybody. Here are some of the highlights:

Disclaimer: not all of these photos are from the southernmost station, but they were all caught off the coast of North Carolina, the most southern state of the whole survey so I’m including them here anyway…

Melina, wearing large orange overalls and blue gloves, holds up an inflated porcupinefish (looks like a pufferfish) for a photo near the side rail of NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow. We can see other crewmembers beyond.
Here I am holding a Porcupinefish (Diodon). They’re related to other inflating fishes like pufferfishes in the order Tetraodontiformes.
Image Credit: Kate Bemis
In the wet lab, a NOAA Corps officer smiles as he takes a photo with his phone of a butterflyfish that an out-of-frame science team member is holding out in a gloved hand.
The excitement was contagious! People from all over the ship showed up to celebrate and see the critters! A science team member is displaying a Spotfin Butterflyfish (Chaetodon ocellatus) to a NOAA Corps officer.
view of two preserved butterflyfish of different species, pinned on styrofoam (like collections of true butterflies) to extend the fins for comparison.
One of the ways that specimens are preserved is by pinning them. The photo above is of a Spotted Butterflyfish and Reef Butterflyfish (Chaetodon sedentarius).
Image Credit: Daniel DiMichele of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
close-up photo of a round spiky fish (a striped burrfish, inflated) in a gloved hand
An inflated Striped Burrfish (Chilomycterus schoepfi).
Image Credit: Science Team Volunteer Mei Lin McLaughlin
a close up of a small spiky fish (a striped burrfish, NOT inflated) lying on wet sand surrounded by bubbles
I’ve only ever seen preserved or recently washed ashore Striped Burrfish in Delaware. The one above was found on Slaughter Beach, Delaware in August 2025 during a nature center beachcombing program.
a stargazer on a metal surface next to a printed ID tag that reads Cruise ID 202604, Station 136, Kathetostoma albigutta (lancer stargazer), Date: 2026-09-17, John Galbraith.
Stargazers, of the Uranoscopidae family, have eyes on the top of their heads looking up. This particular fish is a Lancer Stargazer (Kathetosoma albigutta). Someone told me that stargazers are considered the holiest fish because they are gazing up at the sky towards the heavens and the gods.
close-up view of a cowfish grasped between gloved fingers in front of a sorting table
The bold colors and intricate pattern of the Honeycomb Cowfish (Acanthostracion polygonius) were jaw-dropping.
Image Credit: NOAA Fisheries Biologist Joey Dunphy
even closer view of the face of a cowfish showing the protrusions above the fish's eyes
The protruding “horns” like cattle above their eyes are the reason behind the common name “cowfish.”
Image Credit: NOAA Fisheries Biologist Joey Dunphy
five crabs piled on a fish measuring board next to an empty blue glove
This photo doesn’t do justice to the gorgeous shimmering pearly legs of the Iridescent Swimming Crab (Achelous gibbesii).
a gloved hand holds up a slipper lobster for a photo
This is one of the most unique crustaceans I’ve ever seen–a Slipper Lobster! Of the family Scyllaridae, these are not true lobsters.

Personal Log

I could not have asked for a better day than the one we had at the southernmost stations. Not only on the science front—we caught dozens of unexpected specimens—but personally as well. The atmosphere of the ship was phenomenal. The weather and sea conditions also cooperated nicely.

Mentally and physically taking a step back (quite literally as I took the photos below), I was filled with awe at the scope of the entire mission. There are forty or so people onboard and dozens more back on land coordinating with the ship. Even more scientists will be awaiting the data and samples we’re collecting. Thousands of individuals over the more than sixty years have been part of these operations.

five science team members in orange overalls crowd together on the side deck of NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow - only one is looking at the camera
Night watch couldn’t contain their joy! While only featuring a few of us, this was the closest we got to a team photo… It can be hard to remember to snap group pics when we’re elbows deep in flopping fish.
crewmembers in orange overalls, wearing blue gloves, hold up fish on the side deck of the ship
James Hilton (left) looks at some especially fun fish from the southernmost tow. Daniel DiMichele (middle) holds a Cowfish (Ostraciidae family) and Hannah Palladino holds a Porcupinefish (Diodon).

I don’t like to get too sappy or sentimental, but I was especially overcome with gratitude thinking about the fact that I get to be one of those individuals. We all have different academic and career backgrounds, but we’re all on this shared journey in the middle of the ocean. The human element of it all doesn’t necessarily show up in the final government reports, but it certainly is carried in the memories of everyone onboard.

Did you know…

That flying fish, of the Exocoetidae family, can leap out of the water at speeds of more than 35 miles an hour?

a preserved flying fish pinned with fins spreads on styrofoam
This particular fish actually flew its way onto the deck of the ship before being preserved, pinned, and photographed.
a preserved flying fish in a tank where it will be photographed. beyond the tank, Melina works to hang up a gray curtain to create a solid background.
I was able to help out the team with capturing images of the specimen. Here I am switching out the colored backgrounds. Each color helps different features of the fish stand out clearly.
Image Credit: Kate Bemis

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