INTRODUCTION

This report contains the preliminary results from cruise no 3 of the R/V “Dr. Fridtjof Nansen” to the North Arabian Sea. This cruise was the second complete coverage of the survey area.

	Narrative
Departure:	Mombasa, 16 August 1975
Arrival:	Karachi, 24 November 1975
Ports of call:	Mogadiscio 23-25 August, Djibouty 12-15 September, Aden 25-28 September, Dubai 22-26 October, Bandar Abbas 27-28 October, Karachi 10-13 November.
Scientific staff:	O. Alvheim, S. Brattås, F.M. Ismail (From 23 August to 23 October), H. Jakupsstovu, R. Nzioka (From 16 August to 23 October), N.H.A. Rehman (From 23 August to 23 October), R. Sætre, B. Ullebust.

The south-west monsoon still persisted along the Somali coast during the end of August and the beginning of September, with winds reaching force 8-9. This prevented fishing operation to a certain degree. During the rest of the survey the weather conditions were excellent.

The vessel and gear of the R/V “Dr. Fridtjof Nansen” have been described previously in the report from cruises no 1 and 2. Scientific instruments and methods were the same as those used during cruises 1 and 2, except for the plankton samples taken in the Gulf of Oman and off the Pakistani coast where due to loss of the 60 cm diameter Bongo net, the last plankton stations were sampled by a 20 cm diameter Bongo net.

During 14-15 November an intercalibration of the acoustic equipment was carried out with the Japanese research vessel “Shoyo-Maru”. The ships courses and positions of fishing and hydrographic stations are shown in Fig. 1 A-E.