2 Narrative

The vessels itinerary was as follows:

Departure Abidjan	: 11 October
Survey Ghana	: 12-16 October
Survey Ivory Coast	: 17-20 October
Call Abidjan	: 20 October

Figure 1 shows the course tracks and fishing stations worked. The survey started on the border between Ghana and Togo and the shelf areas were covered westwards along Ghana and Ivory Coast.

Along the Ghanean coast, especially near Accra-Tema and Takoradi, a fishery with drifting gillnets was extensive at nighttime. Surveying and trawling in these areas was impossible at night and had to be executed in daytime, while the outer part of the shelf was covered at night. Sardinella is generally difficult to catch in pelagic trawl, especially large specimen during daytime. Because the inner part of the shelf where sardinella was present, was inaccessible at night, this probably resulted in small catches and a biased length frequency.

Ivory Coast was surveyed by a grid of zig-zag transects, with a more dense coverage in the west between Sassandra and the Liberian border. Except for some shrimp trawlers few fishing vessels were observed off Ivory Coast.