The Nansen is preparing for its next survey trip - an eight-week research voyage off  the coast of Northwest Africa.  Join us virtually as we set sail from Dakar, Senegal on 21 October 2015. Join our international crew of research scientists as we travel on four different  legs of the journey, eventually reaching our final destination of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.

We will be conducting research in the Canary Current Large Marine Ecosystem in the waters of The Gambia, Mauritania, Morocco and Senegal, and our scientific focus will be on pelagic fish. For those unfamiliar with the term, oceanic pelagic fish are those found in the pelagic zones of oceans. These fish include anchovies, sardines, swordfish, tuna and mackerel.

The data collected will allow for the monitoring of pelagic stocks in northwest Africa and strengthen the data series collected in the past.

The survey will begin in Dakar, Senegal 21 October 2015 and end in Las Palmas, Spain on 14 December 2015. Four countries are involved in this campaign: The Gambia, Mauritania, Morocco and Senegal.

Two national scientists have been nominated by each country to participate in the activities on board the vessel. The scientists are expected to take part in survey planning, oceanographic and biological sampling, scrutinizing of acoustic records and other scientific work as applicable. The participants are biologists or fishery technicians with good knowledge of the local fauna.

The international scientists onboard will include those from FAO and Norway’s Institute of Marine Research (IMR) alongside a team of scientists from Kenya, Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, Angola, Namibia, Morocco and Côte d’ivoire. We’ll be speaking t them about their research work on this blog.

We hope you’ll join us on this blog over the next weeks as we study pelagic fish the waters of Northwest Africa. Look forward to having you – virtually – on board with us when we set sail later today.