ABOARD THE DAVID STARR JORDAN, still in dock at San Diego. Hi, and welcome to the blog of my expedition!

We had a busy day!

The northeast side of San Clemente Island -- where we caught 4 makos, 5 blue sharks and one stingray today -- is one of 7 areas that we've been trying to survey 4 times each summer since 1994.

We transferred our captive open-ocean (AKA pelagic) stingray (minus his stinger that we pulled off to prevent injury) to the USC Marine Institute on Catalina Island today, and then remained in the

Near Anacapa Island, the sea was rich with birds, bait balls, sea lions and common dolphins today. The fishing was much better here than near Catalina Island yesterday.

Today we caught another very large mako. This one was a mature male. We were able to put both a SPOT and PAT tag on him.

We finished off the survey today with quite a finale! Today's catch was made up of only blue sharks. Lots of blue sharks!

Suzy Kohin from the NOAA Shark Survey. Today was a short day. I am writing to you from my home.

Russ Vetter from Leg II NOAA SHARK CRUISE. Well, here we are locked and loaded for Leg II of the Shark Cruise. We have some new personnel and some old hands from Leg I.

Russ Vetter, Leg II SHARK CRUISE. My, my, it’s 4:30 in the morning on Friday the 13th. I wonder what luck we will have today?

Russ Vetter, Leg II SHARK CRUISE. Our third day of fishing on Leg II and all of the shark team, both veterans and new volunteers, are starting to fall into a routine.

Russ Vetter from Leg II, SHARK CRUISE. Today is the day we plan to deliver the open-ocean (pelagic) stingrays in our holding tanks to a researcher at the Wrigley Marine Sc

Russ Vetter, Leg II SHARK CRUISE. Today, we are off the south side of the northern Channel Islands -- the four northern islands plus tiny Santa Barbara Island form the Cha

Russ Vetter, Leg II SHARK CRUISE. Today we're working a block due west of Los Angeles.

Russ Vetter, Leg II SHARK CRUISE. Today we are headed for the dock. Yesterday was mostly routine except for high winds.

Russ Vetter, Leg II SHARK CRUISE. Here we are on Leg III. It's sad to see some crew leave, but great to see new faces and many old friends from shark cruises past.

Russ Vetter, from Leg III SHARK CRUISE. Fishing is a noble activity, both for recreation and as a livelihood, but facts are facts and lost fishing gear can cause problems

Russ Vetter, Leg III SHARK CRUISE. Fishing has been slow inshore so we decided to change our luck.

Russ Vetter, Leg III SHARK CRUISE. It is a big ocean and mako and blue sharks live in a big neighborhood.

Russ Vetter, Leg III SHARK CRUISE. Tanner Bank has been good to us, producing a variety of sharks and reasonably high catch rates.

Russ Vetter, Leg III SHARK CRUISE. Sharks are tough animals and nothing about the gear that is used to catch and study them can be small or delicate.

Russ Vetter, Leg III SHARK CRUISE. The surface waters of the open ocean are referred to as the “pelagic zone”, and it is hard for people who have never been out at sea

Russ Vetter, Leg III SHARK CRUISE. Although humans are supposed to be rational, humans decide who lives and who dies based on the curious calculus of cuddly.

"Great Whites are a bunch of punks," he said, spitting chum as he spoke. "Ever since that movie by that Steven Spielberg fellow, they all swim around like their fins don't stink. We all have notochords of cartilage, you know. Not just the big bad Great White." Those fightin' words were uttered by Quint, a macho mako shark who hangs out off Long Island.

"I have been in the water (no cage) many times with makos, and they generally make very bold and fast approaches to the photographer," notes nature photographer Richard Herrmann. "This one was no different."

The NMFS team just completed its annual juvenile shark survey in the Southern California Bight. This area is an important nursery ground for blue, mako, white and thresher sharks, all of which are caught in local fisheries. Blue and mako sharks are the two species most commonly caught during this survey although we do occasionally catch mola mola, pelagic rays and thresher sharks as well. Through the survey we collect a range of biological and fisheries data and also deploy satellite tags in collaboration with the TOPP program.