This summer is whizzing by, we are already on week 3 of our busy programme of family activities here in the Clore Discovery Centre. This week we have been making beautiful fish kites to promote the diversity in our seas and oceans. We've been finding out more about sustainable fishing and thinking more about the choices we can make when we buy fish to eat. Some great work has been produced and here are some examples.

We have a great team of volunteers helping us with these activities, the last picture shows some of them hard at work helping to prepare materials for our workshop.

For more information on sustainable fishing go to www.msc.org and for information on volunteering go to www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/takepart

After waiting for 36 hours we finally left port and headed north to the Barents Sea. The sea is incredibly calm ^[1] and now we are here it is also a strange shade of pale blue, not at all what I expected. All the time we are accompanied by fulmars, sitting in the water on our lee side ^[2] .

We have started at the northerly end of our transect around 72.5°N. At each station we carry out a video survey of the area using a trifid like camera array called the CAMPOD ^[3] . It is seen here being brought back into the hangar after its trip just above the sea bed. Inside the control room ^[4] the operators log all biological and geological features visible on the video displays. Sitting on the right Gjertrude controls the camera while Geno enters data into the log, behind on the computer is Valerie, one of the geologists, who notes the sediment types and out of sight but to the left is the winch-man who makes sure the array does not crash into the sea floor! The sea bed is rather featureless here, an expanse of mud with few animals visible. Too much of this mud was about to appear on deck.

One of the sampling gears is a 3m Beam Trawl, designed to skim over the surface of the sea floor catching the larger "megafauna" including fish. As you can see from the discoloured sea, swollen net and mud on deck it acted more like a dredge than a trawl ^{[5, 6]} . The 'mud-larks' (Torjuis, Gjertrude & Anne Helene) get stuck in and are soon satisfied with their work ^[7] . Cruise leader Lys accounts that none is missing and Geno contemplates having to sort the animals from the mud ^[8] .

I quite like mud. It usually results in bivalves and I was not disappointed. The large Arctic cockle ^[9] is the most obvious but most common were, sorry for Latin names, Bathyarca glacialis ^[10] and Astarte sulcata ^[11] . Among the other ten, I got two of the species I had come for, over fifty specimens of Mendicula and twenty of Thyasira. You can look at my web site if you want to see more http://naturalhistory.museumwales.ac.uk/britishbivalves/. Perhaps the most appealing are these cushion stars ^[12] while the sponge is positively weird ^[13] . The cushion stars are apparently the favoured food of the king crab ^[14] . The giant was introduced into the region from the north Pacific by Russian fishermen who hoped to make their fortunes but it is turning into an environmental disaster as these voracious predators destroy everything in their advance down the coast of Norway.

This happens on research cruises, some vital piece of gear is not working and as usual it has something to do with electronics on the remote camera array CAMPOD. So we are still in Tromsø! ^[1]

Talking of small cogs ^[2] in big wheels there was also a problem with one of the winches yesterday, but that is sorted.

A reminder that my ship ^[3] the "GO Sars" was named after the very famous Norwegian marine biologist who specialised in crustacean and molluscs, his books are still used to this day and are in the Museum's zoology library.

Also in Tromsø are two other research ships the older Norwegian "Hakon Moseby" ^[4] named after a Norwegian oceanographer and meteorologist and the massive German "Maria S Merian" ^[5] . This ship was named after Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) a naturalist and illustrator ^{[6 & 7]} . See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sybilla_Merian for an account of this gifted lady pioneer who went to Surinam.

The sun is still shining in Tromsø and we have been informed that we sail around 01.00hrs.

Its now 07.30, breakfast time and we are leaving a cloudy Norway behind [8]. If you want to see where we are minute by minute you can see our position on the marinetraffic website

We should be at our first sampling station in 22hrs.

Tromsø University Museum ^[1] was established in the 1870s, it covers both regional natural history and culture. Small zoology and geology galleries explore northern Norway including an artificial aurora borealis machine (terella) ^[2]. Zoology is represented by a series of dioramas with a rather familiar sea-bird cliff ^[3]. There is content on human influences on nature including a view of what the local landscape (including flamingos and parakeets) might look like following climate change ^[4].

Geology has more content, not surprising with the rugged exposed landscapes up here. I thought the section on building stones was well done with a montage of polished stones ^[5] and a display of local slates ^[6]. They are very proud of their 10 metre ichthyosaur from Svalbard. No photo here as the reflection in the glass protection is impossible to resolve. Curator Elsebeth Thomsen tells me that the whole gallery will be refurbished soon with walk-over glass for the ichthyosaur.

Much more challenging was 'Metopa' in the Polarmuseet ^[7]. This exhibition ^[8] shows the research work of one of my sea-going colleagues Anne Helene Tanberg seen here on the left at the opening ^[9]. Metopa is the Latin name of the genus of amphipods that Anne Helene has been studying for a number of years now. The most familiar of the amphipods are the sandhoppers we find on our beaches but Metopa are small cold-water species. In this 28 panel show we are introduced to the morphology, classification and ecology of amphipods and how Anne Helene collects and studies them. For you museologists out there this is a challenging project as the content may not be seen as being for family audience. But Anne Helene has had positive feedback from visitors and school groups including kindergarten. The panels are attractive with excellent photographs of living amphipods ^[10] as well as reproductions ^[11] from the classic work of 1894 by the Norwegian Georg Ossian Sars, to whom the research ship has been dedicated. I have included some images of the texts ^{[12, 13, 14]}, so you can debate among yourselves on the style and content. The panels are supported by a case filled with part of her collection and an epibenthic sledge ^[15] used to collect amphipods from the ocean floor. Anne Helene has also had workshop days when she has worked in the gallery ^[16].

Would this work in Cardiff? I don't know. Here people live much closer to nature, most children will have spent some time messing on the shore and the sea is an intimate part of most peoples' lives.

It hasn't been our busiest week in terms of numbers but I can't blame our visitors for wanting to make the most of the lovely weather. Not being as frantic as we often are has meant that families have been able to spend a long time engaging with some lovely handling objects and learnt a lot about Bronze Age design. I have been tweeting pictures of people's creations every day, but here are two photos from the week.

Tomorrow we change activities to look at and make our own Bronze Age shields.

Also I wanted to mention a very exciting family treasure hunt we are running throughout the museum during the school holidays. Cardiff Bay Rotary Club have kindly donated some book tokens as prizes. Come and see us for more information.

Have a nice weekend