"le then headed for Tarawa in the British-controlled Gilbert Is., 

 proceeding esst-northeast across the Equator. The wind blew from the 

 northeast with forces of 2 and 3, and the cloud cover was 10, but there 

 was no difficulty in navigating. Observations ipsde about 20 miles west 

 of Tarawa showed that both the wind find the current ",'ere east-northeast, 

 in other words, we were heading into a one and one-hslf knot current and 

 a wind of force 2. There v/as a great deal of microscopic life in the 

 water. It is further worthy of note that the sea water temperature was 

 slightly higher than the air temperature. This sort of phenomenon has 

 been met with m.any times before and it is thought to occur quite fre- 

 quently at morning and evening at many positions in the far southern 

 latitudes. 



"Je were going to put in to Tarawa and let the crew go ashore, but 

 we received a radio message from the Compsny in Tokyo ordering us to 

 cancel these plans and return to Japan. '7e therefore returned directly 

 to Jaluit. During the more than 36 hours v/hich this run required the 

 v;ind blew continuously from the starboard beam, but the wind force was 

 generally low and it did not cause us miuch trouble. 



A point which must be recorded is that during the period described 

 above we were unfortunately unable to operate by moonlight. 



Fishing Conditions 



Our principal catch was expected to consist of various species of 

 tuna and as gear for taking these fish we carried 250 baskets of long- 

 lines. A great deal of fishing gear of other types v;as also m.ade ready 

 so that we would be fully prepared to carry out fishing operations, but 

 all that we actually used were longlines, trolling lines, and auxiliary 

 fishing gear. 



The species taken were yellowfin, which were most numeroiis in the 

 catch, big-eyed tuna, spearfish, flat-headed shgrks / Scoliodon sp_^7 

 skipjack, and dolphin, "'ot even one cybiid was taken on the trip. In 

 my past experience I have seen many sharks taken on longlines and have 

 also seen rn^^ny of the tun-is taken on such lines damaged by shark-bite, 

 but on this voyage we had only two or three shark-bitten fish. I think 

 that more sharks could have been taken by harpooning them from the deck 

 as- they swam alongside the ship. It may be, however, that few sharks 

 m.igr&te into these waters at this time of the year. 



Skipjack were taken at all stations on the trolling lines and a few 

 were caught on the longlines, but in general they did not seem to surface 

 like the schools in the northern hemisphere. Schools were seen on the 

 surface only two or three times. However, ar, noted above, skipjack 

 were taken at all positions in quantities sufficient for our galley, 

 and consequently they are thought to occur in these waters to some degree, 

 but nothing at all is known of their migratory pattern. Som.e of the skip- 

 jack which were taken had their bellies swollen and differed slightly 

 from those which I have seen in the past, 'ifhen we cut them open we fotmd 

 that some of them had eaten tY.o or three very small skipjack. 



