A four member team of scientists wearing hardhats and orange life vests drag the Mocness aboard the research vessel Hugh R. Sharp, floating quietly off the shore of Lewes on a recent Thursday. The black, seemingly twisted mess of nets and tubes of the Mocness sprawls onto the deck of the University of Delaware's newest ship as the crane brings it on board. Under the light of the full moon and two large halogen lamps, the scientists go to work removing cylinders from the bottom of the tentacle-like nets and spraying it down with water. The Mocness is the key tool in the blue crab research these scientist are conducting. But unlike the mythical Loch Ness Monster, these scientists know everything about the Moncness. They know where it was swimming in the ocean, what the temperatures of the waters were and even what the Mocness ate. The Mocness, or multiple opening and closing net and environment sensing system, is a specialized device designed to
take samples from the water using a series of nets that can be deployed ndividually under water, capturing different water samples from different depths as the net is systematically brought up from the ocean's floor, said Elizabeth North, assistant professor for the University of Maryland Center for Environmental science.
North and her team were among nine researchers aboard the ship last week conducting research on blue crab megalopae, the last larva stage of a crab before it becomes a juvenile crab."We are trying to understand what the younger stages are doing and where they are going and why they are going there," said Jamie
Pierson, a research scientist for the University of Maryland."This helps with understanding and managing fisheries a little bit better. How many adult crabs that are going to be out there that are going to be available for harvest and that are going to be available to spawn to produce the next generation," Pierson said.
With this research, the scientist hope to be able to ensure the future of the blue crabs by making sure a healthy population exists and that they are not over-fished, Pierson added.The work is systematic and repetitive, with two teams of scientists working around the clock performing, over and over again, the same
sequence. The Mocness is lowered into the water at a spot pre-selected by the scientists. Back in the control room monitors surround the team displaying information about everything conceivable, from the boat's speed and position to the water's depth, salinity and temperature, and how many feet, meters and fathoms the Mocness is under the water. As they troll, the scientists monitor the Mocness' position and control its ascent from the bottom, collecting samples along the way.The two teams have worked this way for a week on a voyage that started in Delaware, went down to the Chesapeake Bay and came back. But this is only the beginning of the research. After all the samples are collected, they will be taken back to a lab, where the researchers will spend months counting how many blue crab megalopae are in the each sample from the different depths, North said.But for now, nearing 4 a.m. on the second to last day of the voyage, the team is past tired. Having consumed large quantities of soda, ice cream and a few bags of microwavable popcorn in order to stay awake and alert for the 12-hour shift, the scientists are beyond the giddy jokes that rolled around the room at 1 a.m. and the last net tow seems to take longer than all the rest, Pierson comments while watching the computer monitors."I am just waiting for the engines to kick into going-home speed, and you'll know it when they do," Pierson said.

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