Our first day out at sea and conditions have looked very good. Great weather,- the right water temperatures for bluefin and waters rich in bait just a few hours out of San Diego. Good signs of ocean life are everywhere- sea lions, seabirds, spinner dolphins, and fish jumping. Today we stopped on some albacore and fished through them for several hours and practiced drilling the team through tag and release operations. To tag- we have to move fish from the ocean on a line with a barbless circle hook, on to the swim step where a team (Ty and Louise) put the fish in a sling and hand it up to second team on board the vessel. We then move the fish into the surgery station where Barb Block or Kurt Schaefer places an archival tag into the tuna. To date we've tagged over 386 Pacific bluefin in the program. Today the two bluefin that were tagged were 97 and 110 cm in length- exactly what we hoped for. A smaller fish- 65 cm was loaded on board for our live bluefin collection. After todays start- we have high hopes for the next few days.