My day today started at 2:45 a.m. I have to admit that the first couple of minutes of getting up were challenging but the excitement kept my eyes open. By 4 a.m. the music was blaring and everyone was at their stations.

The basic process of boxing up the fish goes as follows: We have four people to re-catch all of the fish out of their tanks bucket by bucket.



Depending on the size of the fish those people then scream down to the two box people who prepare a box with a Styrofoam container and all right sized bags for the fish. The box and bags then head to the water pourer who allocates the perfect amount of water in each bag before the fish get placed in. When the box has all of its fish it is handed over to the bagging table where two people fill up the rest of the bag with pure oxygen and seal it with a special rubber band.



Then the fish are identified and one person writes it all down, puts a number on the box, and brings it to the packers. These two people box up the Styrofoam containers and attach an appropriate label. Lastly, there is one person who records all of the boxed animals and sends an email letting the aquarists in Boston know what to expect.

We worked for several hours, the sun came up, and then we worked several more hours. At around 9 AM we were loading all of the boxes from the boat onto our rented box truck. Sherrie, Pete and I drove all 46 boxes to an airline loading dock and lifted them one more time onto a shipping pallet.



Happily, we waved goodbye to the fish and wished them luck on their 1:50 p.m. flight to Boston. The stress rolled off our shoulders as we drove back to the boat, laughing the whole way about all the funny experiences of the trip. Back at the boat we exchanged high fives, hand shakes and hugs with rest of the team. Now that the participants have left, the staff will spend the next couple of days breaking down the boat before returning home to Boston. But before all that comes a nice, long nap!

One more thing I would like to say before falling asleep for an undetermined length of time. Even though I had a thorough explanation beforehand of what to expect on this trip I had no idea what an incredible experience this would be. I suppose it is hard not to have an amazing time when you are stuck on an 80-foot boat for 10 days with fifteen adventure-loving people who are all there to support the aquarium. We were all fortunate to experience the exhilaration of catching a fish knowing that thousands of people will be able look at with wonder. Beyond that we all renewed our love and appreciation for the three-dimensional world of marine science.

If you are interested in future trips please contact Sherrie Floyd at sfloyd@neaq.org or Sarah Taylor at staylor@neaq.org.

-Megan Moore

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Labels: contact, May 2008, Megan Moore, packing, shipping, transportation

Great news! We finally got our trip fish: the spotted drum (Equetus punctatus). It was a two dive mission. On the first dive the whole group was involved in catching timid fish called copper sweepers but during that dive one of the participants noticed a spotted drum. At the time he had no nets so he took some pictures and noted the location. Slyly and perhaps wisely he kept this information secret. The only person he told was Captain Lou, who happens to be one of the best fish catchers. On the next dive it took all of three minutes for Lou to scoop the fish up and then the participant was awarded a shirt that featured our boat, the Coral Reef II.


spotted drum (from fishbase.org)

It is nearing the end of our trip and our dives are becoming more recreational as there are less fish to catch. We have a few relaxing dives left in the crystal clear 85 degree water. Then tonight we will step onto land for the first time in a week as we explore Alice Town in Bimini. As for fish collecting, Sherrie has informed us that we have almost all the fish on the list and in record time. Our fish wells are full of beautiful fishes and invertebrates that, after a little quarantine time, will be on display in our Giant Ocean Tank, Tropical Gallery, or Blue Hole Tank. To prepare them for their new home there is a lot of work to be done. By now the staff and the participants are all become one giant team that is excited to do what it takes. Stay tuned for the exhilarating madness of pack day and the fishes first flight in an airplane.

-Megan Moore

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Labels: Megan Moore, September 2008, spotted drum

This morning we woke up and Captain John informed us that instead of diving we would be seining. This requires a lot of teamwork and skill and took about 20 minutes of debriefing before we launched the small boat and traveled to the beach. We had four people designated as net pullers (being of short stature I did not make the cut), then we had one snorkeler on the backside of the net to make sure it didn't get caught on rocks (me). The rest of the group lined up on either side and splashed the water like a two-year old throwing a temper tantrum in order to scare the fish into the middle.


Expedition members from use a seine net in May, 2008.

Once the 100 foot net reached the beach the entire group grabbed the top and bottom of the net and held it like a hammock. Then we slowly rolled the end towards the middle to gather the fish in one spot. We gathered until we were all in one big group circle shouting out the names of all the diverse fish we saw. After all that work we were finally able to scoop them out into waiting buckets.

Here is a highlight of what we got:
2 flat needlefish (Ablennes hians)
20 Atlantic needlefish (Strongylura timucu)
1 Atlantic spadefish (Chaetodipterus faber)
1 porgy (Calamus sp.)
1 doctorfish (Acanthurus chirurgus)
4 bandtail puffers (Sphoeroides spengleri)

The needlefish are a beautiful long iridescent fish that are the stars of the surface of the Giant Ocean Tank. In the ocean they calmly drift and blend in with the ripples of waves but when it is feeding time they can shoot towards prey with speed. Right now they are resting in one of our large holding tanks and snack daily on store-bought shrimp.

If it weren't for the fact that our meal tonight is going to be grilled 10-oz. boneless New York sirloin strip steak with roasted onion-garlic-shallot mashed potatoes, broiled parmesan asparagus, and corn off the cob, I would be jealous of the needlefish! Well, I better be off, looks like it is dinner time!

- Megan Moore

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Labels: Megan Moore, needlefish, seine nets, September 2008, spadefish

Going on this trip has so far been fun because of the numerous dives, delicious food, and enjoyable company. In addition to all of that I found out that there is quite a process that starts with a diver splashing into 85 degree Bahamian water and ends with someone being able to look through the glass of the Giant Ocean Tank (GOT) and observe a complex and beautiful ecosystem.


An example of dinner on the Coral Reef II (taken during the May, 2008 expedition)



I should first mention a couple of reasons why the New England Aquarium chooses to catch their exhibit fish with hand held nets. The first one is that this biannual trip provides an engaging and educational vacation for the participants. In fact, five out of the eight participants on this trip are repeat participants from previous trips! Secondly, when it comes to collecting fish, this method allows us to take just the right number of fish and species that we need without harm to any other fish or the environment. Catching by hand allows us to be very specific with what we want without taking any bycatch. In addition, using nets gives the fish a fair fighting chance--in fact most of the time they win and the divers are left shouting unheard expletives into the open water.


Expedition members using hand held nets

However, if we are fortunate enough and we catch a fish with our nets we are careful to bring the fish up. We do this by clipping our catch bag to a barrel underwater and slowly bring up the barrel (5 feet every 10 minutes). This allows their swim bladders to slowly adjust and reduces stress to the fish. Once they are at the surface everyone is involved in a mad dash to place the fish in a bucket, find out the species of fish, count them all and then place them in the correct tank (of which there are about 25).

Then to take care of the fish the staff wake up, before the sun, and do a full system check. This involves observing the fish (right now there are about 200) for aggressive behavior, checking the amount of dissolved oxygen and the temperature of all of the tanks, and backwashing the system to help improve water flow. Most of the animals are fed chopped up shrimp or, if they are tiny animals, brine shrimp (otherwise known as sea monkeys). Thinking back on all of the responsibilities we have during the day to take care of these 200 fish it really makes me appreciate all the work our aquarists do back at the New England Aquarium - they have almost 30,000 animals of around 800 different species to look after! Well, it has been a full day I better get some rest so that I can do even more tomorrow.

- Megan Moore

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Labels: Megan Moore, seine nets, September 2008, vinyl nets

The fall 2008 collecting Expedition is underway!


Educator and blog author Megan Moore (left) joins NEAQ staff, including Sherrie Floyd (far right) on the September 2008 Bahamas collecting expedition.

Yesterday we made the 6-hour voyage down the river that runs though Miami and across 40 miles of ocean to the Bimini Islands. The trip was everything everyone was hoping it would be: calm. The Dramamine in our stomachs prepared us for swells and rolls but Captain John only reported waves ranging from 0-8 percent! In fact it was so calm that a pod of 6 dolphins decided to surf the waves off of our bow. An incredible sight.

The rest of the afternoon was a whirlwind of excitement. Before we had even cleared customs people were pulling out tanks, checking guages, inflating BC's and pulling up wetsuits. Our first dive was a quick get-your-feet-wet kind of a dive - no collection nets allowed. It was quite a tease to drop down 25 feet and look around at all the fish you were hoping to catch. After that first dive we were all so excited that by 5:30 p.m. we were giant-striding back in for a second dive before dinner. Every diver made sure they had two large plastic nets with mesh at the ends and a small Tupperware-like catch bag clipped to their diving vest. This time our nets carefully closed around several beautiful fish, including 3 four-eyed butterfly fish (pictured below).



When catching butterfly fish we had to first check if they were paired up or swimming stag. Butterfly fish bond for life and we do not wish to cause them any stress by separating them from their partners. In fact, you can see several happy couples in the Giant Ocean Tank at the New England Aquarium. When collecting a pair of butterflies the trick is to catch one and then place it in your catch bag. Eventually the fishy partner will come around looking for his lost mate, see it in the bag, and stick around until we catch it. Then we re-unite the two (in the catch bag). The lucky couple will then stay together in their own private tank on the boat--almost like a honeymoon suite!

Then it is the aquarium staff's responsibility to keep these fish well fed and swimming in clean water until we return to Miami. So besides the relaxing dives, beautiful sunsets and gourmet food I am also lucky to learn the skills necessary to help keep fish happy. More to come on that in my next blog.

-Megan Moore

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Labels: Butterfly fish, Megan Moore, pairs, September 2008

As I said before, it'll be quite a while until these newbie fishes join the rest of the gang in the GOT. Even when they're all cleared for parasites, there's a gradual process to placing them in the exhibit space.

It can take a while for the fishes to get used to their new homes. For example, Sherrie Floyd, one of our Aquarists and a veteran of these collecting trips, says that once the rare indigo hamlets get used to their new environment they will become very energetic. With that beautiful blue coloring, they're a real crowd pleaser in the holding tanks already (see below). But it takes a while for the Bahamian fishes to become comfortable at the Aquarium.


One of the indigo hamlets (Hypoplectrus indigo) in its storage tank

Fortunately, unlike the Bahamian grunt roundup, this acclimation process is something that visitors get to see happen! This summer you might come to the Aquarium and see orange and green barrels placed around the GOT. The barrels are used to help fishes ease into their new homes.

After a while, the divers open the acclimation barrel to see if the fish is comfortable enough to come out. If the fish isn't comfortable, the divers close up the barrel overnight. They repeat this process until the fish is swimming free in the coral reef.

This is what is going to happen for most of the 377 fishes we brought back from the Bahamas. So come on down to Central Wharf and see if you can spot the new fish in the barrels.

Here's what to look for:


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Labels: acclimation, Bud Ris, indigo hamlet, May 2008

So, how do you get 377 fishes from Miami to Boston? It's a process that our trip leaders have honed to the finest detail. Each fish is carefully packed in plastic bags filled with oxygenated water. The plastic bags are sealed and placed in styrofoam liners which fit into a larger cardboard box.

In the end, it looks like this:


Back in Boston, there's a rush of activity when the fishes arrive. Each box is carefully unpacked, and each species is labeled and placed in holding tanks:



These fishes go through a quarantine that can last over a month. During this time, the fishes are carefully screened for parasites and are receive treatment accordingly. Since that process is done in waves, it may be several months until all of the fish we collected are placed in Aquarium exhibits.

In the meantime, each fish has time to acclimate to their new home. The Aquarists aren't just looking out for them physically, they're careful not to shock each fish mentally by introducing them to tanks too fast. You can see that the parrotfish is still shy because it takes advantage of the hiding places in its tank.



Meanwhile, the schooling fish are given larger tanks to move around in. The copper sweepers that Captain Lou chased out of the dark cave in the Bahamas are looking right at home in their temporary tank:



As are the Bahamian grunts, the first fish I helped collect:




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Labels: Bud Ris, copper sweepers, grunts, May 2008, parrot fish, return, shipping

11:15 AM: Seacrest Marina, Bimini Harbor. We've spent the last two hours clearing the decks of the Coral Reef II in preparation for our seven-hour voyage back to Miami. All hands are rather quiet, as Capt. John has warned of a rough passage home with small craft warnings and 25 knots of wind dead in our face. We've been cautioned to tie down all our belongings, and you can hear the gulping of dramamine throughout the cabin.

Labels: basket stars, Bud Ris, cowfish, homecoming, May 2008, moray eel, snapping shrimp, trumpetfish, yellow stingray

Shark Day! Readers looking for a blood-curdling account of our dive with sharks this morning will need to look elsewhere. Rather, the experience was more like entering a quiet sanctuary, some fifty plus feet underneath the water's surface a few miles offshore from Bimini at a small reef called Bull Run.

After a short briefing from Captain John about the strategy for the dive, we donned our wet suits and tanks for the descent. What had taken me 15 minutes earlier in the week, was now happily down to about 5 minutes. We waited on the Coral Reef's dive platform until everyone was ready to head down together. Then we quietly descended, swimming with the current (which made for an interesting swim back). We slowly came upon the reef and then huddled down on the bottom to wait.

Within a few minutes, a solitary reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi shown at right) maybe 6 to 7 feet long came ambling by a few yards away, pretty ambivalent to our presence. With his silver gray undersides and black tipped fins, he was a pretty imposing figure. Ever feel helpless looking at something that is doing what you're doing a whole lot better? That was the feeling I had as I again checked my air, realized I had to get moving back to the surface within 10 to 15 minutes, and felt thankful that the second shark swimming overhead seemed as totally disinterested as the first.

Sharks are the top predator of the oceans. Some say they have become increasingly scarce in the Bahamas; others say a decline isn't that clear. Capt. John, who has been leading collecting trips and research expeditions in the Caribbean for more than 25 years, doesn't think there has been much change. Capt. Lou, our other skipper, actually thinks he's seen more in recent years. John has seen the Taiwanese shark-finning in the area, though, a practice that is wasteful at best, repulsive at worst. Clearly, I'll need to do some research when we get back to Boston.

[Editor's note: Until Bud gets back to do that research, here's a quick read about Bahamian shark populations and shark protection.]

There are about nine species of Requiem sharks in the Caribbean, of which the black-tipped reef shark is one. Most are not considered dangerous to humans, provided they are not provoked. Some dive boats use chum to entice the sharks into their groups of divers, a practice that neither the Aquarium nor the Captains of the Coral Reef II advocate, because arms and legs can easily get confused with chunks of fish bait and because the technique just doesn't seem very organic.

In any event, we ascended slowly against the current back to the Coral Reef II, something that was a bit more challenging than I anticipated. (Fortunately, an astute safety observer on the boat lengthened the floating safety line, which soon came rapidly drifting my way.) Other divers in the group reported seeing several more sharks while they were down. Personally, I was happy to have seen only one or two and I felt fortunate to have experienced them respectfully on their own turf!

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Labels: Bud Ris, Bull Run, May 2008, sharks

Some Secrets of the Sea

7:00 PM. Just pulled into Dollar Harbor at South Cat Cay, Bimini. Not really a "harbor" in the traditional sense, but a wonderfully tranquil stretch of turquoise-colored water bordering a narrow strip of sand. We're the only boat.

Before I get started on today's "catch," a brief word on our chef, Chef Matt, who is just now singing along with Jack Jones in the galley behind me while preparing a Bahamian specialty of yellow tail snapper heavily laden with garlic. This is his first full time job. He graduated from Johnson & Whales Culinary Institute in Miami last year and has now been on the Coral Reef II for ten months. At 21, his talent for cooking is extraordinary, as is his ability to hold his breadth while snorkelling 20-30 feet below the surface of the sea, as are his vocal chords. We are lucky to have him on board.

We spent the afternoon diving at a large wreck called the Sapona, one of Henry Ford's attempts to make something other than cars during World War I. The Sapona along with 11 other experimental ships was made of concrete. By the looks of it, he should have stuck to cars. But his efforts were not for nothing, as the Sapona provides a wonderful artificial reef for thousands of fish and invertebrates.

My wife, Margaret, and I spent most of the dive on the ocean floor watching John Dayton and Barbara Bailey (two of the Aquarium's most experienced collectors), fearlessly probing the underside of one of the concrete panels looking for a small Moray eel, called a goldentail (Gymnothorax miliaris). Wow was he elusive. He bolted back and forth, ultimately escaping altogether after about twenty minutes! The moray have an uncanny ability to burrow deep in a hole or crevice, and I had a feeling that this one had more than earned the right to stay home.

A diver feeds fish at the Aquarium, the future home of our catch today.

Speaking of uncanny "abilities, here's another one. The parrot fish (we now have a princess Scarus taeniopterus, shown top right), a stoplight (Sparisoma viride), a redband (Sparisoma aurofrenatum), and a striped (Scarus iserti) on board our burgeoning Noah's Ark. It blows a mucous bubble (sort of like a cocoon) around itself every night to mask its scent. This provides safety against nocturnal predators such as moray eels or nurse sharks. At day break the parrot breaks out of the bubble and lets it float away it (we see the remains of the mucous bubbles floating on the surface in our fish wells each morning)

Here's another: The hogfish (Lachnolaimus maximus) and many other members of the wrasse family also now in our holding tanks on the Coral Reef II have the ability to change their sex. Typically, a harem of females is led by one super male. The male is larger and visually quite different from the females. If he gets eaten or dies, the dominant female in the group morphs into a male, and takes the original super male's slot.

One last note that will make our aquarists back in Boston really happy. We collected four indigo hamlets (Hypoplectrus indigo shown at right) on one of today's dives. It's a huge find, a fish that hasn't been exhibited in Boston for quite some time. Come on down to Central wharf and see this really beautiful species!

Coming up tomorrow : Dive with the sharks!

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Labels: Bud Ris, Chef Matt, goldentail, May 2008, parrot fish

Having never been on one of these collecting trips before, I didn't
quite understand how challenging this kind of "fishing" might be or how many different techniques would be utilized. The particular fish we sought today, copper sweepers, a.k.a. glassy sweepers (shown at right), was a case in point.

The copper sweeper (Pempheris schomburgki) lives in 15 to 80 feet of water, spending much of its time hiding from predators in the dark shadows of coral caverns. It's a small fish 3 to 5 inches long that seeks safety by congregating in large schools.

So, how do you collect fish hidden in the dark depths of a coral cavern? You call on Capt. Lou, one of the two multi-talented skippers on the Coral Reef II. Aside from being a very skilled seaman, Capt. Lou is also a very accomplished collector.

At Bond's Cay, Capt. Lou led a small group of divers down to a reef in about 20 feet of water. He headed in alone about went 50 feet back into a coral cavern that seemed to be a likely home to thousands of copper sweepers. It was also a likely home for a few deadly lionfish (shown at right), an invasive species proliferating all too rapidly throughout the Bahamas. Capt. Lou's technique is to watch the schooling sweepers for a short while to see the patterns of their escape attempts, and then block them off by moving in swiftly, but gently, with his two vinyl nets. He's a 6'2" former football player and killer whale trainer. There wasn't a lot of room for the fish to escape out the narrow passageway into the cave.

Having caught five or six fish in one of the nets, Capt. Lou started handing the net out to two waiting divers, Sarah and Lewis. They held a 50-gallon black bag on the sandy bottom. With each net delivery out from the cavern, they would turn the net upside down above the black bag and hope the sweepers would bolt toward the dark depths of the bag, which is their natural response to danger.

And, voila! Five or six deliveries later, the bag was full of copper sweepers.

Now comes the hard part. Ever try swimming in 20 to 30 feet of water with a 50-gallon bag full of water? It's sort of like trying to run a marathon while carrying a water bed.

But they managed, and once they reached the boat, Capt John (our other able skipper) and I lifted the bag up into a large cooler (ever try that at age 60?). Then each fish was gently transferred into one of the many holding tanks on the boat, complete with some synthetic "habitat" to simulate their natural environment.

The final count: 37 fish are now destined for a new home in the Aquarium's dark grouper tank we call "the Blue Hole." There, millions of people will have the opportunity to see a fish that most SCUBA divers will never even knew existed.

Oh, and did I mention today's menu? Would you believe corned beef and cabbage in the Bahamas? Flavored nicely with a touch of garlic and absolutely delicious. It was just what we needed after several dives and two hours working a seine net along the beach looking for needlefish. More on Chef Matt in a future blog.

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Labels: Bud Ris, Captain Lou, copper sweepers, glassy sweepers, lionfish, May 2008

To help with today's blog I have asked Sarah Taylor (at right) to join me. Sarah is an Aquarist at NEAq in Boston and the Trip Leader for our current expedition. She is also a very experienced diver.

Bud: Sarah, why do we do these collecting trips every year?
Sarah: We do them to replenish the fishes and invertebrates in our Caribbean reef exhibits. Simply put, we are replenishing species that die off because of their natural mortality rates.

Bud: Do we need a permit to collect in the Bahamas? Are there any restrictions on what we can take?
Sarah: Yes. We work very closely with the Bahamas Ministry of Fisheries. A Bahamian official comes on board during the trip. He monitors our collecting techniques and examines our "catch." We don't take anything on the IUCN Red List - or anything that is endangered or threatened.

Bud: How is the trip going so far in terms of what we want to bring back to Boston?
Sarah: We're happily ahead of the curve! We actually have more fish on board then expected at this stage. Great!

Bud: Are we harming the reef ecosystem by pulling out these fish and invertebrates?
Sarah: We only use nets; no chemicals. We carefully avoid damaging the corals. And, we take only a very, very small number of animals relative to the size of their populations in the wild.

Bud: How will life in captivity for these animals differ from life in the wild?
Sarah: They will be very well fed and very well cared for by the staff in Boston. Generally, they live longer and grow larger than in the wild. And, of course, because any potential predators (e.g. sharks) in our tanks are well fed, their usual prey has a much better chance of surviving longer.

Bud: How does a collecting trip like this one support marine conservation efforts in the Bahamas?
Sarah: We do species and abundance surveys to help monitor the biodiversity of the reefs. We share our data with REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation), an organization that is working to protect the reefs throughout the Caribbean.

Bud: And, by exhibiting these animals in the New England Aquarium in Boston, we teach people about the importance of reef conservation.

Today's best finds:
4 Tobacco Fish (4-5 inches) Serranus tabacarius
1 Trumpet Fish (11-12 inches) Aulostomus maculatus (above right)
2-3 Yellowhead Wrasse (5 inches) Halichoeres garnoti
Several Fairy Basslets (1-2 inches) Gramma loreto

All in all, a great day down here in the Bahamas!

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Labels: Aquarium mission, Bud Ris, catching fish, conservation, May 2008, Sarah Taylor

Temp: 85
Skies: Clear
Seas: Calm
Underwater visibility: Fantastic!

After a check-in dive (to get familiar with the local waters) and a teach-in on the ins and outs of catching fish with vinyl nets on a stick (somewhat like using a butterfly net while 25 feet underwater), we headed to Three Sisters Rock just offshore from Bimini for the major event of the day. The goal: to round up several dozen French grunts (Haemulon flavolineatum) and smallmouth grunts (Haemulon chrysargyreum shown at right).

This was an unbelievable experience for a diver like me, since I was only recently certified. The basic strategy goes like this:

Four to five divers station themselves around the perimeter of a barrier net (somewhat like a seine net). Then another group of divers wielding vinyl box nets in outstretched arms attempt to herd a large--make that very large--school of grunts in the barrier net. It looks kind of like the old safari movies when the "beaters" drive the big game into the sights of the waiting hunters, except our task really is to bring 'em back alive.

Once the grunts are in place, the divers gradually encircle the fish with the net. Then, using the vinyl box nets, five to 10 fish at a time are transferred to the nearby "grunt hotel," about 10 yards away. The experts then select the desired species to share with our visitors back in Boston, while gently letting the others go.

And a good day it was. The tally for the dive: 38 French grunts and 17 small mouth grunts. And a special bonus: one spotted spiny lobster (Panulirus guttatus) and one Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) Both are clawless version of the Homarus americanus we're all used to in back home in New England.

There was another terrific treat upon returning to the boat. We discovered chef Mat had prepared crab rangoon for our afternoon snack. (From sustainable sources, of course!) Very tasty!

Captain John then fired up the engines for the 7 hour trip to the Berry Islands, 80 miles east of Bimini. We look forward to a great day tomorrow, and we'll keep you posted on the "catch."

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Labels: Bimini, Bud Ris, catching fish, grunts, May 2008, seine nets, spiny lobster, Three Sisters Rock, vinyl nets

This is very exciting for me. I'm heading out on my first diving
expedition with the Aquarium.

My wife Margaret and I took the long road to getting certified for SCUBA last year. We started the certification course at the Newton YMCA in Massachusetts. We did our first open water dives in the Red Sea at a place called Dahab on the edge of the Sinai Desert in Egypt. Then we did our open water dive training in Bermuda, where we got a chance to visit several wrecks on the ring of reefs that surround the island. Finally we took our first dive in the Aquarium's Giant Ocean Tank. So, after traveling all those miles to be trained, I feel ready for Bimini.

Earlier this week we shipped off all of our equipment to Miami and loaded the large coolers that will be used to bring live specimens back to Boston. We headed out at 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning, right after the Aquarium's annual gala, the Blue Planet Ball. Stay tuned for my first report. Hopefully I will have time to take off my tux from the night before.


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Labels: Bud Ris, Diving, May 2008, Training