Wednesday, May 13, 2009

#12: Packing Fish All.... Night.... Long....

We pulled an all-nighter last night. Haven't done that since college. The fish had a flight at 7 am this morning, so we started packing them at 11 pm last night and worked straight through until they got dropped off at the airport. The packing of fish was a well oiled machine and everyone was working non-stop.

Susan and Lionel were setting up boxes. Terry was filling bags with water


Chris, Scott and I were catching (or should I say re-catching) the fish from their tanks.



Jeremy was putting fish into the correct sized bags



Sean was running bagged fish over to get sealed off




Sherrie and Captain Lou were adding pure oxygen to the bags and sealing them off

Deb was marking the Styrofoam boxes with the kind of fish packed in them. Don and Russ were cross referencing what fish had been packed with our collecting log. Captain John was stacking the Styrofoam boxes into cardboard boxes and sealing them up.

We finished packing all but four of the fish in about 4 hours. Of course the last four were the biggest fish we had, and the most challenging to pack up.

Remember those two white spotted file fish I was so excited about? And how one of them got close enough that I could see it's teeth? Well those teeth were great at biting through the bag, and it drains the water out. The problem was finally solved by drilling holes in a bucket and submerging it in a bag with water ... after trying a few other things that didn't work. That was another one from yours truly, the Tufts alumni Chris Doller.


The cowfish (above) and the barracuda are big, and can also bite through their bags, but layering cardboard between the layers of bags seemed to work for them.

All the boxes of fish made it safely to the Aquarium and will be in quarantine for at least 6 weeks to watch for any parasites that we wouldn't want to spread to our exhibit. After that you may start to see some of the more obvious fish go on exhibit ... the file fish, the barracuda, the cowfish. But be on the lookout for some of the more under appreciated animals, like the beautiful sponges, feather dusters and tunicates.

The participants on this trip have gone home. For staff the rest of the trip is mostly cleaning the boat and packing away all our gear.

I'm going through a bit of withdrawal from scuba diving and all the participants I've lived with for the past 11 days, so I'm going to ease myself off it a bit by posting some more short stories and great pictures from the trip that haven't made the blog yet over the next few days. So I'm not done yet, keep checking back.

-Bronwyn

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posted by NEAQ at 7:18 PM 1 Comments



Friday, May 8, 2009

#8: "They're SO beautiful!"

We swam with dolphins today.


Photo credit: Lionel Galway

Now, no disrespect to all the other amazing fish and corals and other reef animals we've had the privilege to see (I have a shout out to some awesome fish below) but I'd sound like a bumbling idiot if I tried to explain how amazing it was to be so close to them. But I'll try anyway ...

They were curious, swimming under and around us, and when they were bored with us, which was long before we would have been bored with them, they just took off.

You could hear all the clicking sounds they make to communicate with each other. Maybe they were commenting on how incredibly clumsy we were in the water. I felt like such an awkward doofous next to them.


Photo credit: Lionel Galway

Sherrie was beside herself, and is now enduring the jokes we've been making about her technique of holding her hands behind her back to "look more like them." We can joke all we want, but the dolphins did come the closest to Sherrie.


Photo credit: Lionel Galway

Before anyone gets alarmed by our swim with the dolphins I would like to make a few short statements:

1. We were not looking for dolphins. We noticed them playing on the wake behind our boat, so we stopped and jumped off the back of the boat.

2. We were not chasing the dolphins. Not even Michael Phelps can chase these animals down. You cannot chase a dolphin in a mask, snorkel and fins. Compared to dolphins, we stink at swimming.

3. If they were feeling threatened by us, they would have been long gone before I even had my face down in the water.

4. These are the kinds of experiences that make anyone appreciate these animals more, and want to protect them and their environment.

And that shout out to the fish ... We now have two white spotted file fish. Don and Russ caught the male with the color blocking first, but since these fish bond with their mate we had to catch the female in order to be able to keep them. On our second dive we found the female. Here they are together:



I know it seems odd that we were able to catch them both, but on two separate dives. How do we know we got the right one?

These fish don't travel far within the reef, and we didn't see any other of these species in the area we were. So it was a good find, and lucky that we caught the female on the second dive. If we hadn't we would have had to put the male back. When I was taking this picture the male was being very shy at first, but then kept getting closer and closer to my legs. When it got close enough for me to see his teeth I decided I had enough pictures. I don't know if he was going to bite me, but I think I'd bite me if I were a fish, especially if I was defending my territory and my mate.

I know Deb said something in an earlier blog about a possible Barracuda feeding. What Deb and I are now learning is that the Barracuda are picky eaters, and can go weeks without food. Sooooo ... we'll keep you posted on that. Tomorrow we're planning a night dive so I may not get around to a post. I needed to say that mostly so that my mother doesn't start worrying about my safety when she sees I haven't posted anything for the day.

-Bronwyn

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posted by NEAQ at 11:18 PM 2 Comments



Monday, May 4, 2009

#3: Bring on the Fish

We left port around 9am this morning and cruised down the Miami river, taking in the views and passing under AT LEAST 8 drawbridges.



Six hours later, after some Dramamine induced napping, we arrived in Alice Town on Bimini. Notice the difference in water color from the Miami river?





Along the way I was awake just long enough to see some flying fish. Those things are amazing! The fish was out of the water long enough for me to say "Whoa, there's a flying fish! Wait no, it must be a bird. Chris, is that a fish? Whoa, really? They can glide that far?" Yup, they can. It was awesome. And then the Dramamine hit me and I passed out.

After clearing customs in Alice Town we took off to Rainbow Reef for the checkout dive, so everyone could test out their equipment. And then ... Our first collecting dive! It was pretty successful and we now have a trumpet fish, banded and foureye butterfly fish, harlequin bass, orange spotted file fish and some sharp nose puffers. Not bad!



The fish you see in the buckets went right into the large holding tanks. But now I have to get up at 6:30 to begin caring for our new charges, so I'm gonna call it a night and go dream of flying fish. Oh, one last thing worth mentioning ... dinner was amazing. Tuna steaks ... on the grill. If that strikes you as odd, check out the aquarium sustainable seafood to learn more about how we support making wise seafood choices.

Many people in the world rely on fish as their primary source of protein, so we just need to be smart about what kind of fish we eat and how it's harvested. The part about dinner that struck me as odd was the grill. Really? A grill on a boat? Yup, and it was great.



-Bronwyn

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posted by NEAQ at 11:05 PM 2 Comments