Since Bronwyn won the backgammon tournament against Captain John, I'm giving her the night off and guest blogging for her.

So, did you figure out what Jeremy was doing in that small, boxy, net like thing? That would be the brilliant idea of my fellow Tufts grad, Chris Doller, a Senior Aquarist at the Aquarium.

Each collecting trip we spend one morning seining. Seining? Let me explain. We went out to a location called South Cat Cay with a net approximately 100 feet long by 10 feet wide. Using excellent team work (involving pullers, beaters, and Bronwyn, the only person willing to volunteer to be snorkler to look for snags), we did two seine pulls to collect some of the key species we were looking for on this trip--needlefish and barracuda. (Which was the bonus of being the snorkler, since Bronwyn was the first to see the two barracuda we caught, one of which we released).



So where did that pen come in? This invention was a place for us to keep the fish while we were waiting to transport them back to the boat. While we did note that we probably could have saved ourselves a bunch of construction time by simply buying a playpen, Chris's invention did allow us to provide a safe and healthy environment for the fish prior to transport back to the boat, rather than putting them immediately into coolers. And we were quite lucky to catch an enormous number of needlefish, a barracuda, and grunts. Any other fish that we caught that we were not interested in, we released back into the ocean side and they were free to go.



After we returned from seining, we ate a delicious lunch (we could dedicate an entire blog to the delicious food that Matt has been preparing for us) and headed in for our afternoon dives.

On each trip, Sherrie selects a trip fish--this time, the black durgon. On the first dive of the afternoon, we caught our first one. Of course, there is a little competition over whose was the first--Sherrie and Captain Lou caught two, and Chris and Jeremy got one. We're not entirely sure who caught it first, although Chris and Jeremy got theirs to the barrel first--so you decide.



Ever wonder how we care for the fish on the boat? We're hoping tomorrow to show you how the barracuda eat.

Labels: barracuda, black durgon, Deb, May 2009, needlefish, seine nets, South Cat Cay

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