Roger That

There's something that i've seriously overlooked in my shark lab description thus far...I fucking love radios.

There is simply no better way to bring out my inner G.I. Joe than to give me a walkie talkie and let me say "ten four", "roger that", "no copy", and "red team go".  I mean shit, with the last job i had the person on the other line usually told me they wanted their pizza crust crispy or their salad dressing tossed; now I'm told to relay GPS coordinates and record our current sector...hell yes.

I think this is going to be a pretty short post for several reasons.  First, tonight is happy hour/karaoke night at the bar and usually the only other night we go out other than our days off.  I sang Ramblin' Man (and yes mom I'm being serious) but only after several Kaliks (Bahamian beer).

Walsh, I know you said you wanted more details but tonight i'm tired/drunk and this is all i've got.  It's O.K, though since you still have a bunch of time at Bucknell...oh wait, you graduate soon.

T-squad standing by

Map of Bimini

Matt pointed out that I've been talking about places around Bimini but haven't added a map or anything.  So, here's a map of Bimini courtesy of the lab table top which I took a picture of.  The shark lab is located on South Bimini just to the left of the little cove on the south side.  We do the majority of our work in the north sound, which is the teardrop shaped area at the tip of the two sides to north bimini.  Bimini Bay Resort is currently clear-cutting the mangroves that line the western shore of the North Sound, causing serious habitat loss for the many species that rely on the north sound as nursery grounds. We go spear fishing mostly off the north or west coast of south bimini and set the longlines in the shallow banks a little ways off Bimini's eastern coast.  

Thats about as much of a geography lesson that i've got in me at the moment.  From now on, if i refer to some place you're unfamiliar with just check this map (it should enlarge if you click on it).

The Superbowl, a day off, and Gill-netting

It's been a couple days since the last post so I apologize to anyone actually following this (mom and dad you don't count).  This whole wake up at 8 am, spend 7 hours on a boat, and then stay up till midnight routine isn't exactly on par with my normal sleep schedule, and i say "sleep schedule" because there definitely used to be more sleep involved than scheduled activities.  Nonetheless, I'm starting to understand that whole "carpe diem" thing and can acknowledge that I am now hopelessly addicted to coffee (currently drinking my 4th cup today at 8 PM).

Despite the unfortunate absence of the Giants, I enjoyed the Superbowl and think the Saints deserved to win.  Don't get me wrong I like the Colts, but once the possibility of a Bret Favre Superbowl meltdown/sob-fest disappeared I was rooting for the Saints.  The beach club bar here was a good time, especially because they screwed up and never charged me for my prime rib sandwich.

Elena and Steph were drunk by kickoff and, for some unknown reason, were given whistles and rattles.  As a result, today the two of them were having difficulty catching much of anything besides themselves.  Luckily, monday was a day off and I spent the post-hangover day spear fishing around South Bimini.

Today we went gill-netting in the North Sound with the hope of catching several juvenile lemon sharks to perform stomach eversions on.  The gill nets we use are about 175 yards long and 5 feet deep.  We tied one end to the mangroves and stretched the net westward into the sound.  Over the next five hours we managed to catch six sharks and decided to perform eversions on the three least stressed sharks.  For an eversion, a shark is placed in a tub containing a general anesthetic until it goes to sleep.  Once asleep, the shark is held slightly upside-down while forceps are used to gently pull its stomach out its mouth.  The contents of the stomach are later analyzed to determine the sharks diet.  The shark is then held upright while the stomach is gently replaced.  Finally, a bilge pump is used to force water across the sharks gills until it regains consciousness and is able to swim freely again.

Essentially, the whole process is similar to getting wisdom teeth pulled; you pass out peacefully, someone does some really invasive work on you, and when you regain consciousness you're loopy as fuck and have no idea what the hell just happened.






  

Martha Stewart ain't got shit on me

Today I played housewife.

Everyday one lucky volunteer is "on duty" and does not go out into the field.  Instead, starting with the breakfast dishes, that person does essentially every chore around the lab that no one else wants to do.  Highlights include bleaching the toilet, refilling condiments, endless dishes, and, if you're lucky, feeding the duck when it comes by.  Today was my second time on duty, however, last time I went to help refill the gas tanks and got away with not doing half the shit on the list.  Even still i can't complain, the three girls who i would've been working with had a pretty miserable day measuring shark pen mesh and repairing gill nets.  Actually, in hindsight, the whole situation was pretty funny/ironic; I was inside doing dishes and folding laundry while the girls were outside doing manual labor.

After an early dinner i went for my second 5k run in three days and then went and had a few beers at the Beach Club.  We're working through sunday and then having our day off on monday so that we (me) can celebrate (drink heavily) while watching the Superbowl.  Now that a Favre vs. Manning showdown is no longer in the cards, I'm just hoping to see a good game.  Hopefully the weather on monday is good and we can either go baiting to try and swim with hammerheads or go spearfishing again off South Bimini.

Just saw that Tiger Woods has completed and checked out of sex addict rehab, but still can't get over the fact that such a program exists.

Just another day at the...Oh wait, I don't work in an office

You know you've got a good gig going when your work day consists of trolling for barracuda to use as shark bait.  Needless to say, today was a pretty epic day. The reasoning behind this "work day" was because in the next week or so we are likely going to be doing another shark dive and long line survey, both of which require a large amount of fresh bait.

Jim drove one of the 16-foot Pro Lines around the reefs and cays off South Bimini as Amanda, Steph, and I took turns trolling.  In the beginning there was no action and I began to wonder if today was going to be one of those days that give the sport the name "fishing" and not "catching".  Sure enough though, after about twenty minutes, Steph got a huge hit on her line.  It was pretty funny to watch a rather unsuspecting girl battle a massive barracuda but, after a good fight, she landed the first fish of the day.  Then, ten minutes later it was my turn.

I've done a decent bit of fishing sporadically over the years but it's been mostly freshwater fishing and shouldn't really be described as overly productive.  Nonetheless, when that first barracuda hit my line I remembered how much fun it is to fight a big fish, especially one that strong.  I managed to land the first one (bigger one on the right), but then lost a second one right when it got to the boat and Jim was getting ready with the net.  I got a glimpse of it and she looked big, but then again they always do.  About an hour later i got the second one on a different lure.  Damn that was fun.

When we finally reeled in the lines and headed back to the lab for lunch we had caught five barracuda and one houndfish, making the day a definite success.  Then, after lunch, we packed up a boat and headed up to the North Sound with Emily and built a new tagging/holding pen for juvenile lemon sharks we plan to catch next week.  Back at the lab, Jim returned from a walk tonight with a 3 foot Bimini Boa and tomorrow we're going to feed it the two rats we've caught in our sheds.

On a final note; Mim, I know you're watching over me and, although i couldn't be there today, your family gave you a wonderful funeral and we all will miss you deeply.

Lab tour

I figured it was probably time to give a tour of the lab and show you what exactly it's like down here.  As i said before, the lab is located on South Bimini and, at the moment, the fourteen people living here probably account for 1/5 of all people on the island.

The lab (right) is small but comfortably functional with five small dorm rooms, a kitchen/dining room, two bathrooms, and a science lab/gear room.  There's also a nice deck that you can see in the picture.  Four sheds are located outside the lab and they hold most of the larger equipment such as large gill nets, long lines, and fish seines.

We wake up every morning at 8 am to eat breakfast, although i usually don't stumble in till about 8:15 or so; no real surprise there. After breakfast most of the volunteers usually go back to bed for a bit until the staff finish the morning meeting, at which point there's a short briefing where we're split into teams for the day and assigned various tasks (tracking, gill-netting, GPS mapping, etc). Most days we're out on the boats all day so we pack lunch and gather the gear in the lab and then load up the boats. Generally speaking we work until dinner, which is usually around 6 or 6:30. 

Before arriving here I was basically expecting to eat like a refugee for the next couple months, but i was gratefully mistaken.  Emily, one of the lab managers, happens to be a pretty badass cook and i have yet to have a repeat dinner (chix parm, lasagna, enchilada's, conch fritters, chili, etc).

After dinner we're free to do whatever.  Besides the lab, there's really not much to do on the island after dinner except go to the bar and drink, so when we're not there we hang around the lab and watch movies, play cards, and have conversations about really random shit.  Today, Sean brought back a large stone crab and we got it to crack a bunch of ice cubes with its massive claw.  Sean then proceeded to rip its claw off to eat tomorrow (it's legal to harvest stone crab claws, they grow back), which was pretty funny because he did it right in front of quiet little British Louise, who we then found out did her Masters on the fighting behaviors of crabs.  Playing Pictionary with foreigners (not sure if that's PC) is pretty damn funny but probably a really good way for them to practice english.  

One last note, its only been two weeks and already the girls are routinely burping and talking about farting and periods...I'm probably going to kill myself before this is over. 

I Got Shafted

What's the best way to end a seven hour day spent on a boat using a massive net to trap, measure, and weigh bait fish?

I'm not sure, because my day ended with (or should i say "on") a small submerged pipe shaft randomly sitting at the bottom of the lagoon.  Nothing like the abrupt sound of high-speed metal on metal to put a smile on your face.  Actually, I did smile because it brought back the memory of when my dads old Civic rolled down the driveway and crashed on the large rock at the bottom.  This time, however, i wasn't a 7th grader who'd forgotten his soccer cleats at home, and the only one swearing at me was myself.  Oh well, who doesn't enjoy a forty-five minute tow ride back to the dock on a rainy day?

So, to quote the ironic motto clearly visible in the back windshield of the Civic that fateful day years ago, "Safety is no accident"...