Offshore Sharking-June 7, 2011

This morning we had to be at the boathouse at 7, ready to go on the boat. The nurse shark team, Jana, Niels, Zack and myself took a day off and helped out the offshore team. We loaded the boat up and headed out to the wall. The wall is a spot where the continental shelf just drops off hundreds of meters. It acts as a feeding aggregation for fish, so Caribbean reef sharks hang out there. When we got to the spot, we prepared everything to put out the long lines. There were different tasks that had to be done in order to complete the process. The first person had to drive the boat, another person had to take data. Someone threaded out the rope of the long line, and another person clipped on the hook lines to the rope that was going in the water. The fifth person was unhooking the lines from the bucket and handing the hooks to the sixth person to put cut up bonita on the hook. I was the person unhooking the line and handing the hooks to the person who was baiting. After the line was completely out, we went over to the cage and anchored. The cage is a huge cage underwater that contains cobia. We got to jump out of the boat and snorkel around it. I couldn’t go down to where the cage was, because it was too deep, but it was huge! After we sat for almost 90 minutes, we prepared the boat to pick up the line.

On our first set, we didn’t catch anything, we got skunked. The second set we set out in a different spot. Same process as before, however I was the data recorder instead! We anchored in a sandy spot, closer to shore with some small rock structures at the bottom that contained some fish and coral. I snorkeled for a little then took a lovely meditation nap on the boat. I didn’t fall asleep, but I was so relaxed by the swaying of the boat and the warm, perfect sea breeze. We didn’t catch any sharks, but we saw several swimming under the boat. We had a few bycatch this time. I brought in one of the bycatch, the remora! We measure the bycatch and record the measurements. After that, we headed in for lunch.

After lunch, I had to prepare myself for the long haul again… Round 2!! This time I went with Jana. It was a little more overcast today, so it wasn’t as hot. We saw one shark at Plum Creek, it just rested the bottom, nothing too exciting. Like always there was nothing at Deep creek. Then we rode our bikes to Broad Creek which normally always has sharks. We saw 7 sharks that afternoon. I didn’t get to sit down with them today, but it was cool being in a cove with them as they swim right by us. It is so peaceful walking these different creeks, there is nothing around but the sharks, water, and us! So awesome.

After observing for a while it was time to head back to catch dinner. I helped out with some dishes then headed back to the Octagon to hang out with the interns. We watched Ace Ventura Pet Detective before we went to bed.