It
was a bit rough getting up today. After
a late night watching the Kings game, I was a bit drained this morning. I was able to shake it off pretty quickly
though and by the time I got to breakfast, I felt fine. Over breakfast, Stephanie and I discussed the
possibility of purchasing one of the USB LongShots we found online at Hardened Power Systems. These units are awesome because they allow
you to plug a GoPro into an AC adapter using a USB cable to supply continuous
power to the camera without having to worry about batteries (pictured here). Best of all, it is completely waterproof so
we can use this to power a GoPro inside our experimental tank submerged
underwater. After breakfast, we called
in to the company that makes the LongShots to see if they could send us two on
short notice to Erica so she could deliver them to us. The real issue with receiving parcels here is
that packages are only delivered on
occasion from CEI’s warehouse in Florida.
This makes people who are traveling to Eleuthera the only viable options
for getting deliveries quickly. As it
turns out, the company was open today and we ordered two LongShots with
overnight shipping to get to Erica before she leaves. The underwater GoPro in the experimental
tanks will give us a vertical component to calculate distance between the
lionfish and prey that we wouldn’t be able to have otherwise. We had packed up most of our things on the
boat before we made the order so we could get on the boat and quickly head out
to the patches once again.
Once
we got to our first site, I realized I had forgotten my booties. This was unfortunate because wearing fins
without booties can give you bad rashes on your fight. To remedy this, I used some gauze and a
sticky wrap to make padding on the back of my foot. It looked like I had some intense foot injury
or something. Before I jumped in,
Lillian, Stephanie, and I discussed a new method for doing the fish
surveys. What we decided would be best
is to observe the reef from afar to get the big counts. Then we would make a complete swim around the
periphery of the reef keeping our distance to count any other large fish that
were hidden from view before. After
these distant observations, we would hover over the reef to count any smaller
coral associated fishes that we couldn’t see before such as damselfish and
wrasses. Then we would pass over the
entire surface of the reef looking for cryptic species or fish that are hiding
amongst or on top of the coral. Then we
would swim around the bottom periphery of the patch to look for parrotfish and
other small fishes that may be hiding in the reef or the turtle grasses around
the patch. The idea is to have a
standardized approach that would result in both observers (Lillian and I) to
have the opportunity to see the same fish.
All the while, I would be following Lillian around the reef at a
distance (about 2 meters behind) so that I do not disturb her first
observations. With this plan in hand, we
got our stuff on and plunged into the water.
Once
I jumped in, I noticed my gauze padding worked ok but of course was not as
comfortable as booties. The first reef
went pretty well using this survey method and we decided to use it for the rest
of the day. Throughout the day there
were a number of fish at each reef that I would always seem to miss that
Lillian would find (cryptic species like gobies and blennies along with Nassau
groupers and Graysby that are hidden in the reef. I think with time, I will become quicker at
observing and measuring the easily noticeable fish such that I will have more
time to thoroughly examine the reef for the hidden fish. Just like yesterday, I felt more and more
confident as the day went by.
For
our last dive of the day, we stopped at a larger patch reef to collect juvenile
fish for our lionfish prey response lab experiment. We used hand nets to catch a variety of small
fish (wrasses, damselfishes, and gobies) that were three or less centimeters to
serve as prey for the lionfish (Stephanie pictured here after she caught a fish). We were able to do a long collection dive at
this reef because it is in about 6 feet of water. After about an hour and twenty minutes, we
called it quits and headed back in to CEI.
When we got back we unloaded our gear and our cooler that we placed our
prey fish in on a transport tricycle to carry our stuff over to the tanks in
the wet lab (cooler of fish on tricycle pictured here). For dinner, we had some pasta and meat sauce
which was nice after a long day of diving.
Our OSU team had dish crew duties tonight so we were assigned to wash up
dishes and serving trays that were used for the meal. There were only 15 other people that were
eating with us so it was not too big of a deal.
Before that though, Stephanie and I went off to the tanks to set up our
dusk trial for the lionfish prey behavior experiment. After struggling to wrangle out the old lionfish,
place a new one in with our prey, and turn on the GoPro, we went back to the
dining hall to help with dishes. However
when we got there, the rest of our team had already finished all the dishes. We headed back to Hallig and had our meeting
for the evening to do logs and then I Skyped Erica for a bit to fill her in on
some details about her upcoming trip. It
is crazy to believe she will be arriving on Wednesday. I am very excited to have her come down and hang
out with us in the Bahamas. I best get
to bed now to try to catch up on some sleep.
Until later.
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