Best Day Ever?

About a week and a half ago, I had a high school group come in. It was one of the best teaching groups of my time here. There were only seven students and one chaperone, and they were all really smart kids. The school also requested four boat trips for their three day trip. The weather was absolutely perfect while they were here so we got to go out to Looe Key for two of the boat trips. I have never seen the water that clear at Looe. It was gorgeous. The students were from Indiana and immediately fell in love with the reef. One of the girls actually said, "I used to look forward to my wedding day and having kids, but now I don't. I know today was the best day of my life."

The first thing I saw when I got in the water was this midnight blue parrotfish. He was just chillin' there while the little yellow fish in the picture were cleaning him.

Here's a damselfish feeding on some Halimeda algae.

I love these things. They're called Christmas tree worms. You can see how the brown worms look like little trees. They come in different colors, but when you touch them or create a current next to them, they suck back into their little worm homes.

As always, there were lots of yellow tail snappers hanging out by the boat. This picture was from the second day we were out. Right after I got back on the boat, a small Goliath grouper moved under the boat and hung out there for awhile. He looked to be about 100 pounds when I saw him swimming away from the students when they were getting out of the water.

We also saw a four and a half foot reef shark the second day, but I couldn't get a picture of him.

The second morning, before we went to Looe, we went to the coral heads that are much closer to shore. It wasn't as clear there, but hopefully you can tell what you're seeing in this next picture.

It's the lionfish that I can't catch. You can see his light, striped fins sticking out, and he's closer to the bottom than the center. This is the second time I've tried to get him from the same exact spot. He hids in a cave made from the coral next to a long spined sea urchin (bottom right corner of picture). He's always too far back for my short arms though. He loves to hang out and taunt me. Next time, I will catch him.

Tagging

The schools have finally started coming back to camp. This is amazing for me, because I've been getting really bored at work since I'm not teaching. I've only had one school group so far. They were fifty seventh graders, split up into five groups. It's a nice change-up also, because we teach differently than we do in the summer since they're only here for 3 days.

This group got an extra special treat. We had just caught 2 nurse sharks the day before, so we tagged the sharks while the students were watching. I've tagged sharks before, but this time someone took pictures for your viewing pleasure.

After Stephan (who is pictured helping me in all of these pictures) scoops the lovely pretty shark out of the holding tank, we have to measure it and check to make sure it looks healthy. We look for obvious signs like scarring or parasites and for more subtle signs about the sharks health.

After looking on the dorsal side, we flip her over to check for these signs on her ventral side. Also, I open her mouth (with a tool, not my hands!) and check to be sure her mouth looks good. She seems very healthy and has plenty of rows of teeth.

When all of this has been recorded, I begin to actually tag the shark. I start by making a very small incision next to her primary dorsal fin. Sharks heal so quickly that there will be no visible sign of the cut after only one week.

Next, I insert the tag.

In this picture, you can see the actual tag a bit better. It's small and yellow. Not large enough to interfere with the sharks swimming or hunting, but obvious enough that if the shark is captured, the fisherman will notice the tag and be able to contact the number/address on the tag with the information requested as well as the shark's whereabouts.

When all of this is finished, the shark is weighed and released. I know what you've all been thinking, isn't this a long time for the shark to be out of the water? No, she would be fine out of the water this whole time, but still we pour plenty of salt water on her. Also, you may have noticed that she's covered up quite a bit in some photos. Covering their eyes helps to calm them down and proves to be much less stressful on the animal.