Beth at Sea

Elizabeth McGovern, our Marine Biology teacher, is currently part of an expedition on board the NOAA research ship Nancy Foster. She is sending us daily updates and pictures directly from the ship. Below are some excerpts and pictures. (Most recent communications listed first)

Yet another busy day aboard the Nancy Foster. This morning we were joined by local media from Savannah. We entertained them by releasing the fish tagged yesterday. The Foster returned to the GPS coordinates where the fish were caught (it seems important to me that they were actually returned to their home...not some random location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean). We also retrieved the two chevron traps from yesterday and they were once again empty. Sarah and I took it upon ourselves to try a new baiting technique and created some lovely menhaden garland which we hung inside the traps. We created the garlands by stringing the fish through the eyes--totally cool! ( I did not repeat the fish dance...as it has not worked thus far).

The fishing vessel came out from the Gray's Reef office again today with a multitude of eager fishermen. Unfortunately, rough seas kept the grouper away from the hooks, except for one scamp. It's sort of cool, the Foster stays in sight of the Ferguson. The Ferguson radios if they catch a fish, and then runs over to the Foster to transfer the fish to the kiddie pool (see yesterday's email).

Late this afternoon, we were able to observe a little fish surgery. A tiny slice (less than one inch) was made in the abdomen of the scamp and the sonic transmitter was inserted. After 3 little stitches, the fish was sent back to the kiddie pool to recuperate from surgery. We'll release him tomorrow morning.

The sea is building. The divers may not be able to go out tomorrow, but not to worry...we can always mow the lawn! I'm attaching some good pics of the day's activities! Hope all is well...

Whew! What a day--so much going on! I have spent the last three hours working on the day's log for the website. The Gray's Reef Education Coordinator thought it would ba a good idea to divide the duties but have one person in charge of pulling it all together. Today I was the gatherer. Sometimes that is more time consuming than writing it all yourself! So, you can refer to the website log for details of the day, but here's an outline of the day's events:

NOAA divers conducted the first of many debris surveys--looking mostly for fishing debris--didn't find any today, but marked a site for continued monitoring.

R/V Joe Ferguson came out from town with really good hook and line samplers. They delivered three good sized scamp to the Foster which are still with us in a "kiddie pool". Incidentally, I thought it was a kiddy pool until I saw that it was an official big blue round fish holding tank!

And at 5:00 this afternoon, the fishies were surgically implanted with sonic tags! Tomorrow, once the media arrives (oh joy) we will release the fish somewhat ceremoniously! Also tomorrow, more diving and more hook and line sampling. Soon, they will realize that the teachers are good with hook and line!

This is the NOAA ship tracker site. You can enter the name of my ship (Nancy Foster) and see our current location. Note that last night we went back and forth and back and forth. One direction was calm as we went with the swell and one was quite bumpy. Hence...sleep was 2h on and 2h off.

Hello All! It's 1800, we've eaten dinner and we are multi-beaming for the night. Unfortunately, it has been too rough for the divers to go over, but we were able to toss in two fish traps (we're trying to catch gag and scamp grouper for tagging). Apparently, I am the resident expert on baiting a fish trap. I have never baited a trap...but I am related to someone who has done it quite frequently--that seems to make me the expert on board. Scary. The traps are "soaking" overnight...so we won't know if we were successful until tomorrow am. The scientists and divers took great pleasure in making the teachers bait the traps with smelly dead menhaden--we thought it was cool