July 15, 2011

So, I had to work a half day today to make up for taking yesterday off to go diving. They really only have 1 true day off each week, Thursday is a half day. So anyway, Jonathan left for Dubai on Wednesday evening and gave me a job to do today. he wanted me to get into the shark lagoon and get an accurate "fin count" of how many male and female blacktip sharks we have. Sweet!! Can't think of a better way to spend a day than to sit and let sharks swim around you!

I spent the first 20 minutes on the highest rock I could find near the edge of the lagoon trying to get a total fin count from the surface. The trick in doing this it to make sure you're not counting the same shark 5 times as they continually swim around you. Knowing how many total there are will kind of help you keep track. This was very similar to what I did with the National Marine Fisheries in Santa Cruz one summer - only we were snorkeling in the Noyo River counting salmon. But luckily I had the experience of doing this with salmon to train me how to snorkel and count different fish and keep track of them so as to not recount the same shark several times. It's like when I ask Gianna to count how many arms her stuffed octopus has and she just keeps counting around and around until she runs out of numbers that she knows.

Anyway, I finally decided that there are 9 blacktips in the exhibit and from the looks of it, most of them were female, only 1 or 2 males. I slowly slid into the lagoon with a heavy weight belt around my waist to keep me underwater without having to flail around. I found a nice nook in a little pile of rocks and had a seat. Blacktips are extremely skiddish and even when I was just standing in the lagoon, not moving, they would swim in my general direction, realize that I was there and go shooting off in the opposite direction. I don't know how they even recognize my feet as something other than a rock (unless they are scared of rocks too) but they do. The problem is that they take off so haphazardly that they can run into things (walls, other fish, actual scary rocks) and hurt themselves. They also expend a great deal of energy bolting off like that and can become very stressed out, so we have to be very slow and deliberate when entering their exhibits. So I sat and became as much of a non-scary rock as I could. After about 20 minutes of sitting patiently, they finally started swimming back in my general vicinity. I got some good pictures and video and came up with a final score of Girls 7 - Boys 2. When the big, 5 foot long eel came out of his rock and started swimming around, I decided it was time for me to get out. I don't mess with the eels, from my experience, they are NOT skiddish and will come right up to you and use their teeth.

I was hoping to get enough good pictures to compile a bit of a database to ID the individual sharks but many of the pictures were too blurry or far away to make out any distinguishing features. Many times scientists use things like scars to ID animals, but these guys don't have many of those since they don't have much of competition and I don't think they have reached breeding age, which is when most of the scars appear.

I also found another zebra shark egg case which didn't seem to have hatched yet, but I don't think there's anything inside. We took it out of the lagoon and put it in a tank in the aquarium to show Jonathan tomorrow.

Not bad for my day off!

July 11, 2011

Yesterday was somewhat eventful. We spent the morning at the shop. The first step in the shark tank installation is complete and they were beginning the second part. The shop is on the ground floor but there is a basement parking lot under the building. A 5,000 gallon saltwater tank holds about 42,500 pounds of water - that doesn't take into account the weight of the tank, decorations, sand and sharks. So you can imagine, the owners of the building were none too thrilled about this project. In order to make this work, they drilled 5 holes in the concrete floor of the shop and dropped steel H-beams to the foundation of the basement (see pics here). Funny thing is, the beams were too long to just "drop in" so they actually had to cut them, them secure them back together with a titanium plate. The step they were beginning when we arrived was to now tie these H- beams together with steel I-beams. This will act as a frame for a steel plate which the tank with actually sit on. I will hopefully be able to get pics of each step of the process so you can see it because trying to describe it just doesn't do it justice.

Jonathan and Sam then spent about an hour figuring out how to steal some more floor space by making the check-out counter smaller and pushed further towards the wall. We are sharing a small portion of the shop with a flower shop run by one of the other guys who works here. His operation is small and consists of a small refrigerated room and a work counter (which you can see in the Facebook album Issham Aqua Shop).

I spent the afternoon pretending (and failing) to be a furniture designer/carpenter. Jonathan tasked me with creating some sketches for the stands we will have to build to support the "reef slice" tanks which will be in one of the walls in the shop (sort of along these lines, but flush with the wall, no frame, and without the living room). I'm not good at visualizing stuff, give me the parts and some tools and I can figure out how to build it, but I'm not a planner - I'm more of a do-er (and when it comes to carpentry, I'm not a GOOD do-er). So I came up with something, Jonathan made many suggestions for how it could be better and I started over. Then I decided to go get some better measurements of the tanks. When I came back up to do a new work-up, I noticed that the measurements I had for the tank were not what the measurements of the holes in the wall were. Turns out that the wrong tanks were originally used to get the measurements. In what might be a lucky turn of fate, it looks as though the 2 correct tanks might not have fit anyway - they would be too long. What we will probably do is use one of the "wrong" tanks and one of the "right" tanks. We are going to the shop today to take another look at it.

In other news, the dust that had been kicked up into the atmosphere has settled somewhat since the winds have died these last 2 days so it's almost blue skies again. I'll probably try to get in a quick snorkel today after work. I'm hoping to do a night dive this weekend with the full moon. One of my favorite dives from St Thomas was a full moon night dive where we turned off our lights and just dove using the moonlight that filtered down into the water - it was amazing!

I found a zebra shark egg case in one of the lagoons the other day. No sign of a baby zebra shark - doesn't mean it's not there, it may be hiding, but most likely it got snatched up by a larger fish or died from lack of food. They try really hard to find egg cases when they are laid but sometimes they are really well hidden. If they take them out just before hatching, the baby has a chance of surviving if they can be monitored in the indoor tanks. There have been quite a few successful shark births here in the past - it would be very cool to be around for one.

I'll post again later today if I can, fill you in on our trip to the shop and see what comes of that. Hopefully, we'll get the shark tank in place today or tomorrow.

July 9, 2011

So, I'm still kinda waiting for Jonathan to get caught up enough to really start giving me jobs. So far, I've mostly been sitting at this desk pretending to do stuff. I can only make so many lists of questions and things to do when I'm not actually doing the work. Once I get going on cleaning and reassembling these tanks, I can really figure out what I need.

I DID get a chance to help out with the sharks today. The zebra sharks are in full on mating mode which means that the females are getting roughed up. Part of the mating ritual of most sharks involves the male biting the fins, tail or head of the female. Well, there are 2 female zebra sharks with some severe bite wounds on their fins (there will be pics on Facebook). We caught them up in a big net, brought them to the side of the lagoon and injected them with an antibiotic called Baytril. My involvement was just to help hold the shark's tail while the drug was administered, but I'm excited! It was good to get my hands on a shark again!

I'm going to try to go for another snorkel this evening. The wind has picked up pretty good and it's kinda choppy out there but it might die off as evening rolls around. I got up early this morning to work out and swim a few laps. It would be so easy to do that everyday when the gym and pool are steps from your door!

Thursday 2 Sept 2010

Today is my first day flying solo. Everything has gone pretty smoothly. It was a dive day so I read and re-read all of the instructions for draining the tank, shutting off the valves and refilling the tank. Everything seems to be running again after all is said and done so I must have done it right!

Neil left yesterday afternoon for San Diego to go shark diving off of Guadalupe Island. People back home are jealous that I am here but I am jealous that he is there!! I'd rather be jumping into white shark infested waters off of Mexico....I've done this gig before! Scotty and I have always talked about doing that shark dive but we never have. Someday.

I had to move out of my original cabin and into Neil's cabin on the Shadow. Apparently, the room I was in is used for frequent "guests" and if the guy shows up, he wants his room. It has to be empty and ready should he just stop by, I guess. Now, if we should leave for Hamburg, the Odyssey and Shadow will split up so I will have to be relocated again to the Odyssey. The tank is on the Odyssey so I wouldn't be much use on the Shadow. I'm excited at the prospect of living aboard that big beautiful yacht but I was told that I might possibly have to share a cabin. That isn't exciting news as the cabins are pretty small. I'm sure I'll survive.