Thursday, April 30, 2015

Bahamas Spring 2015 | Needlefish Seine

Aquarium divers are on an expedition to the Bahamas right now! They will collect fish destined for the Giant Ocean Tank. Chris will be blogging live from the boat with pictures and stories about what it takes to bring fish from the Bahamas to Boston.

With weather still keeping us from donning our scuba tanks, we decided to try our luck collecting at the surface rather than underwater: seining for needlefish in Dollar Harbor.

Seining begins under stormy clouds
It takes a large team of people to use a 100' seine... 13 in this case: 2 at each end of the seine, 4 water "beaters" per side as its pulled towards shore, and a snorkeler to undo any snags on the lead line (lower side, on sea floor). 



Once close to the beach, the seine is collected and we assess our haul. Today our first try was a huge success. We kept 60 of about 150 needlefish (the others were released alive) and we also found some other small critters including mojaras, parrotfishes, flounder and pipefish. 

Assessing the haul

Needlefish are very sensitive, so we use caution when handling them by wearing gloves.  

Needlefish in seine net

Bucket: Step one in transport back to boat

We transferred them from net to bucket, bucket to cooler, then once back on the boat, from cooler to clear bag and into the live well, counting them as they swim into their temporary home before their flight back to Boston this weekend.

Cooler: Step two in transport back to boat

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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Bahamas Spring 2015 | Feeding the Fishes

Aquarium divers are on an expedition to the Bahamas right now! They will collect fish destined for the Giant Ocean Tank. Chris will be blogging live from the boat with pictures and stories about what it takes to bring fish from the Bahamas to Boston.

Alexis does a little food prep off the side of the boat. What a view, even on a rainy day.

As we collect fish and bring them onboard, we then become their keepers... and fish gotta eat! We brought an assortment of seafood for them—stored in the freezer—including zooplankton, krill, shrimp, clam tongues, silversides and capelin. We also have a live brine station for the little guys. We do this each morning until 48 hours before shipping day.

Feeding brine to the itty-bittys

Feeding zooplankton

Alexis feeding "chop" or cut-up assorted seafood

— Chris
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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Bahamas Spring 2015 | Mother Nature

Aquarium divers are on an expedition to the Bahamas right now! They will collect fish destined for the Giant Ocean Tank. Chris will be blogging live from the boat with pictures and stories about what it takes to bring fish from the Bahamas to Boston. 

Had a great morning diving and collecting on Holly's Reef.  Unfortunately, weather came in from the west and we had to cancel the afternoon dives. It was a prudent decision.

Weather on its way
All quiet on the deck front
No swimming!

We are all safe, anchored behind a breakwater, and are hoping for good weather tomorrow. 

— Chris
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Bahamas Spring 2015 | Night Dive

Aquarium divers are on an expedition to the Bahamas right now! They will collect fish destined for the Giant Ocean Tank. Chris will be blogging live from the boat with pictures and stories about what it takes to bring fish from the Bahamas to Boston. 

Night dives are both fun and a great way to collect some critters that are hard to get during the day. Everyone carries a flashlight and a backup flashlight. We also all hang glow sticks off of our tanks, so we can identify each other without the use of fin or weight belt color. And, we hang a long glowing green light "saber" off the back of the boat, to ease return at end of the dive.

Glenn

And per usual, between collecting, I like to see and photograph the wildlife. On this particular night dive I saw a number of spiny lobsters—rarely seen during the day—and a snoozing sea turtle. I thought our GOT turtles were lazy but I guess it's the norm.

Spiny lobster

Snoozing sea turtle

The dive was a success. Along with those sightings, we collected some fish that are quite fast, near impossible to catch during the day, including surgeonfishes and porgies. 

— Chris
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Bahamas Spring 2015 | Diving the Sapona

Aquarium divers are on an expedition to the Bahamas right now! They will collect fish destined for the Giant Ocean Tank. Chris will be blogging live from the boat with pictures and stories about what it takes to bring fish from the Bahamas to Boston. 

Sapona wreck is a popular dive site

Spent the morning at the Sapona—once a concrete-hulled cargo steamer that ran aground near Bimini during a hurricane in 1926, now a popular Bahamas dive site where we successfully collected some harlequin basses (trip fish!), butterflyfishes, balloonfishes, yellow stingrays and more.

Most of the fish here inhabit the waters around the perimeter of the ship's hull, therefore we spend the majority of our bottom time—as much as 75 minutes due to the shallow depth—outside of it. But swimming into the skeleton for a look was something I couldn't pass up. 

Inside the wreck

There are plenty of uncollectable fish here too, including this beautiful and venomous specimen!

Watch out for the scorpionfish!

— Chris
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Monday, April 27, 2015

Bahamas Spring 2015 | Bimini Road

Aquarium divers are on an expedition to the Bahamas right now! They will collect fish destined for the Giant Ocean Tank. Chris will be blogging live from the boat with pictures and stories about what it takes to bring fish from the Bahamas to Boston. 

After a long day making our way across to Bimini from Miami on Saturday, today we put in a full day of diving on the reefs of Bimini Road— rumored to be the road to the lost city of Atlantis—and I'm happy to report that fish populations are high.

Fish!

I even got to see one of my favorite fish: the spotted moray eel!

Can you spot the spotted moray?

— Chris
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Bahamas Spring 2015 | Boat Deck Transition

Aquarium divers are on an expedition to the Bahamas right now! They will collect fish destined for the Giant Ocean Tank. Chris will be blogging live from the boat with pictures and stories about what it takes to bring fish from the Bahamas to Boston. 

Writing from Bimini after a smooth Gulfstream crossing! As we approached the dock to clear Bahamas customs, we converted the deck to full diving mode.

Deck of the RV Coral Reef II before
And after!
We also got the life-support systems up and running with ocean water in the wells—we are ready to bring critters on board :-)


Fish live in these tanks before we carefully ship them up to Boston


These tanks have robust filters and aerators to keep our new fish healthy and happy.

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Thursday, April 23, 2015

Bahamas Spring 2015 | The Trip Begins!

Aquarium divers are on an expedition to the Bahamas right now! They will collect fish destined for the Giant Ocean Tank. Chris will be blogging live from the boat with pictures and stories about what it takes to bring fish from the Bahamas to Boston. 

The centerpiece of the New England Aquarium is the 200,000-gallon Caribbean coral reef exhibit known as the Giant Ocean Tank. The massive reef soars through all four floors of the building and hosts hundreds of marine animals—from undulating eels and sleek barracuda to lumbering sea turtles and flitting wrasses.

View from the top of our beloved Giant Ocean Tank

This vibrant ecosystem engages visitors not only with its movement and diversity, we also hope to inspire people to take action to protect vulnerable reefs in the wild—places that many visitors may never be able to experience in person.

Visitors learn about coral reefs from this panel at the top of the GOT

But it takes a lot of careful preparation and planning to pull off a trip like this. Packing dive gear, working with Bahamian wildlife officials to identify fish suitable for collection, coordinating with participants and the dive boat crew...whew!

John, packing our gear to be shipped down to Miami

But now the time has come for the expedition to begin. We're in Miami preparing the boat, stocking it with food and getting all the life support systems cranking so the fish have a comfortable ride.

The R/V Coral Reef II, berthed at a boatyard on the Miami River

Stay with us! We're hoping to live blog from beautiful Bahamian islands with sunny pictures of sandy beaches, interesting stories from our dives and lots of information about our blue planet.

Harlequin bass, Serranus tigrinus, our trip fish! We hope to bring one of these back to show visitors in Boston.



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