The route from my house to Gloucester is fast becoming ingrained in my mind, as I made the trip for the third time this week in order to participate in the Great Annual Fish Count, hosted by the New England Aquarium Dive Club and the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF). My destination for the day…
My DUI drysuit came in handy again today as the male members of the Frank Scalli Interns — Rick Simon, Ryan Hunter, and myself — met up at Cape Ann Divers to dive one of the most popular Gloucester wrecks, the Chester Polling. We were the only divers that day, so we had the entire…
After a short break in the internship, I set off to Salem to work with Dr. Joe Buttner at the Cat Cove Marine Laboratory. Dr. Joe and Salem State College have been working with the Massachusetts Department of Marine Fisheries since 2006 to study methods to restore softshell clam (Mya arenaria) populations in the Boston…
I started my last day at the New England Aquarium back at the Giant Ocean Tank; Myrtle was (as always) the most fun to feed, but I also had a great time working with the large porcupinefish in the exhibit, who hadn’t been hungry the last times I had surface feed duties. What’s so cool…
Back in the Penguin exhibit today, and while much of the day’s work mirrored that of Tuesday’s, two very cool things happened. First, Paul Leonard tasked me with feeding the Little Blue penguins. Little Blues, also known as Fairy penguins, are the smallest species of penguins–many visitors to the aquarium mistake them for juveniles–and also…
Well, the weather almost didn’t permit, but we fortunately were able to dive the Mary Alice B on my last day here in Lake Huron. The morning weather reports, as well as the trees surrounding the Stayer’s house, indicated fairly strong winds that would not die off until the late afternoon–too late to wait for…
Storm clouds threatened as we headed out to sea lake on the morning of my fourth day in Michigan, so we quickly adjusted our destination; instead of diving the Price, the first dive of the day would be the Regina. Both ships were large freighters that sank during a fierce storm in 1913; the Regina…
The storm finally left us overnight, and Jim and Pat Stayer were quick to jump on the opportunity to get some wreck dives in. We loaded up gear into their boat–including cameras to film both topside and underwater–and sped off to the first dive of the day, a 56′ tugboat named the Sport. This boat…
After a weekend’s respite, I returned to the action again, this time at Lake Huron, where a surprisingly tenacious storm has blown out our chances to dive for the past two days. Fortunately, the extra time on land allowed me to catch up on logging and capturing all the footage I took in Panama. Pat…
Another deep dive today, to 120′ this time. Now that we had been exposed to some of the challenges of deep diving, we were given a more specific assignment, to document distribution of various marine species at depth. This time around, everyone was prepared for narcosis at depth, no matter how subtle, and as a…
On Friday, we hopped in the boat at 0900 to take a half-hour ride to a freighter sunk about a mile off the Panama Canal entrance. This roughly 150′-long cargo ship was intentionally sunk in the mid 1970s, and we wanted to observe how much coral growth and fish activity the wreck contained now, 30…
Today was the day we’d been planning quite some time for, the day we’d make a dive past the century mark! I know some of the readers of this blog will yawn at that number, but for myself and most of the divers on this trip, who are not deco-trained, any opportunity to further our…
The halfway point of this trip found our group hard at work on a number of research projects. On Monday, we took a day off from diving; the morning was spent on a flat-bottomed boat, touring a series of mangrove swamps to collect data on the organisms found in such an environment. Besides the numerous…
Up until this point in the trip, all of our dives have been fairly close to shore, on fringing reefs generally within a quarter of a mile of land. Well that changed today, when we had the amazing opportunity to take a half hour boat ride offshore to dive a Cobia farm. This farm consisted…
Today was a blast, but also a blur; it seems that, now that a routine has been established, these days will start to run by quickly, and all to soon I’ll be aboard a plane bound back for the US of A. But until then, I’ll keep enjoying every minute of the time spent here,…
‘Twas the fourth day in Panama, and already a distinct routine had set in place. I arose to the (now expected) 630 knocking on the door, signaling PT time with Terrence–there’s nothing like working out with a former Navy SEAL to give perspective on how out of shape you are. After the vigorous workout, we…
Our third day in the Republic of Panama started with a bit of a setback, as, due to strong currents that morning, we were unable to dive the 18th century Spanish tall ship wreck that we’d planned on. However, we still had a good reef and drift dive in the current, and I started to…
Today was a day of many experiences, starting with our first boat dive of this trip. We loaded up our gear at 8:30 and jetted out to Drake’s Island, named after the infamous pirate Sir Francis Drake who rumors say was buried in a lead coffin not far away. We were uncertain what the visibility…
Waking up at 4 AM is usually never fun, but when the impetus is a trip down to the Caribbean side of the Republic of Panama, well, I can manage. A five-hour flight out of Houston landed myself and the rest of the Texas A&M University at Galveston’s Tropical Marine Ecology class in Panama City,…