After seeing the film crew in action yesterday in the penguin exhibit, I was itching for a chance to use my own camera in the Aquarium. The opportunity came today when I headed back to the top floor to work once again with the dive staff in the Giant Ocean Tank. Don Stark–one of the dive volunteers–has his own underwater video production company, and he was more than willing to let me shadow him for the day, offer lots of useful advice and even film me diving in the tank. Before that, though, we had the two morning feeding sessions to deal with. Myrtle was a joy, as always; she not only gulped down all of her squid, fish, and protein gel in the first feed, but a whole head of lettuce and broccoli too! One thing she didn’t like, however, was the zucchini that had been put in her feed (I can’t say I blame her…) The staff mentioned that Myrtle fluctuates between periods of fasting and feasting; last time I worked with her as a marine mammal intern, she would eat just a couple pieces of squid and a handful of brussel sprouts, nothing more; whereas currently she’s been known to eat up to 10 heads of lettuce in a single day!
During the second feed I dealt again with the ‘cuda, needlefish, and porcupinefish, and helped set out the herring that were to be fed to the sharks. Feeding the sharks is quite an delicate task for the divers; while the two species in the tank are both non-aggressive and would never attack anyone in the tank if unprovoked, the divers must attach the sharks’ food to long poles so that no one’s hands are mistakenly crunched. Overall, the sharks are very well behaved, mostly due to how well they are fed (twice a day, whereas in the wild they might eat once a week at the most,) but each diver has their own tale of a close encounter; One story was told to me where all three sand tiger sharks decided to simultaneously go after the same fish, resulting in some spectacular underwater acrobatics by the diver to avoid being bowled over by a combined 900+ lbs of fast-moving chondrichthyes.
After lunch I suited up for the 1:15 maintenance dive, making sure my camera was properly set up and sealed in its housing. The dive was as excellent as my first in the tank–I don’t think I could ever get bored of the opportunity to swim just inches away from sharks, rays, moray eels, turtles, and much, much more, all gliding fearlessly by without a care. One of the more interesting things I had the opportunity to do on this dive was to clean out the gills of some of the hogfish and triggerfish on exhibit. Don taught me how to do this by feeding handfuls of sand into one of the four inflow vents in the tank; the fish soon clustered around the resulting plume of sand with mouths wide open, ingesting the grains and passing them along their gills to clean out any unwanted detritus. All in all, I got some excellent footage in the GOT, and am excited for tomorrow, when I’ll have the opportunity to film in the penguin exhibit as well!
The last trip of my internship was to the Great Lakes, more specifically Lake Huron for a week of wreck diving and video editing with Jim and Pat Stayer. Jim and Pat are founders of Out of the Blue Productions and have helped find a handful of wrecks in Lake Huron. The first couple of days I was there, Sea Rover Cris Kohl and his wife Joan Forsberg were also visiting. Cris also writes books about the Great Lake Wrecks. The first day that we went out on their boat the Wildkat, I was astonished to be looking at the huge body of water in front of me. It smelled and tasted like freshwater, but the amount of water and the waves made it look like the ocean. We dove the wreck of the Sport. The next day the weather was not good, so we could not go out. Whenever there is a little bit of wind or rain, it gets rough really fast on the lake. Instead, I spent the day in the editing room. The Stayers have an amazing editing room that they use to put together their films from their trips. Luckily, I was able to pick up using the editing program fairly quickly. The following day the weather had improved, and we made 3 dives. The ships that we dove on were the New York, Col. A.B. Williams, and the Charles A. Street. The shipwrecks in Lake Huron are located in a preserve so all of the portholes and metal are still intact. This was really cool to see, because the shipwrecks in the ocean where I live have all been stripped down. After a long day of diving it was back to the editing room to continue working on my presentation. The day after we were able to get in a dive before the weather got bad; Jim and I dove the Eliza H. Strong. The rest of my time at the Stayers was spent editing and sightseeing in nearby Lexington. My visit with the Stayers was an amazing opportunity. I dove so many wonderful wrecks and was able to learn their history. I would like to thank the Stayers for their unbelievable help with the editing and the assembly of my presentation. As I got on the plane to go home, it was weird to think that after my flight, I wouldn’t have any more traveling or planes to catch for a while.
I would like to thank the Boston Sea Rovers and the Scalli Family for the amazing opportunity, and although the internship may be coming to an end, it is just the beginning for me.
Today my family and I drove to Gloucester, MA to meet Patrick Scalli, past interns, and other Sea Rovers for a day of diving and a cookout. We dove from two boats in Folly’s Cove and caught some enormous lobster, most of which had to be returned because they were over the maximum size limit. It was a day full of fun and catching up with old friends.
Before I knew it I was flying to North Carolina to visit the Divers Alert Network (DAN) headquarters. When I arrived, I met with Eric Douglas and Donna Uguccioni from DAN. Donna is in charge of the scholars and interns that come to visit. Jamie Brisbin (2008 Our World Underwater Scholar) was also there to receive DAN training and take part in a “Flying after Diving” study (FAD). These studies are done in the hyperbaric chamber at Duke University to measure the effects on divers who fly soon after diving. For each study, 4 people went into the chamber to exercise for a set time at depth; we were in the chamber for 40 minutes at 60 ft. We then spent time on deck between the “dive” and the “flight”. When I participated, the time between the flight and dive was down to 5 hours. We then went back into the chamber for a 4-hour flight. During the flight the doctors would take Doppler and TE readings which enabled them to monitor our hearts for bubbles. Each trial of the study decreases the time between “diving” and “flying” after a certain amount of people have gone through that time period and no one has gotten bent. The goal is to bring the surface time all the way down to 5 minutes between flight and dive. The training that I received while I was at DAN included AED, O2, Advanced O2, and First Aid for Hazardous Marine Life Injuries. The time spent at DAN was a lot of fun and I met a lot of really cool people as well as learned an incredible amount.
I was next off to Pennsylvania to take a Diver Rescue class at Dutch Springs taught by Andrea Zaferes and Lifeguard Systems. The class consisted of one night of classroom and then the weekend of diving at Dutch Springs, with a mix of lectures and dives. On land, we went over CPR, dressing different types of injuries, and other exercises. In the water we learned how to handle an unconscious diver, out-of-air diver, and other drills that would be useful in an emergency. This class was very helpful in better preparing me for what to do in an underwater emergency situation.
Today I went to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries office in New Bedford to take part in a great white shark necropsy being performed by Greg Skomal. The shark had washed up on shore a few days earlier and was picked up by the Division. The necropsy was being done to try and figure out the cause of death and to take tissue and organ samples for further study of the fish. The shark was a female and less than 1 year old, although, you would never know that from its size (6 feet). This was an amazing opportunity to see a great white shark up close and to learn about sharks from the Division’s shark expert.
After my work on the Quest, I was off to Connecticut to meet up with past Frank Scalli Intern Richard Simon. I would be doing my Advanced and Nitrox class with him. The first night, we got all of the gear ready to go to Block Island and then did the majority of the classroom portion. There were a lot of materials to go through, since I was doing two classes. Nitrox or enriched air is a mixture of gas that has a higher percentage of oxygen than regular air; the two most common mixes are 68% nitrogen, 32% oxygen, and 64% nitrogen, 36% oxygen. The next day we drove to Point Judith, RI to take a boat to Block Island. There are a ton of wrecks near Block Island, which is a perfect location for the advanced dives. We dove on the Troydon, and the Heroine. The Troydon is a 90 ft clam boat lying in 135ft water. The Heroine is a broken up steam fishing vessel lying at 80ft.
I woke up this morning with eager anticipation; I was finally going to dive in the New England Aquarium’s Giant Ocean Tank, fulfilling a dream I’d had ever since I’d interned at the Marine Mammals exhibit there. For those who’ve never been to the New England Aquarium, the Giant Ocean Tank (or GOT) is a 23′ deep, 40′ diameter tank holding 200,000 gallons of seawater heated to 75F to simulate conditions in a Caribbean reef ecosystem. The tank houses a gigantic, 20′-tall fiberglass coral reef replica that over 600 fish (and a few turtles) call home. The species within the tank range from damselfish to balloonfish to tarpon to sand tiger sharks; pretty much every level of a typical reef food chain is represented in the GOT. One would expect this to result in a lot of bad news for the little guys in the tank–and a lot of tasty meals for the apex predators, like the sharks and the barracuda on exhibit–but fortunately that is not the case, thanks to the tireless efforts of the aquarium’s dive staff, who work all day to ensure everyone in the tank is well fed and taken care of. This group of dedicated staff and volunteers, whom I worked with for the day, prep four meals a day for the fish on exhibit; the food ranges from lettuce to zooplankton to squid to herring, with specific diets prepared for each species on exhibit. Some of the fish are feed at the surface, while the others are feed underwater by divers. In total, five dives are conducted each day, four for feeding and one for maintenance of the exhibit.
The workday started with food prep; nothing like the smell of countless buckets of thawing seafood to wake you up! Squid were debeaked and depenned, shrimp were detailed (as in tails removed, not cleaned like a car–that took me a while to figure out,) capelin were sorted male and female, and everything was chucked into buckets, bags, and tupperware containers for the feeding sessions to come. For the first feed, I handled the needlefish and barracuda, chucking krill, silversides, and capelin out to any hungry passersby. Second feed found me paired up with Myrtle, unofficial mascot (and definite prima donna) of the GOT. Myrtle is a 75-year old, 550-pound Green Sea Turtle, and she cavorts around with an attitude that can only come from living in the Giant Ocean Tank ever since it was first built 40 years ago. She also eats quite a lot, being the only animal in the tank that fed at each of the four sessions; during my session with her, she gulped down a full head of lettuce, a dozen or so brussel sprouts, and a head of broccoli and seemed eager for more.
After lunch came the moment I’d been waiting for, as I suited up and prepared to dive into the GOT. Paul Leonard unfortunately could not dive with me that day, but I was placed in the capable hands of Dan Laughlin, assistant curator of the Giant Ocean Tank and Penguin exhibits. He made sure to show me that, while diving in the GOT is a job with a lot of responsibility, it’s also a fun and incredible experience. We scrubbed the “coral”, noted deposits of damselfish eggs on the walls of the tank, brushed Myrtle’s back with a convenient rock, and then I had the chance to just sit back and observe all the amazing animals interact peacefully around me. And as I watched Dan blow bubble rings to the sharks cruising directly over our heads, while hundreds of visitors peered at us through the glass, I realized just how lucky I was to be in that position, and how I wouldn’t exchange the experience for anything in the world.
My next location was Fairhaven Harbor; here I was on Eric and Lori Takakjian’s boat the Quest. The Quest was being used by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries to support a Focus II tow vehicle for using multi-beam sonar. The two days were spent putting everything onto the boat and securing it to the deck. Setting up the system with the computers, to ensure that everything was being read properly took quite a while. As with any big research project, we ran into some problems, so there was a lot of trial and error. When everything was all set up, we slowly raised the Focus II and slid it into the water, for a float test. It was very interesting to learn about the system and how it all worked. I am very grateful to Lori and Eric for inviting me out on the boat.
Today found me up at 5:00 AM, getting ready to catch a train into Boston for a long day’s work at the New England Aquarium (NEAq). I couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of deja vu during the trip in to North Station; you see, I’d caught this exact train many times before, back when I participated in a six-month Marine Mammal internship for the aquarium. This time, however, I was not going into Boston to work with the Atlantic Harbor & Pacific Fur Seals; instead, I was going to help out with the African, Rockhopper, and Blue Penguins! Once I arrived at NEAq, I met up with Paul Leonard, a Boston Sea Rover and senior aquarist in the penguin exhibit. He introduced me to the staff and volunteers on the exhibit, and then I jumped straight into work, helping separate and weigh the fish of choice for the day — Sardines (which are quite different from the fish sold in tight little tin cans in the supermarket.) Once the buckets for each species of penguin were filled with the proper amount of fish, we all suited up in nice, thick 7mm wetsuits and prepared to go in the exhibit. Though no one was going to be diving, those 7mm suits were crucial; the water in the exhibit is filtered in straight from the adjoining Boston Harbor, at an average temperature of about 60F. Furthermore, we were planning to spend about 3 hours in that water, which ranged in depth from waist-deep to up to my neck; after the first half-hour in there I was thinking I should have brought my DUI drysuit!
However, my attention was quickly drawn away from the cold when we started to feed the penguins. Working with Paul, I kept a tally of how much fish each of the 41 African Penguins on exhibit ate. Though the African’s have distinct markings on their chest plumage, it’d be almost impossible to recognize each individual bird by sight, which is why the penguins are all tagged with colored ID bands on their wings; left for the males, and right for the females. I expected to be overwhelmed by all the colors and corresponding names, but was pleasantly surprised to find that by the end of the feeding session I could already identify a handful of the penguins. Once every African Penguin had been seen to, we put the food buckets away and pulled out hoses, disinfectant, and scrub brushes; even with a team of four or more volunteers, it takes roughly five hours of work a day to keep the exhibits clean and the penguins well fed–that means five hours in numbingly cold water, which is why I soon learned to be very grateful for the hot showers we took at lunch and again near the end of our shift. The rest of the day flew by, and before I knew it the kitchen was clean, blocks of frozen fish were set out to thaw, and wetsuits were all hung with care, ready for the next day’s set of volunteers to do it all over again. I’ll be back with the penguins later this week, but tomorrow brings a whole new set of experiences as I head up to the top floor to work with the aquarium dive team and dive into the Great Ocean Tank!
Today was my first day at the New England Aquarium. I was wicked excited, because I have been going to the NEAq since I was very little, so it was cool to see the Aquarium from a different perspective. When I arrived, I meet up with Paul Leonard, Senior Aquarist for the Penguins. He showed me where he worked and then got me started with helping to clean the Penguin exhibit; I have never cleaned so hard in my life. It was now feeding time for the penguins, and for such little birds they eat a lot. In the afternoon, he showed me around the aquarium from behind the scenes. The exhibits look different, when you are standing behind them. The next day, I spent the morning working with the water quality team. They have a very important job, because if there is something wrong with the water, the organisms can get sick. During the afternoon I was allowed to watch and participate in a necropsy of cow nose rays. A necropsy is like an autopsy, but for animals. After the third one, an intern from the Veterinary staff and I did one ourselves. It was really interesting. The third day I shadowed one of the Marine Vets. He had us running all over the place, between a very busy schedule and the emergency calls he received. I was even able to go with him to the outside tank when he was giving one of the female harbor seals an injection. The trainers would feed and distract the other seals while he did his work.
The last two days that I was at the Aquarium, I worked with the dive staff and the Giant Ocean Tank (GOT) staff. I helped with food prep, feeding, cleaning and diving. The GOT animals are fed 3 times per day, so there is a lot of food prep in the morning. After feedings we have to wash all the containers that were used. I had never done so many dishes! Paul took me in for a tour of the tank. It was so cool to see all of the different types of animals within one small ecosystem. I noticed very quickly how friendly the turtles are, especially Myrtle, who wants to know everything going on in the tank. The next day, when I was doing a cleaning dive I was kneeling in an area known as the sand trap scrubbing some rocks, when one of the loggerheads came over and sat on top of my legs. It was pretty funny to watch the turtle nestle in against me. When I was not cleaning, I handled some of the surface feeds. There are many fish, like the cobia, barracuda, puffer fish, needle nose fish that are fed from the surface. Myrtle is also fed on the surface and her favorite food is Brussels sprouts. The last day I was at the NEAQ, Dan Dolan took me into the tank and I was able to do some video taping for my presentation. In the afternoon, I went back to the penguins where I got to feed them myself. One of my favorite things about my time at the NEAQ was when I would first arrive in the morning. It wasn’t open to the public yet so the lights where just starting to turn on and it was extremely quiet, all you could hear was the sound of the water and the animals. I really enjoyed my experience at the Aquarium and learned so many things about how an aquarium works.
The last weekend in June, I went to Orleans on Cape Cod, where I stayed with Boston Sea Rover George Buckley. We were working on a Limulus and Busycon projects. The Busycon cavia is the New England whelk or conch and Limulus polyphemus is the horseshoe crab. While I was there we went to Rock Harbor, Pleasant Bay, and Nauset Beach to find Busycon egg cases and baby Limulus. We unfortunately did not find any Limulus, but we did find conch egg cases. We opened the egg cases and counted the tiny conchs, in each case. The weekend was very interesting and I learned a lot about Limulus, Busycon, and sea shells.
For three days I worked at Diver’s Market in Plymouth, MA. Wayne Gomer owns the shop and started me off with organizing rental equipment and painting weights. Then he gave me the job of rearranging the store and creating a new floor plan. Over the next few days, I learned how to fill tanks, do visual tank inspections with the Visual Plus machine, put together regulators, and change o-rings. In the end, I learned quite a bit about what it takes to operate a dive shop and I really enjoyed the experience.
Today I went to visit Fred Dion, the owner of Underwater Phototech in New Hampshire. Here I also learned how to put together and use the camera and housing that I received for the use during the internship. The camera is a Sony HC-3 camera with a Gates HD housing. I learned how the camera lines up to fit perfectly within the housing and what the different buttons on the housing are used for during filming. This information will be extremely helpful for making my presentation. I also learned how to put camera and housing packages together and how to make packing slips.
This morning I headed out to Salem, MA to meet Dave Caldwell and Heather Knowles. We would be going out on their boat the Gauntlet, for dry suit and advanced training. Heather and Dave run the Gauntlet as a charter dive boat on the weekends, so for the first charter in the morning I worked as a deck hand with Dave to help the divers with their gear. On the second trip, Dave and I dove the Chester Polling, the wreck of a small tanker located off the entrance to Gloucester Harbor. The visibility was amazing and we even saw a wolf eel! On the way back to shore, Dave taught me how to drive the boat. It was a lot of fun and the diving was great.
Today I worked with Alison Leschen from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries mapping horseshoe crab spawning behavior on Swifts Beach in Wareham, MA. To do the survey, we mapped out a series of 5ft x 5ft grids along the shore and into the water. We surveyed the beach from end to end. We recorded if there were horseshoe crabs within the grid, tallied the totals, and Alison entered the information into the database.
Bonaire is one of the small islands off the coast of Venezuela that make up the Netherlands Antilles. Our travels began early with a flight out of Boston and a layover in San Juan. When we arrived that night, the heat and humidity were still high. We stayed at Captain Don’s Habitat and I saw the saying “Diving Freedom” on their welcome sign. It seemed to fit with the countries’ license plate that said a “Diver’s Paradise”. For the first time in my life, I saw crystal clear blue water and the week was filled with diving and projects. The diving here was unbelievable! I saw so many marine creatures, from sea turtles, eels, angel fish, and many more. One day on the boat to a dive site a pod of dolphins swam by. If I had to pick a favorite dive there would be a tie between a night dive at Town Pier and the Hilma Hooker. The night dive was incredible; being my first night dive, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The colors of the corals at night and the creatures were wicked cool. The Hilma Hooker is a shipwreck off the south end of the island. It was amazing being able to see the wreck lying at the bottom in about 110ft of water, from 15ft below the surface.
Besides for diving, I worked at the Habitat dive shop, and at STINAPA and the Bonaire National Marine Park. While at STINAPA I helped conduct underwater surveys. The surveys were being done on the behavior of divers touching corals.
When not underwater, Dave and Pat Morton, Kim Douglas, and I traveled the island, where we saw the salt flats, Rincon, Lac Bay, and the slave huts. One of the last days I was there, Jack Chalk, our host, took Kim and I on motorcycle rides on his Harley around the island. It was a new experience being able to taste the salty air, while driving. The trip was filled with lots of diving and more leaning than I could have ever imagined, but mostly it was a wicked lot of fun!!!
We were on the road early this morning to drive to Stage Fort Park in Gloucester for the DUI dry suit Demo Days. I was going to be able to dive for the first time in my new dry suit. Faith talked with me and Jamie Brisbin (the 2008 Our World Underwater Scholar) about our suits and then helped us cut our seals. We were briefed and suited up for our first dive in our new suits with my Dad. It was amazing being underwater without getting wet or cold. After the dive, I met up with Patrick Scalli and Dave and Pat Morton to talk about how everything went with the suit.
I have attended Rover Clinics for most of my life, but I arrived at the Boston Copley Hotel to begin the weekend activities not knowing what to expect. I could only imagine what the weekend would be like. Friday began with COMS or Career Opportunities in Marine Sciences, hosted by George Buckley for high school students. As the morning went on, I was introduced to Sea Rovers, speakers, and the past interns with whom I would be working with this summer. Watching Ryan Hunter (2007 Intern) present, I knew the bar had been set high. The weekend continued with a pre-Clinic Reception at the Gamble Mansion. Here I met a lot of interesting people all with one common thing, a love of the ocean. Richard Simon and Kate Douglas (the first two Scalli Interns) were very helpful with introductions and networking around the room. I went to bed with my head spinning, thinking of all of the wonderful opportunities I would have this summer.
After getting up early on Saturday to help with setting up the Clinic, the day was filled with presentations and speaking with the Sponsors. In the afternoon, I was able to sit in on an underwater photography workshop with Jim and Pat Stayer. The presentation was wonderful and covered everything from buying a camera to editing video and everything in between. Racing off to dinner before the film festival, I couldn’t believe I was sitting at the same table with Evening Speakers Chuck Davis, Bob Talbot, Steve Drogin, Stan Waterman, and Jill Heinerth. Soon after we were at the Evening Film Festival, where I watched amazing footage of the speaker’s latest adventures. Then it was time for Patrick Scalli to bring me to the stage and officially introduce me as the 2008 Intern. All I kept thinking about on the way to the stage was “don’t trip”. Afterwards, I attended the reception back at the hotel, which included the traditional dunking of new Sea Rovers into the silver bowl. I was very surprised when I heard my name called as the next one to be dunked.
Sunday, I was fitted for my dry suit at the DUI booth by Faith Ortins and had a meeting with Dave and Pat Morton about the Internship. I was astounded when they told me that I would be going to Bonaire first. I couldn’t believe the weekend I just had and I am very grateful for the huge welcome I received from the Sea Rovers.