Fri, 12 Feb
i've republished the Spotted Eagle Ray video on You Tube ... it wasn't working, i apologize to anyone who has been trying to watch it .... go to : www.youtube.com, search "Glovers - Spotted Eagle Ray"
today was a perfect beautiful day .... blue skies, hot, no wind ... and lots of sand flies ... aka no-see-ums! i found an entire book in our library here, on Sand Flies ... it's actually titled "The Sand Flies of Florida" ... i wish they would have stayed in Florida :)
in the morning we started preparation to tag a stingray. i've heard about this, but i didn't believe it was possible .... they started by laying out 100 yds of netting, a whole "American" football field worth :)
it was kind of tangled, but they got it untangled and repaired some spots. .... oh ... i was walking around looking for some fishing line when i finally got a photo of Wish Willy. There are a lot iguana's here, this guy is one of the biggest ones.
back to the project .... they then folded the net 'accordian-style' and put it in a boat. Brian, Nick, and I took it out into the lagoon and strung it in the shallow water. we also put some fish/conch guts in a mesh bag and hung it on the netting. then drove upwind and poured some more guts in the water to try to attract stingrays.
here is Nick with the net in the water
we drove around for awhile and spotted one stingray and tried to 'corral' him into the net. now i've heard to corraling cattle and horses ... and i even experienced corralling cats with Madi ... but stingrays? ... in the water ? ......
here are Brian and Marie chasing after a stingray ....
us looking for a stringray ... that's me STANDING on the bow of the boat ... but i am holding on to a rope for safety, Mom .... :)
with 2 boats in the water, we drove around for awhile ...and i'll be damned, if we didn't find a little stingray. with a boat on each side of her, keeping her in line towards the net, we slowly 'moved' her right into the net. i wonder if Ronnie would be impressed????? ....then Nick jumped in the water and closed the netting around it, ....then they put her in net to transfer her into the boat that had a 'make-shift' holding tank in it
i was in charge of putting water in the 'tank' and keeping the water 'fresh' because the water would heat up quickly, so i needed to make sure the water stayed cool ... important job !!!!!!!! once in the tank, they put an electronic tag on her, took measurements, and a skin sample.
... (this reminded me of my volunteer days on the Kalamazoo River Project when we would take the baby Great Horned Owls out of their nest and Pammy would take blood samples, measure, etc., and then return them.) .... we then took the little stingray back her back to where we first saw her, and let her go.
Alex letting the little Stingray, Cuaja, go free.
after 24 hours, we will need to go out and find her and follow her .... that will be a story for another day....... absolutely amazing! Alex would have liked to get another larger stingray today, since she was so small; but we didn't have any luck on that. so after lunch, we went back out and collected the net. end of that task for today.
while we were out there, we saw this Nurse Shark swimming around ... probably eating all the fish guts we put out ... it was such a beautiful clear calm day ... it was like looking through glass!
after that Marie and i headed back outside the reef by our back door again to do stingray behavior observations ... the same place where we saw the dolphins, spotted eagle ray, and turtle. we snorkeled around for quite awhile, ... me still amazed at the beauty of the underwater world. the sun was coming through the water and the fish were everywhere. we did not find any stingrays for her to observe. then ... i saw the Spotted Eagle Ray .... AGAIN ... this is the 3rd time we've seen her ... and again, she just cruised around, not paying us any attention.
awhile later Brian joined us ... then i heard Marie say, in a very serious voice ... "look behind you" .... i had my camera in my hand, and as i turned, i saw a Shark!!!!!!!!!!!!! ..... and quickly took several photos ...
and then, ..... i stopped, ..... and thought ... should i be afraid? this was not a Nurse Shark, the ones with no teeth, which i am accustomed to seeing and being around ..... this one had teeth, it was a real shark ..... he was curious of us, and then took off. WOW !
we saw him again in a few minutes, but this time he kept his distance; swimming around below us. we followed him for quite awhile too. it also was unusual for a reef shark to hang around and be so curious
... in the meantime, ....the Spotted Eagle Ray was still swimming around,
and we also saw a big Nassau Grouper. The Nassau Grouper are real pretty, with stripes perpendicular down their backs. this grouper is in danger of becoming extinct, and there are many studies going on right now to help it. they have a huge spawning area just at the north end of Glovers. a lot of researchers were here last week to study them. they dive down 120ft, (that's a long way), for 8 minutes, and try to count how many groupers are spawning .... and there are hundreds. they can only stay down for 8min, because they are down so deep.
it was time to go in to get ready for dinner ... so we started swimming in. the sun was getting low and these fishes were SO PRETTY against the light:
i also saw that HUGE Caribbean Spiny Lobster again ..... made me SO HUNGRY !!!!!!!!!!
i have some video, again on You Tube, of the shark and also the Nassau Grouper .... but you'll have to look close to see it. hopefully, i'll have a chance to get a better photo before i go ..... go to: www.youtube.com; and type "Glovers - 12 Feb" in the search box.
it was kind of tangled, but they got it untangled and repaired some spots. .... oh ... i was walking around looking for some fishing line when i finally got a photo of Wish Willy. There are a lot iguana's here, this guy is one of the biggest ones.
back to the project .... they then folded the net 'accordian-style' and put it in a boat. Brian, Nick, and I took it out into the lagoon and strung it in the shallow water. we also put some fish/conch guts in a mesh bag and hung it on the netting. then drove upwind and poured some more guts in the water to try to attract stingrays.
here is Nick with the net in the water
we drove around for awhile and spotted one stingray and tried to 'corral' him into the net. now i've heard to corraling cattle and horses ... and i even experienced corralling cats with Madi ... but stingrays? ... in the water ? ......
here are Brian and Marie chasing after a stingray ....
us looking for a stringray ... that's me STANDING on the bow of the boat ... but i am holding on to a rope for safety, Mom .... :)
with 2 boats in the water, we drove around for awhile ...and i'll be damned, if we didn't find a little stingray. with a boat on each side of her, keeping her in line towards the net, we slowly 'moved' her right into the net. i wonder if Ronnie would be impressed????? ....then Nick jumped in the water and closed the netting around it, ....then they put her in net to transfer her into the boat that had a 'make-shift' holding tank in it
i was in charge of putting water in the 'tank' and keeping the water 'fresh' because the water would heat up quickly, so i needed to make sure the water stayed cool ... important job !!!!!!!! once in the tank, they put an electronic tag on her, took measurements, and a skin sample.
... (this reminded me of my volunteer days on the Kalamazoo River Project when we would take the baby Great Horned Owls out of their nest and Pammy would take blood samples, measure, etc., and then return them.) .... we then took the little stingray back her back to where we first saw her, and let her go.
Alex letting the little Stingray, Cuaja, go free.
after 24 hours, we will need to go out and find her and follow her .... that will be a story for another day....... absolutely amazing! Alex would have liked to get another larger stingray today, since she was so small; but we didn't have any luck on that. so after lunch, we went back out and collected the net. end of that task for today.
while we were out there, we saw this Nurse Shark swimming around ... probably eating all the fish guts we put out ... it was such a beautiful clear calm day ... it was like looking through glass!
after that Marie and i headed back outside the reef by our back door again to do stingray behavior observations ... the same place where we saw the dolphins, spotted eagle ray, and turtle. we snorkeled around for quite awhile, ... me still amazed at the beauty of the underwater world. the sun was coming through the water and the fish were everywhere. we did not find any stingrays for her to observe. then ... i saw the Spotted Eagle Ray .... AGAIN ... this is the 3rd time we've seen her ... and again, she just cruised around, not paying us any attention.
awhile later Brian joined us ... then i heard Marie say, in a very serious voice ... "look behind you" .... i had my camera in my hand, and as i turned, i saw a Shark!!!!!!!!!!!!! ..... and quickly took several photos ...
and then, ..... i stopped, ..... and thought ... should i be afraid? this was not a Nurse Shark, the ones with no teeth, which i am accustomed to seeing and being around ..... this one had teeth, it was a real shark ..... he was curious of us, and then took off. WOW !
we saw him again in a few minutes, but this time he kept his distance; swimming around below us. we followed him for quite awhile too. it also was unusual for a reef shark to hang around and be so curious
... in the meantime, ....the Spotted Eagle Ray was still swimming around,
and we also saw a big Nassau Grouper. The Nassau Grouper are real pretty, with stripes perpendicular down their backs. this grouper is in danger of becoming extinct, and there are many studies going on right now to help it. they have a huge spawning area just at the north end of Glovers. a lot of researchers were here last week to study them. they dive down 120ft, (that's a long way), for 8 minutes, and try to count how many groupers are spawning .... and there are hundreds. they can only stay down for 8min, because they are down so deep.
it was time to go in to get ready for dinner ... so we started swimming in. the sun was getting low and these fishes were SO PRETTY against the light:
i also saw that HUGE Caribbean Spiny Lobster again ..... made me SO HUNGRY !!!!!!!!!!
i have some video, again on You Tube, of the shark and also the Nassau Grouper .... but you'll have to look close to see it. hopefully, i'll have a chance to get a better photo before i go ..... go to: www.youtube.com; and type "Glovers - 12 Feb" in the search box.
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