Cracked Conch and Days on the Water

Beep Beep Beep.......Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep......Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep.................Beep Beep Beep......Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep......Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep. These are the noises that I am going to learn to love as we recently had our first day in the field tracking juvenile lemon sharks in the north sound. The sequence above is transmitted by a small radio transmitter about the size of your pinky finger implanted inside the body cavity of the shark. From the sequence above we are able to identify this shark as shark 378 and we tracked this shark for about 4 hours while he swam through the mangroves. Tracking these sharks helps identify their home-range and determine if the construction of a large resort and the consequential destruction of almost half the mangrove shoreline is having an impact on the lemon shark nursery. I have no complaints about spending my entire "work day" on the water.

My second check of the long line was a success as we found a 258cm tiger shark on the line. I took the DNA sample of the large shark and have some good pictures of it. Trying to hold onto the dorsal fin of the beautiful shark was extremely tough because of the immense strength of the shark. The group that hauled the lines had the luck of catching two more tiger sharks that I was not able to see. However, I got to watch two surgeries for the removal of the radio transmitters from previously tracked sharks. It was really cool being able to watch the shark put into tonic (hypnosis) while they performed the surgery. The following days were filled with class after class, but thankfully they are done and I am ready to spend every possible day on the water. For now the adrenaline filled activities are over, but I am sure they will be here again before I know it. We had the day off today and spent the day exploring the North Island which was very interesting and had my first cracked conch which was delicious. We finished the day with a snorkel on a rock formation called three sisters. It was a very pretty snorkel but was a long swim to get out there and to get back. So long for now......