The most ridiculous story

Today was one of those days that people will tell stories about. Ten years from now, some of these researchers, including myself, will start a story with “There was this one time in Belize when the most ridiculous thing happened…” Here is the story. 

Today started off like any other day. Delicious breakfast and then getting the gear ready for our morning lionfish dive. By this time, all of us hunters (Me, Danielle, Mike, and Lane) are really accurate and are able to bag dozens of lionfish in a single trip. We were in about 60 feet of water, with just a few lionfish in the bag. Suddenly, we came upon a reef flat with (I kid you not) at least 10 lionfish in plain view and probably dozens more hiding behind sponges. Danielle and I got right to work. I swam in and speared one within a few seconds of spotting it. I killed it with my extra spear and then swam back to the bag to shove it in. The bag is made of heavy-duty plastic and usually holds up well against lionfish spines. However, in my excitement and rush to get more fish, I got a little careless. I maneuvered my fish into the bag and then shook it to get it off the spear, but it wouldn’t come off. Normally, I would then have taken my other spear and pried it off. In my hurry, I pulled my spear out too fast, with the fish attached and used my hand to push on the bag to keep it closed. Just my luck, the lionfish spines pierced the bag and went right into the fleshy part of my left thumb. 

Instant pain. Holy moly guacamole. Yikes. I screamed into my regulator for a while and then kind of floated away from the bag. I stared at my thumb and wondered what life would be like without it, because surely cutting it off would be less painful than this. I was done hunting for the day. Danielle motioned that we should go up, but I shook my head. I didn’t want to cut the dive short and there were still so many lionfish to spear. I thought about trying to spear another one, but then I realized that I couldn’t move my thumb since it had swelled up to twice its normal size.  I watched the other divers spear more fish while I floated nearby, trying to be helpful by holding dropped kill sticks during the hunt. Eventually we made it back to the boat (alongside a remora) and back to the island where I promptly put my thumb in the hottest water I could stand (to denature the poison). I remained with my thumb in a cup of hot water for several hours until the pain dissipated. By mid-afternoon, I was as right as rain. My thumb still looked chunky and hurt like I had squished it in a door a few days ago. 

It was time for our second dive. I wanted to go again because I was feeling fine and I wanted to have my revenge on the stupid lionfish. Back in the water, I saw another lionfish, but I was too timid to shoot it. I hesitated, remembering the pain, and couldn’t focus on the shot. This is what happened for the first few that I tried to spear. Finally, I saw an easy shot and speared it. Being very careful, I placed it in the bag without getting stuck. After that one, I realized that my lust for revenge was spent and the lionfish made me a little bit too uncomfortable to continue hunting. I still wanted to help, though, so I carried the bag and opened it up for other people’s fish. The first time I opened up the bag to help someone, the fish jerked a little and to my complete astonishment, the freaking thing stabbed me in the right thumb!!! I couldn’t believe it!! The pain was intense, but I just started laughing like a crazy person. How is this even possible! Right when I decided to stop spearing, I get nicked again! Ahhhhhhh! I must have looked like a maniac in the water because I was laughing so hard. It was ridiculous. Finally, we finished the dive and came back to the island for hot water. The other researchers asked “How’s your thumb?” I replied “Which one?” Haha. It sucked. 

So now I have two large thumbs and a crazy story. Now you see what I mean when I said that in ten years everyone will start stories like this: “There was this one time in Belize when the most ridiculous thing happened. One two different dives on the same day, this girl gets stabbed in both her thumbs.” How ridiculous. On the plus side, we speared a total of 47 lionfish today, breaking our record. We saved the reef, and if getting speared by a lionfish spine is the price, I would gladly pay it. Well, maybe not gladly, but I'm glad we saved the reef:)

Anyway, in better news, the Acropora corals spawned tonight! It was so exciting and we collected loads of bundles. We still expect there to be more spawning tomorrow night to finish the Acropora spawning season! We now have two healthy batches of corals swimming (well, floating) in our wet lab. Hurray!

Water Ballet

More lionfish hunting. We speared 23 today. Many of the sites had clearly seen divers before and knew what to expect. 

The interesting part of today was that the corals started to spawn! We were hoping to collect the Acropora corals for research because they are hardier, but they aren’t cooperating. As soon as I got into the water, I realized that my light was really dim. Over the course of 30 minutes, it got so dim that I couldn’t see anything and had to stay near Danielle to see the corals. Then, what sounded and felt like a depth-charge went off in my hands and something hard hit me in the face. I realized that my dive light had exploded in my hand. Actually exploded. The batteries hit the floor, the body was attached to my wrist, and the light-bulb top section flew to the surface, hitting me in the face on the way up. We still had a 2-hour dive left and I had no light. The rest of the dive, I had to swim very close to Danielle so that I could still see anything. We did manage to see several sting rays and a bat fish (probably the ugliest and funkiest fish I have ever seen). 

Finally, we saw the star corals (M. annularis) “setting” to spawn. We made it over to a large head of corals just in time to see all of the tiny pink bundles slowly lift off the corals, sway synchronously in the water and then drift away. It was like a beautiful water ballet! We set up the nets and collected a fair number of the bundles before packing everything up and getting back to the boat. After 2.5 hours of diving, most people were pushing the red line on their air tanks. One buddy group had to buddy breathe while another person took his last breath of tank air as he was climbing up the ladder into the boat. Good thing we were only in 6 feet of water!

Back at the island, we performed a cross because we only had 2 sample colonies. We mixed the eggs of one with the sperm of another and vice versa. The bundles had all broken up and now we could see the true size of the eggs - super super tiny! We set them up in flow-through tanks and monitored them a few times before heading to bed. What a crazy day!

Lionfish huntress of the deep

Since we had no corals to perform tests on, we decided to go on a dive with the lionfish hunting crowd. The hunters use slingshot spears about 2.5 feet long - basically a sharp spear with a rubber band at the base. You stretch the rubber band towards the tip; when you release it, the spear flies forward. Since these spears are so small, we have to get closer that a foot away from the lionfish in order to spear it. To further complicate things, the lionfish try to get away (duh) after you spear them, so you have to be careful that they don’t swim up the spear at your unprotected fingers. 

The first dive we took was a small patch reef in about 25 feet of water. I tried to spear a lionfish, but failed miserably before I gave up. I spent the rest of the dive looking at the massive nurse shark sleeping on the seafloor and marveling at the zillions of little reef fish. When we had exhausted all of the sights at this reef patch, we popped back into the boat and tried a new location. Again, I tried to spear a lionfish and again, I failed. I did see some peppermint shrimp, some southern stingrays and several whelk egg cases. 

Back at the island for lunch and then a quick nap in my cabin before we headed out again for a deeper dive. We started above sand at about 45 feet and then hit a reef wall that descended to 86 feet. Basically, instead of swimming just above a flat reef, we were swimming alongside a very steep reef face, with reef on one side and open blue water on the other. We spotted so many lionfish and FINALLY I shot one down. After the first one, the others were easy and within just a few minutes our lionfish bag was bulging. Back at the island, we cleaned the fish and realized we had killed 27 lionfish in one day! For those of you who don’t know, lionfish are an invasive species that is destroying the reef, so I don’t feel bad about killing and eating a bunch of them. Further, we found millions of eggs in many of the fish, so we were thrilled to have killed them before they released. 

After dinner, we headed back to the near-shore reef site to await the coral spawn, which is a few days late by now. We stayed in the water for over an hour, but no coral sent out a single gamete bundle. We saw some octopuses and then played with the bioluminescence before heading back to the island. 

We need some "mood" music for these stupid corals

There is no air-condition on the entire island, but honestly, it’s not necessary. The swift breeze cools everything down and makes the island pleasant and mosquito free. To let the breeze in, our room has almost a dozen windows and we always keep the door open. In the middle of the night last night, I found myself standing on the porch with no idea how I got there. For the 3rd time in my life, I sleep walked (slept-walked?) — luckily I didn’t go very far!

After a delicious breakfast, we heard that we were cleared to dive, so Danielle and I took a shallow dive off the beach to collect small fish needed for an experiment back at Georgia Tech. Using clove oil (a natural anesthetic) we rounded the fish into a net and then put them in a collection bag. This process lasted for over an hour and we came back to the lab with a significant amount of fish, although we need just a few more of a couple species. 

After lunch, we helped clean the dozens of lionfish that some of the researchers had speared earlier in the day. Making an assembly line, one person cut off the spines, another filleted the fish, and then Danielle removed the stomachs and placed them in ethanol to be transported back to Tech for analysis. 

After dinner, we geared up for the coral spawn. Wearing a full wetsuit with a hood, we snorkeled to the boat, donned our tanks and then sunk beneath the waves. I was told to look at the coral polyps for signs of setting - a swollen polyp with a pink ball of gametes at the tip is the indicator that the corals will spawn tonight. 

Nothing.

No corals even pretended to look like they were going to spawn. It was actually a rather boring dive because there were no octopuses or other cool creatures to photograph while we waited for the corals to do anything. After over and hour, we gave up, knowing that if they were going to spawn, they would have done so before 9 pm. 

Hello from Belize!

8-13-14

Hello from Belize!! I am on the beautiful island of Carrie Bow Cay. Hard to believe that I woke up in Atlanta, caught a 9:45 flight and was on this remote island by 2 pm. (with a puddle jumper flight, a car ride and a boat ride in between). The island is very small - basically 3 buildings (a 2-story lab and 2 sleeping cabins) and no source of fresh water, if you can believe it. Shower and cooking water is collected from the rain and drinking water is brought to the island via boat once a week. I am sharing a room with a girl my own age named Lane. The cabin sits not 10 feet from the water and we always keep the doors and windows open. I don’t even notice the lack of A/C because the sea breeze is wonderfully strong. 

When we arrived, we set up our gear and then tried to access the internet with no avail (the reason this post is so far behind schedule and is picture-deficient). Then my advisor, Danielle Dixson, and I snorkeled out to the buoy and marked corals, from which we will collect the spawn tonight. The reef is just a short swim away from the beach in about 6-8 feet of water. The reef is absolutely beautiful! The elkhorn (Acropora palmata) and staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) are thriving, with elkhorn heads larger than I have ever seen! 

Shortly after our snorkel, we ate a delicious dinner provided by the local cook that lives on the island. It was amazing and included chocolate cake! Due to paperwork issues, Danielle and I were not able to dive for the spawn tonight, but we were able to snorkel. At 7:30 pm, just after dark, we donned our wetsuits and snorkel gear and headed into the water. We saw so many amazing creatures while waiting for the corals to spawn. We filmed several octopus moving along the bottom, as well as a few squid several sleeping fishes, and some large crabs and lobsters. Around 9 pm, well after dark, we realized that the corals were not going to spawn tonight. We kept checking the corals for the telltale sign of spawning - little pink balls of egg and sperm at the tip of each coral polyp - but nothing indicated that the corals would spawn tonight. 

We swam back to shore and hung out for a while before bed, hopeful that the corals would spawn tomorrow. 

*pictures will be posted later!! :)