Fish move

The whole time I've been at the aquarium (starting in November), Glover's Reef, the large exhibit at the entrance to the aquarium, has been under construction. Its fishie residents have been living behind the scenes while the reef exhibit got a cleaning and some rearranging of its (yes, fake) coral. Today it was time for the fish to move back in, and I volunteered to help. It was originally supposed to happen last week but there was a problem with the water, but today it had to happen to be ready for the reef's scheduled opening next month.

Several members of the dive team were there, though most of us didn't dive. The job was to move the fish in wheeled garbage cans from the holding tank to Glover's. I was stationed on the deck above the Glover's tank. It's open on top and there was a beautiful view of the ocean. Definitely not a bad way to spend a morning. Most of what I did was take the wheels off the garbage cans so they could be put in the water and the fish could swim out. The fish were drugged so as not to be too disturbed by the move, and when we put them in the water they were lethargic and kind of out of it. The lookdowns were the wonkiest -- at first they lay flat in the water, beating their fins and hopelessly swimming around in circles. It was tempting to pick them up and put them right, but it's important not to handle the fish as it can disturb their protective coating. As the buckets came in, Dick, who was in the water, asked "What have we got?" Cownose rays, yellowtail snapper, goatfish, grunts, damselfish, hogfish, sergeant majors. "We got fish." We joked that it was like a sushi menu. Before the summer is over I will have no excuse but to know every species in Glover's Reef by heart. I hear the sergeant majors are vicious little devils who will bite divers who come too close to their turf. I still can't wait to dive Glover's -- I might get to this Sunday actually. :)

At 10 all the keepers take break -- mandatory! I ran into my friend Melinda in the cafeteria, she volunteers a full day every Wednesday, preparing food for and feeding the animals, among other things. After break, I followed some other divers to the shark tank for a special behind-the scenes view of the feeding. But our real purpose for being there was shark teeth! Sand tiger sharks naturally lose teeth all the time, and they fall to the sand in the bottom. The keeper fished some out with a net for us. Check it out!

Beneath the Sea recap

Whew, BtS is over and done, and I am happy to have my feet up!

Hmm, what can I say about this year's diving expo. In some ways it was a blast, but there were also disappointments. The best part of this weekend was the people. One year ago, I didn't know many divers, and I didn't know much about diving, particularly local diving. Apart from my certification dives at Dutch, I hadn't really done any local diving a year ago. I didn't know any local divers other than the few people from Dive NY I had met at a Sea Gypsies meeting. This year was a different story. Walking around the exhibits, so many people stopped me and said hello. Some were fellow dive club members, some were aquarium divers, and some were crew on the boats I had dived from this past year (lots of large middle-aged men were eager to chat me up, ha ha. I don't think they see many young women doing local diving!). I wore my NY Aquarium Dive Team shirt and several people asked me questions about it. It made me feel so much like part of a community, it was wonderful.

I didn't have any revelations or pick up any fantastic new gear or decide on a new trip or anything like that, but that's okay, I wasn't really expecting to. I will do a few things differently next year. I probably won't buy a weekend pass. I'm glad I went Saturday and Sunday, but it ended up that my friends weren't interested in the Saturday night film festival or party, so I could have saved money on those. The Fish and Famous Gala on Friday was rather lame (cash bar, bad music, silent auction prizes way out of my price range). Next year if I want to go out Friday night I'll just go to the much cheaper and more age-appropriate Tech/Wreck party. And if I table for ScubaBoard.com one of the days, I'll get in for free anyway.

Yesterday was spent wandering the exhibits and attending a seminar or two. Dr. Mike, Sarah and Melinda came in the afternoon and we wandered around together. Notable booths included the Montauk shark dive charter (Sarah wants to do it too, I really hope we do it!) and the Florida Keys Coral Reef Restoration Foundation. I may do a trip down there sometime to help restore coral nurseries. I also talked to the Aquawoman Dive people, and it sounds like a really nice event -- Long Island women divers renting boats for an all-women day of diving -- but in the end I decided not to do it just yet. Even though I'm sure they would have accomodated me, I'll wait till I'm older and more experienced. Beneath the Sea has a lot of great deals on travel if you're ready to book at the show, but a lot of my travel plans are already set for this year and I don't have a regular travel partner. I meant to make it to more seminars, but I found looking at the booths to just be more fun, and unfortunately Sylvia Earle, the woman I really wanted to see speak, was inexplicably a no-show. Boo. Oh well. Then we went to to the Sea Gypsies party, and that was fun if loud and crowded, and then we got dinner, and then everyone went home. I would have liked to stay out later, but the truth is I was tired so I guess it's just as well. And OMG SO COLD OUTSIDE, wtf??

Today I felt like I could take or leave the show, but I had volunteered to table for ScubaBoard, so I had to go. Also, one of the SGs had told me her boyfriend could help me fit the blackplate and wing (a type of BC) I bought at the LI scuba flea market this winter. He did a lot of work moving the buckles around and cutting the webbing, even cutting himself in the process, and now my BP/W actually fits me! And I got to see a friend who was tabling for Sea Shepherd, which was cool. ScubaBoard turned out to be interested in partnering with Sea Shepherd and offered them a message board on the site, which was a cool little bit of networking. Total purchases for the weekend: 1 t-shirt (octopus), 1 tank top (Sea Shepherd), 1 dive flag charm for my Monterey Bay Aquarium charm bracelet. And lots of free posters, postcards, and stickers. 

Now it just needs to get warm...and the dive season can begin!

Sea Otter

Today I got my aquarium ID! The funny part is that it says "Animal Dept" under my name. All the other divers' IDs say "volunteer." Oops! Ha ha.

On Friday I took the day off to dive at the aquarium. I had to use the vacation day or lose it, and I figured it can't hurt to accumulate aquarium shifts now because I plan to miss a few this summer. We dove in sea otter (no sea otter inside though, they gated him) and I got to use the vacuum pump for the first time. That thing is great! Vacuuming is one of my favorite cleaning chores on land, and in the water too, because sucking things up without having to touch them is fun. :) In sea otter we were vacuuming pieces of shells and algae. The exhibit is split into two tanks with a narrow entry between the two that we had to crawl through sideways. There were only 3 other people there and things felt a lot more laid-back than they do on Sundays. We spent more time chatting before the dive and then when we were done we all went to lunch together in the cafe. I had thought I'd be home by 3, with time for a nap before the BtS Gala, but between lunch and an impromptu sea lion show, and then a not-so-quick ride back to Manhattan, I wasn't home till 5. I had an hour to get dressed and meet Dr. Mike in the city. It was an exhausting beginning to the weekend, but it was all fun!

Pooped

 EXHAUSTED. Another whirlwind weekend draws to a close. Another exciting day at the aquarium. I had thought today's assignment was to clean fur seal. Fur seal was said to be 52 F. I was game, if not thrilled, but I am dedicated. Fur seal is one of the exhibits where they gate the animals so you're just swimming in an empty tank. So I was surprised when I suited up and the keepers gated the sea lions and not the fur seals and said the water was a toasty 64 F! Okay, nice. But imagine my further shock and delight when I enter the exhibit and there's 2 sizeable harbor seals peeking out of the water at me! "There's aminals in here!" I declared, and the other divers said, yup, they only gate the sea lions. I had thought we didn't swim with any mammals! I walked up to the edge of the rocks and promptly slipped and fell on my ass, wearing my tank and everything. It was jarring but I was fine. I was still in a "I can't wait to tell all my friends" haze. They told me I would be scooping poop. Sure, whatever, bring it on, I'm diving with friggin seals, yeah!

Scooping poop underwater is not easy. Not hard in the way it would be on land, because underwater there's no smell at least. But those things fall apart if you try to pick them up and even if you just try to wave them into the net they go every which way but in. There weren't a lot of intact poops, it was kind of a hunting game for those. Mind you while I am swimming around, through the little arches and tunnels in the exhibit, every now and then a seal would swim over or under me. It was a little bit scary at first, but I knew they wouldn't touch me. They did regard me curiously though, and one held eye contact with me once for several seconds, which was awesome. When I had exhausted the poop search I got a brush to scrub the rocks, but most of them really didn't need it. In the places where the sun hit there was some green algae growing.  I was having trouble getting down to the bottom when it occurred to me that I forgot to put extra weights in my BC. I usually add 10 lb to my BC at the aquarium. Luckily the surface support guy had extra and I was able to get down again. I went back to scrub some rocks and noticed these tiny worms would attach themselves to my gloves when I would brush in some places. I had to brush them off me. Later another diver told me they come from the seal poop. Ew ew ew! One got on my hand later while I was rinsing my gear. I really hope seal parasites are not contagious to humans!

It wasn't cold at all and I was starting to feel like most of the work was done, so I spent some time mugging at kids through the glass, which is always fun. From inside the exhibit I could see the walrus was in the window of its tank. A visitor on the other side motioned for me to go into that tank. Um, no lady, is it not enough for you that I'm in here with the seals?! I guess she thought all the tanks were connected. Getting out of the exhibit was a bit embarrassing. There was no ladder and by the end of a dive I am so pooped that I couldn't haul myself out on my own. I had to take off most of my gear in the water ungracefully while visitors watched. Every time I dive I learn something though, and I hope that with time I'll have aquarium diving down to an art. Things like equipment setup, air management, weighting. I did try my secondary reg necklace today and it worked great. Most of you probably don't know what I'm talking about, that's okay. I'm tired.

After the aquarium I went to the Central Park Zoo to get in the rest of the animal handling practice sessions I need to be able to do the shows this year. And 'cause I'm nuts. I don't even want to talk about how many hours I was on the train today. I had some trouble with Harley the mini lop. It's tempting to lift a rabbit out of a carrier the way you'd lift a cat, but you can't just grab its middle and lift because you can break its back. You have to scoop underneath, supporting its feet. This is hard because this rabbit is not small. And it doesn't particularly enjoy being scooped out of its carrier. I will still need to work on that but they passed me anyway. Amazingly the skittish chinchilla posed no problem. Imagine a really big soft cute rat. They feel a lot smaller in your hands than they look because their fur is so poofy.

I didn't go take pictures of the baby goats. They're so cute though. I saw them yesterday. But I was so friggin tired today. I then went to a dinner party after all this. I'm home now and just punchy with exhaustion.

Did I mention I finished the sweater I was working on? I love it. It's awesome. I have to go weave its ends in now. And then sleep. Right. Good night!

My day as an aquarist

The guy who runs Oceanblue Divers has offered me a "regular" spot on the website blog. I like the idea of it but am afraid I lack the discipline to write regularly about my experiences diving. And yet I enjoy talking about my diving so much, maybe I should. So I want to get some notes down about yesterday's experience at the aquarium.

As a member of a NY Aquarium dive team, you get an assignment every 2 weeks on your designated day. Most of the time the assignment is diving in and cleaning an exhibit, for instance, the sea otter exhibit or a coral reef tank. Another possible assignment is surface support, which means you don't dive but keep track of the divers in the water and communicate with keepers and the volunteer coordinator. A third possiblility is being assigned to work in the coral lab, which I had the pleasure of doing for the first time yesterday.

I was asked to help Mike, who is one of the coral lab keepers. One of his many responsibilities is maintaining the aquarium's coral nursery, a room of about 12 large tanks that house baby corals, coral-dwelling fish (Nemo!), and even sea monkeys (aka brine shrimp). [Note to self: Sea Monkeys would be a great name for a dive club.] The aquarium grows the corals for use in smaller exhibits, particularly the ones in the part of the aquarium known as Conservation Hall.

Every day the water temperature of each tank must be taken and each night, calcium must be added to the water for the health of the corals. You may already know that corals are very sensitive to changes in water temperature. But did you know corals like a very low nutrient environment? That's partly why coral reefs are such great places to dive -- the water is clear because of a lack of nutrients. At the aquarium, plants are sometimes added to the tanks to soak up these nutrients. The water up around here, in contrast, is loaded with nutrients, which makes the water green and murky. Coral also need calcium to survive. In the ocean this comes from disintegrating seashells and sand, but at the aquarium it must be added to the water. Water must also be occasionally added to the tanks to compensate for the water that evaporates. This is also why the salinity of the water must constantly be measured.

My task was to go around and take the temperature of each tank. Then, with Mike's help, I filled the calcium drip buckets on top of each tank with RO water, which has been cleaned by reverse osmosis. At night this calcium solution is allowed to drip slowly into each tank. My third task was to check the salinity of each tank using a tool called a refractometer. After calibrating the tool with RO water (zero salinity) I went around to each tank and put 3 droplets of water on the "screen" and then looked through the other end like a kalidescope, where I could see a display telling me how much salt is in the water in parts per thousand (ppt). If the salinity was too low I called Mike over and he showed me how to add salt into the tank's filtration system.

Another fun part of being on coral lab duty is mandatory break at 10 AM every day. I now know the Aquarium cafe serves cheap breakfast before the park is open to the public. :)

After our break Mike took me on a brief tour of the Conservation Hall filtration systems. Mostly this involved Mike talking a lot about backwash and semi-closed versus open systems. I nodded a lot and asked just enough questions to make it seem like I knew what he was talking about. The filtration systems for that exhibit are all brand new and computer-controlled, and I can tell Mike is really excited about them. He also showed me the frog room, where there are several small tanks of different types of frogs. There was a White's tree frog, a tomato frog, and a tank of African bullfrogs, among others.

At around noon, just when we were about to feed bloodworms to the fish kept in the room next to the coral lab, the volunteer coordinator came around to collect us and call it a day. Mike told me the aquarium is understaffed and that just those small tasks that I helped do saved him a lot of time for other things he's responsible for, like payroll. He told me I'm welcome to come volunteer at the coral lab any day, and I get the sense that if I had the time and the inclination, I could basically be an aquarist's apprentice.