Saturday, June 21, 2014

Keep Calm and Science On

Last boat trip. Yep. Sadness. I have to post pictures because I know you guys are freaking out waiting to see them. I had mentioned earlier that I got to tag a blacktip shark, so here's the proof of my adventure! Here ya go!


Getting ready for a good boat day! My friend was kind of tired...it was an early day.




And the forecast called for rain...ridiculous.


We had to throw our guns up. Go, back row! Represent!


I got to measure another shark! An Atlantic sharpnose. We had a good amount of those. They were definitely in abundance.


Sharks everywhere. It was thumbs-up worthy.


I'm putting used hooks into the barrels after we take them off the longline. We check each hook one by one. That's 100 hooks, people. It took a while, especially with the amount of sharks we had.




Here's the shark I measured! Pretty picture time!


This is one of the blacktip sharks we caught! We actually caught 2 blacktips. I tagged one of them. This was the first one and I tagged the second one.


This was the second blacktip. Mine! It was a flopper, alright. Full of energy, which is good. Sometimes the sharks caught are extremely sluggish or deceased. 


In the process of tagging. I just popped the tag in with that wooden handle. It was the coolest thing I've probably ever done. Ever. This tops it all.



Cheesin' with some fellow shark scientists!


We also got to dissect a female shark onboard on our way back! This bull shark was caught a couple days before on a gill net. She was pretty. And probably the smelliest shark ever in existence.



Shark selfie had to happen. Obviously.


In the process of dissection. It. Was. Smelly. But a good review of the internal organs and different systems.


 This is the only evidence of one of the bull sharks that were caught on the line. Both of these bull sharks were huge. Like, freaking enormous. Unfortunately they both broke their line. So we saw them but didn't get to haul them up onto the boat. It was so sad. But I'm just so happy with how the rest of the day went that I really didn't mind.


 Crazy class photo! We barely all fit on the boat. It's been fun, Shark Bio. Really fun. I've learned a lot. Not just about sharks, but also about myself. There have been bad days, like getting sea sick every Friday. There have been good days, like the last boat trip. I loved it all. Thanks for the memories. Shark biologists are the bomb, no question. I'm looking forward to my next steps, whatever those look like, toward my future. 

Only a few more words to say...
Keep calm and science on.






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