A wrench in my plans

This week was FULL of wrenches being thrown into plans.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but things just don't always go how you image it.  I've learned that a lot this year, and my Type-A-self is starting to get better at accepting it.  So here are just a few of the wrenches for the week:

WRENCH #1:  We had a field trip on Monday.  We were supposed to go out to the island on the South side of DISL where there's apparently a huge variety of fish for us to use for our collections.  We were going to do gill netting and seining.  Bad news is that it was a bit too windy over there, so we planned to go to "Little Dauphin Island." This is a secluded island on the inside of the bay.  It was very pretty, actually- nice calm water, beautiful clean sand.  Unfortunately it also has less variety of fishes.  We started seining and got anchovies our first time.  Just anchovies.  So we try it again and again and we got anchovies and some more anchovies and some more anchovies.  Needless to say, this is not the most successful we've ever been.  But the gill nets weren't done yet, so we decided to play in the sand while we waited.

You want to build a sand man? It doesn't have to be a sand man! How bout a man-a-tee!

Yup.  Pretty proud of our Matthew Manatee!

Then time for the gill net!  This is just strings cross-netted to catch anything that tries to swim through it.  It catches the fish right at the gills, hence the name.  They're supposed to catch about a bajillion fish.  The fishing industry has shied away from them: too much bycatch of sea turtles/mammals/etc that die of drowning when they get stuck in them.  We only had our net out for 1 hour to be safe and got 4 or 5 fishes.  My favorite catch:

 

Who's that Lady?? (Who's that Lady??) Fiiiiine Lady! 

It's a Lady Fish, guys!

So after a day outside, we got a picture with a Man-atee, a bunch of anchovies, and a super cool Lady Fish. And at least we still went on the field trip! So many positives!

WRENCH #2:  We had a field trip that was supposed to be today.  The plan was to do long-lining, which I've never done, but it sounds awesome!  We're going to catch huge fish and sharks, apparently.  First, the trip was supposed to be all day, but the big boat is being repaired, so we split the class and planned to each have a half day out. It's going to be easier with fewer people on the boat anyways.  Plus, we get half a day off! No complaints here.  But then today was supposed to be super stormy, so Jim called the trip off and rescheduled it for Monday.  To make matters worse, the weather today was GORGEOUS.  I'm talking perfect boat weather: sunshiney and beautiful, not a cloud in the sky....  And we were stuck inside.  We were SO ready for that field trip!  Our class was not feeling today's whole day of lecture and lack-of-sun-and-boat.  But we're still going on Monday! As of now anyways.  My fingers are crossed for this freakish weather to cooperate.

WRENCH #3:  (This one's my favorite!)  I had a blog post ready for Father's Day, and it was touching and sweet and everything.  But it was also about how bummed I am that I can't celebrate with my dad.... Well times have changed!  My family called me in the middle of my fish dissections today to tell me that they just decided to come visit and would be here in 5 hours. Talk about spontaneity! It's gonna be so great!!  So I'll see them in approximately 2 hours, and then they leave Saturday afternoon.  It's not exactly Father's Day, but we're celebrating early! I can't wait for all the fun we're about to have!  And don't worry, I'll still have a super sweet Father's Day blog.  I'm just going to need to start over- this is what I get for trying to be on top of things.  BUT I'll take fun with my family over a quality blog post any day of the week.