Watch for Sharks!

Oh, I most definitely did!  All day long! Watched 15 of them actually, as they came on and off our boat during our Long-Lining Trip today.  In a word it was flipping-awesome.

I'm sure you've all heard about the sharks at Orange Beach and are probably alarmed that my class went to collect sharks today.  Those vicious man-eating beasts! They're flocking! They must want to attack us! They want to eat us! They're dangerous! Stay away from them!  Yes, yes, yes. I've heard it all-- we've all heard these things time and time again.  But let's just stop this stigma society has with sharks right now.  Why do we have such a stigma with sharks anyways??  
Sharks have large, pointy teeth that look scary...but some people look scary too, so that can't be it.  Sharks have killed people in the past... but so have bees- it's 50x more likely that a bee will kill you than a shark.
These sharks are "flocking" at Orange Beach. Yeah, so what?? We have people that flock at shopping malls every day, and that doesn't freak us out (Well it freaks me out a smidgen, especially on Black Friday, but I digress).  And a group of sharks isn't a flock-- it's a shiver.  There's a name for it because it happens.  Sharks being in groups is a thing.  It's not "normal" for sharks to get in groups like this everyday, but it is perfectly normal for feeding and mating behavior.  And this grouping of sharks happens everywhere, not just at Orange Beach.  The only reason Orange Beach is a "big deal" is because it was in nice clear water, so that the sharks could be seen easily.  I guarantee that the same behavior at Orange Beach has occurred here at Dauphin Island, and probably sometime when I was swimming with them in the ocean.  But DIs has less-than-crystal-clear water, so an aerial view is not quite as revealing.

We fear sharks because we fear the unknown.  We just don't know much about sharks at all, and that's why this Long-Lining trip was so important.  Every shark that we caught was identified, measured, weighed, and tagged before being thrown back into the ocean.  When these sharks are spotted in the future (by fishermen or researchers or people like you!), we hope that they'll report the tag they saw and we can learn migration patterns of sharks and have an idea for shark population and species.  the more we understand them, the more we can protect them.  The more they're protected, the less invasive we are.  The less invasive we are, the less we need to worry about sharks.  

So now that I'm off my soap box, here's a recount of today-- one of my favorite days ever!!

We got an email from Jim telling us to "be ready to wrestle with the primitive denizens of the deep," and boy was I ready!  I love love love sharks!! Ever since I swam in a shark cage in high school, I've been a little obsessed.  They are just SO fascinating!  And whale sharks... Oh my goodness I'm obsessed with them too. If I could work with sharks my while life, I'd be one happy camper.  But back to today's shark-packed-life...

At 7:15am we all climbed aboard the E.O. Wilson and traveled out about 10 miles to set up our lines.  We were "Long-Lining," which is letting out one ridiculously long line with lots of little lines hanging from it with bait.  I made this beautiful picture to illustrate:

I'm a Paint artist, I know! Each orange circle is a bouy; the grey rectangles are weights.  You'll notice that our hooks are near the sediment-- that is by design.  Sharks are bottom feeders, so if you put food on the bottom, you'll catch them!  This also meant that we weren't going to catch any pelagic fish (those little red guys in the picture).

So the line was set up and our shark expert (Dr. Drymon- who the one of the coolest people I've had the pleasure of meeting) started calling the sharks, "Come on, fish!" and they listened!  It felt like we caught shark after shark, and every time we got another shark, the boat cheered with enthusiasm.  We brought up each shark on the boat to identify, measure, weigh, and tag.  And 15 sharks later, we had 4 new species for our collections and a fabulous day to remember. The Great Hammerhead we caught had to be wrestled down with four people, and the Scalloped Hammerhead was so big that we couldn't even get it on the boat!  I also took a picture with a Blacknose Shark:

 

^I'm dying of excitement right here!!!

Due to the current attention sharks are getting, our class made it on Channel 5's 6 o'clock news in Mobile, AL.  So we got to play with sharks all day and became famous. Gosh, we're cool! 

^Proof I've been on the news. Bam!

This was by far the coolest thing we've done this summer.  It actually might've been the coolest thing I've done in my life ever.  Ahhhh! I'm just really high on life right now!  Nothing excites me more than playing with sharks. And just a side note:  I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to study sharks in Grad school. So if you know anyone looking for another Grad student (for a PhD) or know of a professor that studies sharks, help a sister out.  You'd probably make my day life.

What's coming up: Well certainly nothing that's going to top today!  Especially because it's ba dum ba dum ba dum badumbadumbadm....DEAD WEEK!  Talk about terrifying!  Our Species Collections are due tomorrow, our Lab Practical is Thursday, and our Final Exam is Friday.  Welcome to Finals week at DISL!  It's going to be full of cram time and lacking beach days, and I'm not looking forward to it.  But I'm going to be so incredibly knowledgeable on all things Marine Vertebrates by Friday that I won't know what to do with my newly brilliant self.  Prayers are always welcome!  See you on the other side, friends!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all you Padres out there!  I hope you all have a ridiculously wonderful day full of fishing, food, and your kids being extra sweet to you.  Because, if we're being honest, Dads do a lot of stuff for us, and sometimes we're not so great at appreciating it.  In fact, sometimes we children are obnoxious, so thanks to all you dads for putting up with us!  Shoutout to the best dad in the whole wide world......

Isn't that funny?! The "Best Dad in the Whole Wide World" just so happens to be MY dad.  Man, I'm a lucky kid! (And I'm that super adorable one on the right)

This guy is awesome. Amazing, actually.  In fact, I'm going to take some time to brag on him.  He owns and manages his own company.  Make that 2 companies. And in his free time, he's studying to be a pastor.  Oh, and he works at church part-time to learn pastor-y things.  Plus, he's part of my family, so that'll keep anyone ridiculously busy.  I think I have a full plate, but can you imagine his schedule?!  I feel I do nothing with my life in comparison.  On top of all of that, he ALWAYS helps me when I need it. Whether it's life advice or filling out paperwork for me or listening to me vent about all these dumb scientific names I have to memorize, he's there.  He's always interested in hearing about my life, and Dad, I really appreciate that.  Even with your busy-ness, you make time for me and I love it.  I'm also almost never home (less than 2 months out of the year), but when I am home, this guy has lunch with me, watches my favorite TV shows with me, and teaches me how to shoot guns.  Did I mention he's the best dad ever??

I  was going to be bummed that I couldn't celebrate with my dad because of my seclusion on the island and whatnot, but then my family was uncharacteristically spontaneous, and it was AWESOME.  They all decided on Thursday afternoon to come see me at DISL!! An hour after the decision was made, a hotel room was booked and they were driving down.  They were here with me until Saturday, so we got some quality family time in. We ate way too much delicious food, enjoyed some quality beach time, had wonderful adventures, and were rule-breakers (because rules were made to be broken, duh!).  Yes, we Boecks were impulsive, adventurous, less-than-legal, and proud of it.  Sometimes we like to live on the wild side, and I guess that was us these past couple of days.  This island brings out spontaneity in people, I'm just sayin. (Anyone else want to visit and go crazy?!) Anyways, these were a few freakin fabulous days, so thank you wonderful family, for being you.

Shoutout especially to the man of the hour:

You are a wonderful role model, and I would be lucky to grow up to be as awesome as you!  You're brilliant, hard-working, encouraging, confident yet humble, and realistic yet positive.  I respect you immensely, and I am so proud that you are my dad. Thanks for being awesome, for accepting me, and for encouraging me.  You're Incredible.

 ^Incredible like this guy ;)

<3, Daddy's Little Girl

P.S. 33 days until I see you all again!! Weeeeeeeeee!

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.

Awesome^2

This was the week of field trips!  Two in one week, which means double the awesome!

FIELD TRIP NUMERO UNUS! (That's Spanish and Latin because I'm multilingual sometimes.)

Monday we took a day trip to Perdido.  Rough life, I know.  We planned to wake up at 7am, leave DISL at 8am, ride the ferry at 8am, be in Perdido at 9:30am and spend all day in water collecting fish.  But a wrench was thrown into our plans...    WE MISSED THE FERRY. #DISLprobs   Funny thing is, you can't leave the Sea Lab and the ferry at the same time.  One does not simply be in two places at once.  So we had to waste an hour and a half until our second chance with the ferry (everyone deserves a second chance, right?!). Well we finally made it to Perdido to seine and trawl.

We take our dingy boat to DISL's island (Yes, they have a tiny island in Perdido. Super cool, I know!) and start seining from the shore.  This is taking a huge net (~5ft tall) and dragging it out into the ocean and back onto the shore, which leaves your net full of fishes.  In our case, about 9,039,479,348 fishes of 4 different species... Needless to say, we threw a lot of fishies back into the ocean!

After seining, each group had a chance to trawl on our dingy boat.  This was the first small-scale trawling I've done, and it takes much more work than the over-sized trawling that I'm used to.  In our trawl, we dragged a net behind us and collected whatever ended up in there for our collection.  For us that meant........drum roll please.......... 2 fishes.  Yes, 2.  That's all we got.  So we go one more time and our second chance gives us 0, nada, zilch. It happens. We'll just take the first two and be done, I suppose.  This was a very unlucky trawl! But looking at the positives: We got something to take, which is always better than nothing! And I learned how to do a Shrimper's knot on the net (That's resume-worthy stuff!), so you can now call me a skilled fisherman.  Other good news is that all of the other groups were just as unlucky as us, and I'm not-so-secretly happy about that.  The scientific reason for this: there has been a bunch of rain the past couple of days, so the fish are all playing hide-and-seek. 

One of my classmates was determined to catch a ray, so he widdled a spear.  As in, he found a broomstick and took his pocket knife and made a legit spear. Then he successfully stabbed and caught a sting ray. Where'd he get the broom?  No idea.  Don't ask questions.  Please just appreciate the bad-butt-ery of this situation! He just pulled out a spear like he was Finnick from the Hunger Games and earned 100000 points on the scale of awesome.

After we've been in the hot sun all day and collected all the fishies we possibly can, we are very pooped!  Time to make our way back to DISL. The boat that brought us to the island in shifts was now going to do the same thing going back.  The boat holds "5 people at a time" according to our Captain, but we could get 20+ people on there if we really wanted to-- we would've just been a bit cozy. But it's only a 100 yd trip, so that's not a big deal, right?!  Nope.  Why?! We had 5 life jackets.  Please tell me why we had 5 life jackets for 21 people. Two options: We're fabulous swimmers or you want us to die. Actually, the reason is that we can take 5 trips back and forth to the island to collect all of us rather than an easy 1 trip.  5 trips because we wouldn't dare risk the boat blowing up (without enough life jackets) in the middle of this 100 yard stretch of water as we take a 6th person on the last trip to the docks. Because of our lack of life jackets and our rule-following selves, it took approximately one million years to get our whole class back to the pier; I should've just swam the short stretch. Moral of the story: Never leave a life jacket behind.  But then we got to all go back to home sweet DISL after smelling like fish for the couple hour car ride.  That was some quality bonding time right there.

FIELD TRIP NUMERO DOS!!
Thursday was Boat Day! Specifically for large-scale trawling and deep sea fishing.

First of all, we spent our entire day on a boat= Heaven.
Second, all of our trawls were awesome.  All of the groups got some quality fish for our species collections.  My group is around 30 species after this trip, so that's flippin fantastic.
Third, seeing as I'm a fisherman now, I tried some deep-sea fishing and caught a million Red Snappers.  Only problem is that they were too small to keep, but I still felt super cool that I was catching things!

Some of my favorite catches of the day from my classmates:
1.  a GIANT red snapper.  This thing filled an over-sized cooler.  It was HUGE and caught with a fishing pole.  Really that just amazed me.
2.  a remora.  These guys are so cool!  If you don't know what I'm talking about, you have to Google it! They're also known as "sharksuckers" and will actually stick to you with their suction-cup-like head.  Here's a photo that I'm borrowing from Google to illustrate to you the coolness of this fish:

Other wonderful parts of my week:
I ACED my midterm! Woot! Woot! So glad that is over so that I can focus on studying for my Fish ID quiz with 25 family, genus, and species names all in Latin plus their common names.  No worries, I got this. Probably.  I'll get there by quiz time on Tuesday at 9am anyways! Off to study for now, but this week is full of more fun and field trips.  I'll update you soon!

They Say It's My Birthday!

My 21st birthday was Saturday, and it was SUPER fun!  Unfortunately, my friend did not make it down to visit as I told you a couple posts back, but my DISL friends made it extra wonderful for me!

Friday night: We went to Ole Maria's (as we do every Friday on the island), but it was extra fun this time! We karaoked for hours. And nothing is more entertaining than people with a microphone and without shame. The restaurant closes at 10, but we didn't finish our last song until 10:30 when all of us DISL kids sang "Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy" in unison with stomping and clapping and all... because why not?! We went back to the Sea Lab and just hung out, but at exactly midnight, everyone with me sang Happy Birthday, which was super sweet!

Saturday: I woke up to my roomie wishing me a happy birthday and then Skyping my favorite people. All day I got to read and relax, which was absolutely wonderful (And I finally finished my first book of the summer! Woo!). Then I went out with a group for dinner to the Islander where I was apparently "lame" for ordering a water (Thank you, Clint). But I thought it was a very refreshing and delicious hydration- sorry I'm not sorry. We then went to Mobile to find a place to dance and failed miserably. The first place we went to was most definitely not a dancing location, so we decided to ask the experts: Waffle House. Can't believe I'm saying this, but Waffle House did us wrong... They directed us to a dance place that was apparently a "Latin American Dance Club," and seeing as none of us knew how to salsa, that didn't work out too well either. But we had a quality hour of fun attempting to Latin dance and moved on.  We went back to the island to dance at the Deep End (the only bar on the island) because Bren and Clint promised there would be fun dancing. Hate to say it, but they were right! As Macklemore would say, "We danced...And we laughed. And had a really really really good time!"  They played all of our favorite music, and all of DISL was there dancing with us, which made it even better!

This year, my birthday is definitely one that I'll remember!  Everyone was so excited for my birthday that it made me even more excited!  It wasn't just another day; my friends made it a celebration!  Shout out especially to Angela and Anna for making sure my birthday was perfect, to Bren and Clint for going along with us all night despite the ridiculous places we brought you to, and to all of you DISL people for knowing how to have fun! Everyone's well wishes and happy birthdays were very kind, so thank you all!  I'm not sure next year will be able to live up to this, but then again, not much can live up to a DISL party!

I was blind, but now I see

First, a fun fact!  Because I love fun facts:
Fish- singular or plural for one species
Fishes- referring to more than one species
You can thank me later... like when you win jeopardy with this bit of info.

My last post was talking about everything I have left to learn, and it's a lot.  So here's a quick update on my classes.

First Day of School was Tuesday! It's exciting every time! This month I'm taking Marine Vertebrates with Dr. Jim Morley. We will be having two exams, a lab practical, and a Species Collection for our grade, and our first exam is already on Friday. (Ahh! I'm about to be in study mode!)  But before then, we'll be starting our Species Collection.  I am in a group with Nicole and Matthew and together we make up the most ferocious team of future marine biologists named the "Majestic Manatees"... I know, we're the coolest people ever. All collection groups must collect at least 35 different species of fishes and correctly identify each of them, note the life-stage and habitat of the fish, and turn it all in on a super pretty powerpoint. We can also identify sea birds, turtles, and marine mammals for extra species.  The top rated collection group does not only receive bragging points, but we also get a 100% on our collection and can choose a question on the exam than we get automatic full points on.  The Majestic Manatees are not expert fishermen, but we will be putting up a fight to win this.  Watch out Mermen, Sardines, and Barracudas!

Other things! We visited the Estuarium on Friday!  It's a mini aquarium across from the Sea Lab, and I've been there and seen the fishes approximately one million times already, but I actually just saw these fishes for the first time on Friday. I mean, really saw them.  I had no idea how blind I was before, but this class makes me aware of everything!  What type of scales and teeth and fins, how they use them, why they use them the way they do. That might not seem that amazing to some of you, but that changes me looking at a "cute puffer fish" to looking at a "globiform fish with a low aspect ratio tail using undulating fin swimming specialized for maneuvering and a terminal mouth with cardiform dentition and scales that exhibit counter shading and disruptive coloration..." and that list could go on for AGES because I just started to tell you what the "cute puffer fish" looks like, not why it looks that way or how it's unique or how it shows how evolutionarily advanced it is or not.  I have been giving tours at the Georgia Aquarium since 2012, but if I was to give you a tour today, I promise you it could be about 5x longer from all of the cool things I learned this week.  This is from just two lecture days.  So much information is given to us so quickly, and it's so hands-on! I just love it! It makes me feel kind of brilliant, and there's still 7 weeks of it left! I'm going to be a marine biology genius by the time I'm done here.

First Field Trip! It's tomorrow, and we're going to Perdido Bay! We'll be leaving the Sea Lab at 8am and be there all day long. Hopefully we'll get some super cool fish for our collection groups! I know we're going to get a beautiful view and some quality snorkeling time!

Some things never change...

So I've completed my first week back at DISL and realized that some things never change.

I'm sure you all know exactly what I mean... The sun always rises in the morning and sets at night, siblings will always bicker (except mine- we're perfect and always love each other), during elections every politician and their mother will call you obnoxiously 9000 times to ask for your vote, your true friends will always have your back, and your goal is always to get through life doing your best.  

Here at DISL, it means that the dorms are still dreadful, the island is still only 7 miles long (why it won't grow, I just can't understand); WalMart (aka civilization) is still more than 30 minutes away; field clothes are acceptable for class/hanging out/going out/ect (we like to call it "beach bum" so that we feel better about ourselves); when it rains, the island ceases to exist (as in it's completely underwater); seeing juncus sends a shiver down my spine; the Coffee Beast is still terrrrrible (because it's closed for good, which does us no good!); and I STILL absolutely love my major and what I get to do here!!

We collect fish, we dissect our own catches,  we go on boat trips, we visit the aquarium, we go to the beach, we snorkel, we swim.  Oh, and it's all school work.  I'm graded on all of that.

But while this island doesn't change and my classes don't change, I have changed.  I'm in a time in my life where everything is changing... everything.  I don't ever stay in one place very long, whether it's visiting home or going to UNA or going to DISL or going on a trip.  I'm constantly adding new things to my schedule at school, so much so that each day is a completely new schedule- my life is never a dull routine.  And next year I have NO IDEA where I'll be going or what my future plans will be because everything I've been planning for my whole life is pretty much over after this year.  I've planned to go through college in marine biology for as long as I can remember, but now I'm almost done.  I've made plans to go to Grad school and get a PhD in Marine Biology, but I don't know where.  At all.  I could go anywhere from North Carolina to Texas to Australia.  Ya know, just the other side of the world. No big!  But there are some things that are constant and I thank the good Lord for them everyday.  One: I have friends and family who never disappoint me, are always there for me, and who are supportive with literally every decision I make. And Two: I have an obsession with everything in the ocean that drives my focus, even when I don't know where I'll end up.

So DISL isn't a new experience for me anymore.  I don't see everything as new excitement, but I do still love everything I'm doing.  And to me, that means that I've picked the right field to work in.  I may not be amazed by the newness, but I am amazed by everything I have to learn.