Jump forward to last month, when the aquarium’s curator Jack Schneider called me to see if I wanted to go offshore with them on a Sargassum seaweed collecting trip, I readily accepted.
Early the following morning, I met Jack and two fellow Norwalk aquarists in Galilee, to board the sport fishing boat “Snappa,” noted as the shark cage boat for divers. I used to go out on many years ago as an observor. “Snappa “ is owned by Captain Charlie Donilon.
I was very excited because of the hundreds and hundreds of trips I have gone offshore, this was the first time I have gone on a dedicated marine specimen collecting trip. Plus there was no public that I had to narrate to, only three other marine biologists.
From left: Jack, Joe, Kerry, Captain Charlie
As we got underway, in addition to being a beautiful and sunny day, seas were calm. We steamed south directly for Cox’s Ledge at a fast clip- 16-knots. I’m not use to going that fast. The aquarium brought lots of collecting gear while I brought my extender net and a small dip net.
My net: Ship's Colors for the day
Soon we started seeing pelagic birds; red-necked phalaropes, greater shearwaters, Wilson’s storm-petrels, and an adult Northern gannet.
We found some floating Sargassum seaweed, and collected some. In it was a small gray triggerfish, smaller unidentified fry, and some of the specimens associated with the gulfweed community; gulfweed shrimp, portunis crabs, and gulfweed nudibranchs.
Gray triggerfish
We left the weed patches and although we got about 30-miles offshore, we spent the next few hours with little results. Eventually I recommended that we return to where we had had the Sargassum earlier, and here we found the mother lode, where we spent the next couple of hours gathering and collecting. In addition to more triggerfish, we also collected some orange filefish and a solitary planehead filefish. We also found a Frisbee with some goose barnacles on it.
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Orange filefish
Planehead filefish
Goose barnacles on frisbee
Then it was time to go in. One final treat.
In all, about thirty of these common dolphins surrounded us.
Great day..Thanks for looking
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Edited by CharlesA, 09 October 2012 - 07:36 PM.