i'm beat

and if you tell anyone, i'll deny it...

so originally we were supposed to leave for the island one last time on may 20 for the full moon. well on may 16 we started noticing TONS of big grouper at pta. coyote, which is right next to the harbor. we saw lots of gravid females and brad said they have to be spawning here i don't think they can hold their eggs like that. so we thought hey we'll save some money and stay local and see if we can see spawning here and see if there is a buildup of activity leading up to the full moon.

well, it all started out fine. we could see grouper and we could see big ones (but not as many big ones as at pta lobos).

and occasionally i would sink down a little further to see other stuff. just off the rocks at this place and going down to the bottom is tons of black coral

now i know what you're saying...that's not black silly!

i KNOW. actually the skeleton of this coral is black and the polyps are this fluorescent yellow. very cool.

another thing that is cool about this point is that there are TONS of BEHBEHS! little baby grouper. so they may not only spawn at this location but also recruit there as well. this little guy is only 20 cm (that's about 8 inches for you gringos sheesh)


so things seemed to be going well when on the third day, i got a major squeeze over my right eye. ithought i was going ot die. i've never had a squeeze before and this was awful. by the time we got back to the apartment the pain was over my right eye, over my right jaw and in my right ear. it was like the pressure just kept building and it had nowhere to go. my right eye was watering from the pain and i was nauseous. so to bed i went.

then the next night, not only was i worried about the squeeze, but then the vis just went to hell. we couldn't figure it out. it was the thickest, snottiest water we've ever seen.

that dark yellow-green blobby thing in the background is black coral. you couldn't see a thing. then we talked to rafa and he said oh i've seen that, i think it's the black coral spawning. and sure enough it was and since there is soooooo much of the stuff at that location it just wrecked the vis. and since the whole point of going there was to watch and document the spawning we thought we should go ahead and make the trip to pta. lobos.
so one more time we load all our shit on the boat


that's my HUGE boat on his bow. that's pta tintoreras in the distance. we round that point and then we camp at the beach between pta tintoreras and pta lobos.

so this is rafa driving the boat...

what the hell? who's driving?? i can't believe i'm paying this guy!!!

actually, rafa is an angel. he has been diving here forever and he is so worried for the future of the marine park here with all the overfishing and development. i honestly don't think i would be able to do half the stuff i need to do without this guy.

ok that's all i have time for today. stay tuned!

ode to the michelada

i just wanted to share my new favorite drink: the michelada

this particular drink has two variations. on the mainland it's basicly lemonade and beer in a salt-rimmed glass. whatever. here in loreto a michelada is the best gawwwwwdamn tomato beer you'll ever have. and the best one to get in town is from the ultramarinos delfin. They use CLAMATO (tomato, clam juice, and spices...and you MUST use CLAMATO, no kermato or other variation because they do simply suck compared to CLAMATO). They take a giant styrofoam cup (yeah i know bad for the enviroment but i'd like to think i have some environmental karma built up...) and they rim it with chamoy and chili and salt. then they add one cup of clamato, ice, more chili salt and then they hand you a can of tecate. you happily give them 28 pesos and you crack your beer and pour it in. you blow a little air into the straw to give it a little mix and then you sit in the sun next to the beach and you sip your marvelous michelada.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm means mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm in spanish as well my friends.

Where was I?

So camping on Carmen was a success and we’re gearing up to head there again. The first time we went I was so bummed I dropped my slate (my board that carries my data sheets). I had been doing fish counts and then writing spawning behavior observations and when I got back to the boat it wasn’t attached to my BC, which is weird because I’ve had that thing for over 6 years and I’ve NEVER lost it, i’m so anal about it. So I was sad and the weather kept getting assy so we never got back out there to see spawning so we left and my poor slate was somewhere on the bottom of the ocean. I had asked Rafa if he’d been to punta lobos since then and if he’d seen it but he said no. =(

So this last time we went I was cruising around and thought, I’m going to try to do the same route I did last time when I lost my slate and VOILA! I can’t believe I found it! I was so happy, i did a little underwater dance. And of course, i took pictures because it was getting so fouled that a nudibranch was having a little meal and the otherside were lots of nudibranch eggs. I felt bad i had to wipe those off but i tried to put them back in the rocks (yeah, i know it probably didn’t matter…shuddup).

speaking of spawning, they are TOTALLY doing it!

After the island, we decided to do a “leisure” dive since we’d been doing all work dives and went to a wreck that was sunk purposely out of Puerto Escondido. The last time Brad was there a year ago or so he said he just saw lots of grunts and some octopus but nothing major was there. then a week or so ago Rafa told us that he dove the wreck and that he saw about 30 juvenile garropas. I was so excited. The garropa are GIANT grouper, Mycteroperca jordani, and the ones I’ve seen are easily a meter and a half in length and they are fairly rare. We know there are four large ones at Punta lobos and one or two more in other places in the park, but it’s a concern that you don’t see many because perhaps there are not enough of them to constitute a breeding population. To know there are JUVENILE garropa means that they must be. I realize half of you reading this just dozed off…BUT IT’S VERY EXCITING!

We went to the wreck and Brad was right the thing is just LEAKING grunts from every window/porthole/doorway.
And then I saw the garropas and they’re so SMALL compared to the adults. Most were about 30-40 cm in length and just so cool. Of course taking pictures of them was hard they were a bit skittish and the vis wasn’t so great so you couldn’t get a shot from a distance. So i just went about playing with my new camera and housing and strobe and was trying to set up some cool shots throught this porthole

Of course, since I was now ignoring the garropa they were coming to check me out



Two days after we got back from the island, Jeff had to leave so we took him out. We started at Mike’s Bar for margaritas and dinner.

Word of warning about the margaritas: DANGER! They totally don’t even taste like they have any alcohol in them, so of course I had two. After that we went to Millenium which is a club. We got there and they were playing cool music but it was empty. But we chilled had a few beers and hung out. Then we went to Vicente's Sports bar and then home. Well, I was feeling it and so the next morning was painful. But I had to rally and so we went to Cafe Ole for food. Here I present the breakfast of champions: hair of the dog (pacifico), some caffeine (tummy too rotten for coffee), and HUEVOS CON CHILAQUILES. yum!


so for my birthday we went out to a nice dinner at La Terraza and then to Vicente's to chill. Then I said, hey it's friday let's check out Millenium, i figured Friday maybe it would be more club like and i could DANCE! hee. so we get there and notice that it's packed but i realize it's just men. and i think nothing of it at first and the bartender is all cool and buys our first round of drinks when all of a sudden the cool dance music turns into MOTLEY CRUE and this half naked chick comes out of a side door and straight to the pole in the middle of the floor. i was dying because i thought how the hell could i miss that pole!!?? and then i was laughing because every guy in there moved their chairs from their tables and lined up next to the dance floor.

it was quite an entertaining birthday!

Now, comes your favorite part, purty pictures!




well, we're headed off today to do some afternoon dives. we found another nearshore spot that had LOTS of grouper (compared to some other spots) so we're going to see if they are spawning there as well. hasta luego!

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SWEEEEEEET SWEEEEET SWEEEEET SUCCESSS!!!!

FINALLY

this last camping trip ROCKED! except for a minor hiccup in the beginning it went well and we saw SPAWNING! AND! brad filmed it! AND! i kept a plankton net over the side of the boat while we were diving and got EGGS!!! AND! i built a jimmy-rigged drifter and set it free at the spawning site to see where it might end up (with contact info) AND i'm going to build more for next time! AND! we have the gonads of many grouper that CONFIRM spawning!!!

yahhhhhhhhh us!!!

ok, so no pictures this blog because somethings wrong with my gawwwwwwwdamn computer and after running for a half hour starts making a weird clunking noise and then gets a black screen and says "now dumping physical memory"

NO! BUENO!

today we dove on a wreck and it ROCKED! so many fish just POURING out of the ship. got some sthweeeet pictures. will have to post them soon. just wanted to hop on now and say that i'm safe, i'm tan and all this diving is making me sooooo sosososo happy! and tired...but more HAPPY!!

off to the island again

so i won't be posting until after tuesday. wish us luck this time that we don't lose the motor AND the vis for watching grouper in the afternoon (last time it was puro guacamole in the afternoon when we were watching them and crystal clear in the morning when were doing other work. figures!).

hasta luego!

new posts

oh man i'm so tired. i finally made it in here to post all the stuff i had on disk. hopefully it gives people some reading material until i can get my culo back in here to type some more. there are three new posts here starting from 4/15 (filet guys) til present.

provecho!

Motor DOESN’T work…again
LONG STORY…
So about camping. Our plan was to camp on playa la lancha so that we would be close enough to Punta Lobos (the spawning site) to access it in my boat. I met with the Parque director to get permission to conduct my research in the reserve sin collecta (without collecting) and camp on the island. Isla Carmen is actually private property so you would need permission from the owners to go inland but the shoreline and beaches are under the auspices of the park so we could permission to camp on the beach and dive along the shoreline. We were supposed to leave early Thursday morning but the letter still wasn’t in the office and I didn’t want to leave without it. Plus we had so much packing and organizing to do AND i was getting sick. That really pissed me off. normally i don’t take medication but i wasn’t going to miss out on this just because i was getting a cold so i pumped myself full of meds and took a one hour nap hoping it would take the edge off the really crappy feeling i had in my sinuses and head. That seemed to do the trick and i went to get water and ice and check the park office again and there still wasn’t a letter. Finally i went to see Rafa to tell him i still didn’t have the letter and so he said i’ll go with you because if you got the permission from the director maybe we can just go and get the letter when you get back but i’ll ask the people in the office. Well, when Rafa walked in everybody was hey Rafa what’s up? Rafa knows everybody and he’s such a nice guy everybody loves him. So he explained the situation and they said it shouldn’t be a problem but to check with the other office near the harbor. Long story short, the letter was available at 2 pm so we got it and took off. of course, leaving shore after noon means you are most likely going to have wind and waves and it looked like it was going to be a long wet ride out there. if i hadn’t been so sick and so tired from all the running around and packing i would have had the presence of mind to take a picture of all our stuff on the panga. My boat was up top on the metal grating that normally supported a canopy for shade. The motor was on the bow and everything else we owned was all over. There was a young guy named Alberto who had borrowed a mask from Rafa that day and was returning it. His mistake was waiting around while we were packing the panga. He started helping us and I thought he was one of the many cousins that Rafa had in town because I recognized him from last year. Next thing this guy knew he was going to the island with us and holding the motor up on the bow the whole hour and a half out there. Before we left the muelle (harbor) i asked Rafa who he was? And he said i don’t know! Just one of the chavos that hangs around the muelle hauling gear for tips (that’s where i remembered him from).

When we got to the cove we were staying in, the swells were pretty big and it was tons of fun getting the boat off the top and putting the motor on the boat in that mess. Then we used the boat to carry stuff from the panga to shore. Brad and Jeff were looking at me like “nice beach, dork.” I said i swear i’ve passed by here so many times and seen gringos dropped off for picnics here and it was never like this. just my luck i guess. The swells were still up and the wind was blowing until 6 so we called off diving for that day and decided to get up early the next morning for some dives in. Alberto helped us a lot and i think i had about $6-8 dollars worth of peso coins in my pocket i just pulled out and put in his hands. I told him that was all i had but thank you so much for the help and then Brad gave him a $50 peso bill (~$5.00) and off he went with Rafa.

The next morning, the dive plan was for me to install the Aquadopp on the earth anchors I had put in last week and then do fish counts while Brad just killed killed killed.

He kills me because he’s this short dude and a nice guy but he cracks me up when he’ll say stuff like “oh saw a giant golden grouper! They’re so gorgeous! Next dive I’m going to DRILL that sucker!” and he just talks about spearing fish with such glee. So of course when i’m diving and counting fish i tell them that i’m done counting now and here comes brad so RUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!! FISHY RUN!

*ahem*

so the first dive that morning was amazing. I have NEVER in all my years diving here seen such clear water that shallow. Normally at this spot it’s super productive. The current is ripping towards the ocean and if there are big winds coming through it causes all this upwelling and the thermocline is down around 60 ft and the vis above that is usually guacamole. But this day, even though there were swells on the surface, it was amazing, the thermocline was really shallow and i could see for days. And so guess what? That’s right, i didn’t have my gawwwwwwdamn camera! Of course not! Grrrrr. So i put the aquadopp in and then did my fish counts. We only planned on doing one dive that day so we had a tank each and a reserve on the boat. When we pulled anchor and headed back we stopped at the entrance of the cove and looked down in the water. It was about 20 ft deep and was sooooo crystal clear. Brad said how much air did you come up with? I came up with 1000 and so did he so we dropped anchor and did another dive here on the 1000 psi. We were under another 45 minutes and it was stunning. It was so clear but sooooo cold (62F), even for me. I typically don’t get so cold so i wear a 3 mm shorty wetsuit, while everyone else, including Rafa, wears a 5-7 mm full wetsuit with hood and everything. But i prefer to be unencumbered by all that.

The wind picked up at noon that day and didn’t let up so we didn’t do an afternoon dive to look for the aggregations. I was getting frustrated because the whole point was to do afternoon dives to see if they were spawning. And i was holding my breath that the winds would die at least on the full moon. The plan was to get up early and do two dives. That way even if we couldn’t get the afternoon dives in i could still do fish counts and watch the groupers’ behavior. And then if it stayed calm we’d go out in the afternoon.
On the first dive I took pictures of the aquadoppler because peeps love the photos in the powerpoint. The viz was still decent but of course not like the other day.


I know it probably doesn’t help all that much but I put rocks around the base of the ground anchors because in my mind it helps them stay buried. And now not even a week later a couple of barred serranos have taken up residence in my little rock fort i built. The barred serranos kill me because they are cigar shaped little groupers that only get as big as 10” but they think they’re so tough!

They were all agitated when i came down to check the anchors and connections. Like they’d just bought a brand new house and found out the airport’s going in right behind them. lol

On my second dive we went to the other side where i’ve seen grouper and also the infamous “garropa,” the Gulf Grouper (Mycteroperca jordani). These beasts have become quite rare in this area and may be ecologically extinct in the park, in spite of the fact we know there are four living here at punta lobos and maybe 8 or more farther north on a seamount near Isla San Nicolas. These four are distinguishable from each other by their different tail shapes

Well it was a perfect day and we got two more dives in the afternoon. So this is sunset on the day of the full moon, April 23 after our fourth dive of the day. hmmm, wonder why that date just sticks out in my head? Lol. And i don’t want to name names or anything lest KRISTEN think i wasn’t going to give her a shout out before i gave *coughsandycough* another shout out…


Anyway, for the afternoon dives the visibility had degraded so much. There was no current or wind so there was no thermocline and it was puro guacamole all the way down to the bottom. It was difficult to see clearly more than 2 meters in front of you. I was able to see the silhouettes of some BIG grouper and i was able to see if they were circling overhead, but for the most part i never saw more than 25 at a time and they weren’t all that frantic, just circling/meandering in the water column every once in awhile. Nothing like last year where there were hundreds chasing and acting frantic and bumping into each other and then racing all along the bottom. It was cool though because the leopard grouper grow to a maximum of 1 meter in length and normally on the reef you would be stoked to see a 60 cm grouper but here during this time there are lots 60 cm or larger and you think “wow, that’s big!” and then on the first dive i was on the southern side of punta lobos where the garropa are and i saw some grouper cruising around and i thought “damn, those are big fish!” and then from the left i saw two garropa swim by and pass behind one of the bigger leopard grouper and in comparison you could see that the garropa were easily a meter and a half in length and almost twice as high as the leopard grouper. Just took my breath away.

Here is a panoramic view of our camp on the last morning during sunrise-moonset

I hurt my left ankle and broke my little toe on my right foot this week on the rocks in the intertidal. don't laugh. you would have too. here is my mexican bandaid on my ankle.


So considering this is a hella long post and i have tons more to share, i’ll just cut to the point…the motor got swamped by the waves in the cove, we couldn’t get it turned around bow first into the waves fast enough and it took quite a few breakers over the stern. It sucked because you’re there with the boat and you realize there’s nothing you can do but just hold it to minimize the damage. So it got even more water in it but we still had plenty of fresh water and doused it and wiped it down and then wd-40’d it and just chilled til our ride came to take us back.

I took it to the same mechanic that fixed it before and told him what happened. He gave me a stern lecture, said this was a good motor and he hoped he could fix it and he’d see us tomorrow in the afternoon. Well, he passed by this morning and said that they got it running about 1 am in the morning and i said oh, no i’m sorry you had to stay up so late and he said well, they couldn’t stop because he was afraid if they stopped it might not run because there was so much water inside, so they worked until it ran. And he apologized for using all the gas (a gallon! Big deal!) and then he said “i know you’re students so i’ll make it cheap (i never told him we were students, but he said he knows Galis, the head filet guy, who was the one who told me to go to this man in the first place, so he must have told him)”

So for $80 he (and his son) cleaned the entire engine inside and out and got it back to me around 9 am the next morning. We were going to take it out, but then the @#$% van kept stalling out. And THAT’S another story (but i fixed that too… so it’s cool…just starting to think how much more am i supposed to deal with before i give up and go home and start over next year). But i’m a glutton so here i still am, so far. =)

motor works

Finally!

Motor works. It’s a little rough but i’m going to change the oil today and hopefully that will help but YAY! Because we could go fishing! And diving! And so we did.

I took Brad and Jeff to Coronado to fish in the afternoon on Monday and then we went diving early on Tuesday. Brad was going to bed and asked “so what time we getting up? 7? 8?” and i said, “ummmm, no. 5.”

“are you kidding?”

“no, we need to go early to get the flat water and then be able to be back before the wind starts and before the filet guys start around noon.”

“damn. Ok. Whatever you say.”

And so we went. We launched at juncalito but the ramp was a bit steeper this year and i didn’t want to pull the van all way down so we kinda had to force the boat off. then we took off for danzante north.

panamic graysby

mutton hamlet


i can’t kill anything so when i do my transects i tell them all RUN AWAY!! RUN AWAY!! BRAD’S COMING!! But he still manages to kill some.

Pretty:


we ended up pulling out the boat at Escondido because juncalito was a bit sketchy and then decided to go ahead and launch there again today. worked great. Got all the way to another site at the north end of danzante when i pictured in my head, my camera sitting on the bed. Dammit! So i knew for sure i was going to see something cool. And sure enough i did, two Mycteroperca prionura, beautiful beautiful congeners of my fish and extremely rare. I’ve dove in the gulf for about 6 years and i’ve never seen one dying, only in fishermen’s catches. And i always thought, maybe i didn’t recognize them, they look similar, etc. but now having seen them, it was like pow! Different in profile and swimming behavior and just amazing light lavender background with brown spots and they just came so close to me and the viz was awesome and i wanted to stay with them but i knew i had to move to do the fish counts. And i was stoked because i thought damn, i DID do a good job drawing them, never having seen them in the water!


so now, we’re getting to the full moon and we’ll go out to camp on Carmen in order to dive the aggregation each day in the afternoon. First i have to pick up a letter of permission from the park and then find out from rafa when he takes clients out, then figure out when he can take us out there. now as i’m typing this i’m looking around this tiny room and all the stuff we have packed in it and i’m thinking of all the stuff we’re probably going to try to take to the island. It’s a LOOOOOT of stuff. Yikes.

So i guess i better do that!

Hopefully i’ll have some exciting stories to tell in a week.

"filet guys"

last year, i got most of my adult cabrilla otolith samples from here on the beach in front of the hotel la pinta. These are some pictures of last year




This particular company has around 10 pangas of different sizes that take people out. The hotel la pinta has packages with arturo’s sportfishing so a lot of the people stay here and get picked up and dropped off at the beach right in front of their hotel. The fish get fileted under this little palapa and then either deep frozen for transport to the US (or wherever) or to take with the customer to a restaurant that will cook it for them or a bit of both.

Obviously getting fish like this makes the sampling a bit biased, but on one hand I know myself well enough to know I can’t kill as many fish as I need for my work. On the other hand, why not take advantage of the fact that people are fishing and much of their catch becomes trash after it is filleted? Plus being the fish geek I am, I learn a lot from the locals as well as get other species that I may not get otherwise.



and whenever i get other fish i take all their measurements and fin counts and just keep it as part of my database.

i also think of it as an opportunity to educate people, mostly the gringos that come here. I try to stay out of the way, and I mostly speak Spanish when i’m with the “filet guys”* but i’ll answer questions when asked. I usually don’t identify myself to the Americans as a biologist because when i do i tend to get yelled at about how i’m responsible for how people aren’t allowed to fish in the U.S. These are usually the guys who have had about 12 beers before noon on the boat in the sun so i try to blow them off, because 1) they’re drunk; 2) i’m not PERSONALLY responsible for any of the regulations on fisheries in the US and how if they want their children to be able to fish, enjoy fish, or eat fish we may need more regulations to protect what stocks we do have (*ahem* sorry was about to go off there….); 3) i recognize that Arturo has a business to run and he has thus far allowed me to freely sample the catches from his customers and even if he is not there everyday, i know i am only there because he allows it. but for the most part, people are actually curious. And don’t even get me started on how i feel about how people come down and exploit the resources here but i’ll stop here because this is a happy, informative blog! Hee.

But really for the most part a lot of them ask good questions. It feels like a mini-ichthyology class with all the different fish and explaining how different fish populations behave and that the 1 meter long jurel (yellowtail; Seriola lalandai) is only 3-4 years old compared to the 1 meter long cabrilla sardinera (leopard grouper; Mycteroperca rosacea) that is 26-30 years old. Or explaining the information that the otolith contains and why I’m taking them. Maybe they think I’m the stinky (ethanol and fish) crazy lady with the Tupperware container, hacksaw, and little vials and they are entertained while they are waiting for their filets, but maybe somebody is paying attention and investigates things on their own and starts to think about the impacts that are made on our natural systems.

Sometimes it makes me sad to know what people are taking from the ocean. For example, I found out that this shark was dropping pups when she was pulled out of the water.


[meh]Considering the size and development of the two remaining pups that were in her when she was filleted i doubt if the other pups survived. The kid that caught her didn’t seem to care, in fact, he was a bit excited he saw that (in an exhilirated scary movie kind of way, not a biological kind of way, if that makes sense). but his grandfather was asking me a bunch of questions about what i was doing and about the shark and he seemed a bit upset to know the condition of the female and her babies (he was on a different boat than the boy) and that the boy didn’t let her go. So who knows, maybe the grandfather will talk to the kid [/MEH]

*i use quotes around “filet guys” because that is what they used when i was close to leaving last year and they said “Michele, don’t forget to say ‘thank you filet guys’ when you are famous!”