Posts from the Sea TURTLE teen diving program will continue, but at the same time New England Aquarium staff and volunteers are on their regular spring expedition to the Bahamas. This is that team's sixth post, written by Andrea.

In addition to diving; we used a seine net to target needlefish and barracudas. The seine net is 100 feet long and has floats the top edge and lead weights on the bottom edge. Two people at each end of the net they would start walking perpendicular to the beach, then turn 90 degrees and start walking parallel to the beach. [This process is described in this previous post from 2010, as well as this post from the 2010 teen diving expedition and this 2009 post.]


Then they would start walking toward the beach making sure the lead end stays on the bottom. 

Everyone else would stand in-between the ends of the nets and the shore, and would splash to try to keep the fish from swimming out of the net. This was a fun job just standing around and splashing. I felt like Poseidon controlling the water and fish.


Once we got to shore we would pick up the two ends and form a hammock containing all the fish, and the upside down jellyfish. We would toss out the jellies because they could sting the fish and us. We had a very successful seine pull collected a lot of needlefish and three little barracudas. 


While on the beach we found a lot of trash; including some balloons in a tangled mess. While any trash in the oceans is not a good thing, balloons are especially dangerous when they land in the oceans because they often resemble sea jellies and can be eaten by sea turtles and other sea creatures.


Seeing trash on this little deserted strip of land that seems like it is in the middle of nowhere brings to light the importance of  how our actions (both good and bad) in our own backyards can have an affect way out here.

-Andrea