2013 Bahamas Expedition | Round Three 
About a year and a half ago, this trip's blogger became an intern diver in the Giant Ocean Tank at the New England Aquarium. Luigi loved being at the Aquarium so much that he became a volunteer diver after his internship was over. He also joins Aquarium divers to help collect fish, under special permits, so that visitors in Boston can appreciate the splendor of a healthy Caribbean reef. 

Luigi joined the dive team on a recent trip to the Bahamas to collect animals for the new exhibit.

Today was another great day here on the R/V Coral Reef II! We finally woke up to beautiful weather and calm seas. Our day today consisted of four dives at two different dive sites. The first of the two sites was called Frank and John's. At this site, we collected many fish, but our target was blue chromis.  These are beautiful little fish and are always a big hit in the Giant Ocean Tank.

On the first of the two dives at this site, we saw a scrawled filefish and a queen triggerfish! We already have a few beautiful scrawled filefish in the new exhibit who will be eventually moving into the Giant Ocean Tank, and the colorful queen triggerfish was just a little bit too quick for us to collect and take home to Boston. On the second dive at Frank and John's, we saw a unique fish called a highhat.

Juvenile highhat

This little guy was a juvenile and probably about half the size of a dollar bill. We would have taken this little guy home with us too, but he was smart enough to hide out in some large sea urchins where we couldn't get him (little did he know how lucky he would have been to come home to the G.O.T.)!  What is really fascinating about highhats is the way that they change over time. If you look up a picture of an adult highhat and compare it to the juvenile above, you would never even guess it was the same fish!

After splashing down at Frank and John's, we decided to make our way over to a new site called Lunkers Head (couldn't tell you where the name came from). Though the visibility (the distance you can see underwater) wasn't all that great at this site, we didn't mind all that much because we were able to collect a lot more blue chromis! It was also at this site that we were able to finally find and collect some really cool fish called hamlets! It is difficult to get pictures of the fish we collected, because, well, we are busy collecting them, but it is nice being able to get some great shots of other amazing animals on these sites. In an attempt to collect a hogfish, the chef on board (Chris) and I were unknowingly brought within inches of a large, rather grumpy looking barracuda!

Barracuda

On the second dive at Lunkers Head, we chose to collect at the part of the reef in front of where the boat was anchored. In this area, we saw huge, amazing schools of beautiful Creole wrasse.

Creole wrasses

These colorful fish are really gorgeous, and a few of them were already collected for the newly renovated Giant Ocean Tank by the an earlier collecting group to Bimini this year! We also happened to see a few random, larger fishes during the dive on this site as well.

Tomorrow we will be doing some more diving, as well as a special method of collecting fish called a beach seine. Usually in a beach seine, we attempt to collect needlefish, barracuda, small parrotfish and sometimes different kinds of box fish. The fun and exciting parts of this method of collecting is that there is always a surprise and always something interesting that turns out. Be sure to check back to see what comes up in our nets!

2013 Bahamas Expedition | Round Two
Emma is a former Giant Ocean Tank Dive Intern on her first collection expedition to the Bahamas. She joined Aquarium divers to help collect fish, under special permits, so that visitors in Boston can appreciate the splendor of a healthy Caribbean reef. These fish will live ing the Giant Ocean Tank after its top-to-bottom transformation. 

We started off day four with a delicious warm breakfast made by Chef Chris, then quickly got underway with a deep dive to search for sargassum triggerfish. This dusty blue species of triggerfish lives in the lower region of the reef environment, so we dove to a maximum of 93 feet (too deep for my camera) to try and catch a few. Deep diving is interesting, even though you’re below almost 100 feet of water, you can barely feel the difference between that and 20 feet of water. While the staff was working on the triggerfish, my buddies and I enjoyed our first deep dive in the Bahamas.

Safety stop on the anchor line after our deep dive |  Photo credit: Captain Lou

Blue chromis and creole wrasses in the collection tank | Photo credit: Russ

By showing visitors the beauty of a healthy Caribbean reef, the Aquarium hopes to inspire people to do what they can to protect these reefs and marine habitats around the world. 

2013 Bahamas Expedition | Round Two
Emma is a former Giant Ocean Tank Dive Intern on her first collection expedition to the Bahamas. She joined Aquarium divers to help collect fish—under special permits—so that visitors in Boston can appreciate the splendor of a healthy Caribbean reef.  These fish will live in the Giant Ocean Tank this summer, after its top-to-bottom transformation. 

Today was our third day in the Bahamas, collecting fish for the new Giant Ocean Tank exhibit.  We started off at a spot called Lunker Head—a great reef, but slightly challenging. Just when my dive buddies, Natalia and Liz, had a great fish cornered, it would slip away into little nooks and crannies in the coral. Our main target was blue chromis (Chromis cyanea)—small, vibrant blue fish that will brighten up the GOT.

Creole wrasses swimming above the reef.

After catching a few chromis, the staff decided to take a shot at the beautiful school of creole wrasses swimming about the reef. Creole wrasses (Clepticus parrae) are large, purple and yellow fish that cruise in schools above the reef. The staff, led by Sherrie, surrounded the school and herded them into large nets. After the second dive, we had a nice, neat collection of 21 creole wrasses to bring back to Boston.

Creole wrasses in the collection tank

Blue chromis and creole wrasses in the collection tank | Photo credit: Russ

The last dive of the day was an oddball. We decided to try a drift dive in the early evening. However, as we jumped in, we realized there was no current at all, just endless sea grass beds.

Liz swimming above the sea grass

Although the sea grass was beautiful, we were disappointed that there were no fish to be seen, until we stumbled onto a goldmine! Small groups of juvenile and intermediate fish—queen triggers, grey angelfish, Townsend angelfish and French angelfish! We managed to collect one grey angelfish, but other dive groups were more lucky and brought up two queen triggers and quite a few angels as well!  It was a great day!

Queen triggerfish in the collection tank

Chris, a regular staff diver in the Giant Ocean Tank, just returned from an Aquarium expedition to the Bahamas. This photo collection is his final post from the Spring 2012 expedition.

The trip participants (including Luigi, my dad, Don and Christine) have all returned home. I'm busy back here on Central Wharf with the usual hectic routines of a Giant Ocean Tank diver. And the fish are settling into their temporary tanks before they go on exhibit. As a wrap-up on a fantastic Bahamas expedition, I sorted through all of the pictures taken, and chose my favorites. A top ten if you will. Enjoy.


If this type of trip looks right up your alley, consider joining us on future Bahamas Collecting Expeditions. These trips are hard work, in fact my dad talked about climbing into his bunk thoroughly exhausted every night. But it's the toughest vacation you'll ever love, to modify that Peace Corps phrase a bit. Our participants are already talking about coming back!

These important trips are not only a great experience for those on the boat, but our efforts inspire wonder and hopefully teach appreciation for our blue planet to millions of visitors to the New England Aquarium. So if you're not a scuba diver, I hope you'll at least spend some time getting to know the beautiful creatures in the Giant Ocean Tank and around the whole building.

Thanks for joining us on this amazing journey, and we hope to see you around someday — either on Central Wharf or on our expeditions. Happy World Oceans Day!


Chris