Manatees in Crystal River, Florida

Tuesday, February 1, 2011 Posted in Travel, Wildlife Conservation

The West Indian Manatee is a large, gray-brown aquatic mammal.  Its seal-like body tapers to a flat, paddle-shaped tail.  The upper part of its body has two small forelimbs with 3 to 4 nails on each flipper.  The head and face are wrinkled, and the snout has whiskers.  Adults have been known to reach lengths of over 13 feet and weights of over 3,000 pounds.  Calves are 3 to 4 feet long at birth and weigh approximately 60 pounds.

Manatees spend most of their time feeding and resting.  They graze for food along rivers, coastal bottoms and the water’s surface.  Manatees have been known to hold their breaths for as long as 20 minutes, but they usually surface every 5 minutes to breathe.  Their minimum population is estimated to be about 3,800, however, the continuing growth of Florida’s coastal areas threatens the manatee’s survival.

On Jan 29 & 30, 2011 a group of us went up to Crystal River to see these manatees. We went out with a manatee tour guide from Bird’s Underwater Inc and the first day we went to King Spring and on the second day we went to Three Sisters Spring. It was an amazing experience, and it truely makes you feel blessed to have such a sweet creature come right up too you to say hello! These manatee encounters are snorkel only and you can not dive down or chase them. The Florida FWC has made these laws to protect the manatees from harassment, which I think is a great idea. We want them to feel at ease but to also allow humans to form a respect for these creatures through up close encounters. I know I have a new respect for these sort-of-cute aquatic mammals!

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by Nikole

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Lemon Shark dive off of Jupiter, FL

Monday, January 31, 2011 Posted in Scuba Diving, Wildlife Conservation

On Jan 18, 2011 my friends and I went diving with the Blue Tang dive charters in Jupiter, Florida. We were in search of Lemon Sharks. Staring in January the lemon sharks aggregations are popular among not only the scientist but also scuba divers from all over.  I found this site http://www.shark.ch/Projects/Behavior/index.html most interesting because local scientist are studying these particular lemon sharks to find out why they choose South Florida to aggregate too. Also these types of studies will help protect sharks in the future because FWC can use this data to prove importance of saving a species.

In 2010 the Florida FWC put a ban on commercial and recreational fishing of lemon sharks in Florida waters. Conservation groups and scientists were able to point out the economical importance of sharks alive rather then dead. One shark might be worth a couple hundred dollars dead to a fisherman, but alive this shark will bring in thousands of dollars. One shark alive means local dive boats can run dive charters, hotels can house tourist, restaurants can flourish during off-seasons, and locals have the opportunities to make money. This is an important fact to acknowledge and spread to keep our oceans healthy. Currently the lemon sharks is the only shark with a ban in Florida. At the end of this year there are hopes that we can add hammerhead, bull and tiger sharks to this ban in Florida.

I posted a similar blog about the diving with Lemon Sharks back in March 2010….check it out for tips on how to get involved with saving sharks! Go To  http://www.nikoleordway.com/archives/352

On this day the seas were calm and clear and we encountered nearly 30 lemon sharks between two dives. What an amazing sight and the girls, Cortney and Missy, were so excited! They have only seen little nurse sharks before so it gave be pleasure to bring them to meet lemon sharks. They thought because they were out to see sharks that they should dress like pirates! Silly girls! Along with the sharks we had fabulous dives with groupers and rays as well!

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by Nikole

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December Dive Report in Palm Beach, Florida

Wednesday, December 29, 2010 Posted in Friends & Family, Scuba Diving

Brrr its cold outside but that didn’t keep us from diving in Palm Beach!

Dec 5: My mom, sister, and cousin all braved the cold and came diving with me on the Deep Obsession. First dive was to the Princess Anne wreck in 100 ft of water. This wreck is pretty broken up but it was neat to see the life around it. Huge barrcudas and a Goliath Group…Lauren was my photogather and I shot video. Second dive was on a shallow reef in 50 ft. We had a sea turtle, eels, and lots of reef fish. Danielle enjoyed chasing the angelfish and Lauren was photgraphing the corals as always! How much fun to be able to dive with your whole family!!!

Dec 27: Great day to dive, the swells were 1-2ft, visibility 30 ft, and water temperature 68 degrees. We went to Ron’s Jump for our first dive. This is a nice reef in about 50ft with lots to see…eels, angelfish, and turtles. But during the dive the boat had a very rare surface sighting of a baby hammerhead shark. It surfed right over the diver’s bubbles. It was so quick we didn’t get a photo, however after the divers were up we spotted the same shark again surfing in the waves! So we got out the camera and boy was this shark posing! This hammerhead was acting like a dolphin, it even came up to the bow of the boat and used the pressure wave from the bow to ride for 2 mins then it dove. What an amazing site!

Our second dive was to Breaker’s reef. This reef is named after the famous Breaker’s Hotel which is directly inshore from this site. We see lots of neat creatures on this 50 ft dive, and today we found a small pencil urchin in a crack and under a ledge a great photo opt with a red fish called a Bigeye.

Dec 28: So if you read the Dec 27th post your about to get your dive gear out and ready for this day! The air temperature finally let up and we went out to dive Juno Ledge. But we got reports of bad visibility so we ended up at Split Reef. This is one of our deeper reef systems (80 ft), and we saw lobster hanging out in the ledges there. The vis was okay (20 ft) but Captain Sean wanted to find us blue waters so we travelled south to the shallow reefs. Along the way we encountered 2 mola molas (sunfish) on the surface, but they were really shy and I couldn’t get any good photos of them.

Second dive was at the Trench. This was a first for me, the site actually has a trench that we follow along to the reef. And in this trench we had 2 huge nurse sharks, sea turtles, and lionfish. What a fun dive and the vis was much better (40 ft). After the dive we started heading home and was joined by a pod of 50 Spotted dolphin. They had a few babies with them and they were moving fast! We looked up and towards the shore and a big black back caught our eye…it was a WHALE! We stayed our distance so that we wouldn’t scare it and when it surfaced that face was easy to id…it was a Northern Right Whale. This whale was probably 40 ft long and it was traveling north. What a neat encounter!!! Made my day!!!

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by Nikole

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Guy Harvey Oceans Foundation

Saturday, October 30, 2010 Posted in Wildlife Conservation

The Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, which supports research at NSU’s Oceanographic Center (OC), held a fundraising dinner in The Arena at the Don Taft University Center on NSU’s main campus, on Oct. 27, 2010. Led by Guy Harvey, Ph.D., a renowned artist and marine conservationist, the nonprofit foundation helps ensure that future generations will enjoy and benefit from a naturally balanced ocean ecosystem, where fish and other marine wildlife flourish.

The fundraiser featured Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D., director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI) at the OC and NSU genetics and conservation biology professor. GHRI is dedicated to conducting the research required for conservation and proper management of the world’s wild fishes. Money from the fundraiser will be used to benefit GHRI and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation. According to Shivji, the tiger sharks off of Bermuda are able to be tracked due to the sat tags that are placed on their dorsal fins, as a result these sharks are all travelling on the same path. These sharks are tagged in Bermuda and they are seem to make it down to the islands of the Bahamas for awhile then they’ll travel back North to Bermuda. Now these scientist need to figure out why this happens, which will be the next part of their study.

The fundraiser theme was to Celebrate Sharks, so Guy Harvey asked Jim Abernethy to present as well. Jim was able to bring across the point that fisheries are destroying sharks worldwide and even now in our backyard, the Bahamas.  Jim was able to share his relationship with the sharks at Tiger Beach to show that these animals are not man-eaters like Hollywood has them out to be. At the end of the presentation Jim showed us the trailer for the film that he, Guy Harvey, and Wyland filmed just recently off the MV Shearwater.  I am not able to share the trailer on this site but I was able to post see it on Facebook. Photos below are from the event!

Coming soon to your tv set….”This is Your Ocean: Sharks”:

Wyland Shark Trailer

3 artist set out on a journey to bring light of the situation haunting the Bahamas. Foreign fishing boats are trying to get permits for killing sharks in the Bahamas….THIS CAN NOT HAPPEN or we will lose animals like Emma, the famous 14ft tiger shark of Tiger Beach! Stay tune for when this will be aired…until then watch this trailer and sign this petition http://www.causes.com/causes/433505?m=9e4cc0c7&recruiter_id=44401854

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by Nikole

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Sea Turtle Research in Palm Beach, FL

Thursday, October 28, 2010 Posted in Wildlife Conservation

Jim Abernethy’s Scuba Adventures is a big supporter of local marine life research. Especially with sea turtle research. JASA loves it when we get to help with little baby turtles and even the big sea turtles.

One day I was working the boat and I got to meet Larry Wood. Larry is a local scientist that works with Hawksbill turtles in the areas of West Palm Beach (WPB). Larry hand captures and brings the turtles to the surface. I was onboard to receive the turtle and Larry and his assistant got onboard and did a turtle work-up. In  the work up they take measurements, blood samples, and place tags. After the work up the turtle will be release back into the area it came from. Larry is authorized to do this through permits from NMFS, so please do not attempt, pursue, or harass turtles while you are diving. Larry’s research is very important for us to understand what the population of Hawksbills in WPB are up too. Hawksbills have almost been wiped out primarily because of humans wanting their beautiful shells. Its awful to think that people are not educated enough to understand that our oceans can not afford this type of loss. Sea Turtles are very important to WPB marine ecosystems, they are responsible for eating algae of corals which helps the corals out. Every animal has a role on this planet, who are we to mess with that? To check out Larry Wood’s research go to www.floridahawksbills.com

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The other day I went to visit the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach. This is a center that is deciated to rescue and rehab sea turtles. Janine my co-worker and I got a tour of the center from Melissa Ranly. She is the center’s Hospital Coordinator and is responsible for making the sick and injuried turtles feel better and get the best care on their road to recovery. At the center we encountered many different patients…one was a Kemp’s Ridley turtle. This species is very rare in WPB waters, and this particular turtle was rescued because it had fishing line wrapped around its front flipper. This restricted the blood flow and this little guy almost lost his flipper but because he was rescued their is a chance he’ll get released back into the ocean!

Another turtle that tugged at my heart strings was a green sea turtle named Andre. Andre was found washed ashore after substaining two separate boat propeller injuries. This poor turtle had such a deep cut that it extended into his body cavity which created a lung infection. His wound was closed up and a Vacuum Assisted Closure Unit was installed to promote healing. So Andre is hooked up to a funny looking device but at least its helping him get better.

What a great facility and we got the gift shop to help us sell Jim’s Shark Book!

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by Nikole

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