I not sleep well last night at all. We have dinner from 6-7 pm and then do a few more things prepping gear for today and then went back to our rooms. I read for a while, but tried to fall asleep at 9 (10 ET), which is really early for me. Woke up every half hour after 2 until I finally got up at 5:30 and walked around the island looking at the sunrise. It was a nice one.
We went snorkeling after breakfast off the dock to test our gear – we saw a nurse shark, a southern stingray, lots of spiny lobster, an upside-down jelly, and tons of cool fish in the patch reefs.
The first block rigs we set caught 3 sharks, but unfortunately one was dead when we got there and one was too tired to be worked up so we released it immediately. The last was too old, so we couldn’t tag it for the residency study. Which meant we didn’t get to do any actual data collection today. We checked the block rigs all day but didn’t catch anything else.
In our waiting time, we hand-lined for bait fish. I actually caught 5! And maybe I’ll get better as the week goes on. Bert, the first mate on the boat, is like the fish whisperer though, he can smell when they’re on his line or something.
After dinner, we tried to chum the water at the end of the dock for lemon sharks but to no avail, and then the rain chased us in. Better luck tomorrow.
Travels Around the World 