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Day 7: 8-2-06
Today we added an additional three fish survey dives and one collection dive to our cruise total. Sea surface conditions continue to improve, although we are keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Chris in the Caribbean. All sites today were on typical North Carolina live rock ledges. The ledges may only rise three feet but they can extend for kilometers, as we found during our multibeam surveys. These extensive ledges provide structure for a variety of fish, such as groupers, snappers, porgies, and many tropicals, as well as lionfish.
The cold, green, nutrient-rich waters on the bottom are beginning to take its toll on the divers. Divers continue to work hard, but they are feeling fatigue earlier than only a few days ago. For now, our weather looks good, enthusiasm is still high, and we’ll continue as we have been for our final day and a half.
Highlight: Essential Image Source Foundation (EISF) Documentary crew
NOAA researchers have partnered with the EISF (http:www.eisf.org)
to create outreach products aimed at increasing public awareness about
the invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish. It is our goal to warn the medical,
diving, and fishing communities about the venomous spines of the lionfish.
In addition, we hope to raise public awareness in areas where lionfish
have not yet colonized, such as the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and Florida
Keys. By increasing early public awareness and information, we
aim to decrease the likelihood that will become established in these
areas. We have been working topside with writer/field producer Betsy
Crowfoot and filmmaker Curtis Callaway and underwater filmmaker Norbert
Wu to further this effort.
Norb, as we know him, has been a professional underwater filmmaker for the past twenty years. When he is not diving with lionfish researchers, he spends time under the ice in the Antarctic and with great white sharks off the Baja Peninsula. On this cruise, in addition to all of the technical dive gear, he has been gathering footage with a high definition video camera. Despite the sheer size of this camera he handles it adeptly, swimming against unrelenting currents to get the shot.
Betsy Crowfoot – writer and field producer
Curtis Callaway - Filmmaker of Callaway Brothers Photography
This dynamic duo, Betsy Crowfoot and Curtis Callaway, were only aboard for the first few days of our cruise, but they managed to be everywhere at once. While Norb collected footage below the surface, Betsy and Curtis were a perpetual flurry of activity, conducting topside interviews of the scientific party and ship’s crew and shooting footage of all ship board activities.
Due to time commitments to their ‘real’ jobs on Monday afternoon, we said good-bye to Betsy and Curtis during an offshore personnel transfer with the US Coast Guard. We have missed Curtis’s camera and Betsy’s probing questions following us around ship.
We have been extremely lucky to have such a talented and personable group of filmmakers and journalists aboard. It has been a pleasure to meet them and share our cruise experiences. We thank them for their patience with our camera shyness, our inept modeling, and our instantaneous tongue-tied reflex when the camera was rolling. Their patience and good humor have been appreciated.