Whale Watching Experience

Some 15 years ago I went whale watching for the first time. Unfotunately for me I saw no whales during that trip. Yesterday however was slightly different. I could not believe how many whales were dwelling in the Massachusett's waters.

As we moved through the Harbor and on to the open ocean, there were many fishing boats along the way. It was clear there were mainly commercial fishermen with their orange pants and fishing gear in tact.

The weather was sunny but overcast in some parts with clouds above us dabled like a painting in some spots. In addition, the temperature must have been in the upper 70's or around 80 degrees when we first left the harbor. As we moved out to the open ocean the temperature change became more and more abrupt causing some of us to put our hoody's on.

I was speaking with my classmate Ted when a bird flew across quite fast and very near the water. I thought the bird might be chasing a snack but Ted did not think so because of the color of the bird, which I missed. He did not think this type of bird ate fish and believed they were probably trying to find a place to land.

Our host during the trip explained there was an underwater plateau that was about 100 miles down. In addition, she explained one of the whales we saw was from the Baleen family and confirmed it was a Minky whale. I researched further the Minky and found some interesting facts at http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/MinkeWhale.htm as follows:

• "Characteristics: counter-shaded black to dark gray on top, white below and two areas of lighter gray appear on each side


• Size: length they average between 26 to 27 feet depending on the sex and both weigh about 10 tons


• Diet: primarily krill or capelin, cod, herring, pollock


• Sexual maturity is around 7 to 8 yrs and the breeding peaks during the summer months with gestation period about 10 to 11 months. At birth calves are 10 feet and weigh about 1000 lbs and nurse for about 6 months."

Overall the experience was great from the weather, the visuals of the whales, the group interaction and the overall harbor views. I enjoyed the entire trip.

Striped Bass-The Virginia Story

July 2010: "... the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is expected to decide whether to adjust the striped bass commercial quotas allocated to coastal states, and the Commission then will know whether it is feasible to remove the no-take slot limit." as posted in the Virginia Marine Resource Commission website http://www.mrc.state.va.us/whatsnew.shtm .

I represent the Virginia Commercial Fishermen and we are responding to the proposal to increase the quota for striped bass. Currently the quota is shared by both commercial and recreational fishermen. As a fishermen spokesperson we believe increasing the quota would benefit us substantially. Right now recreational fishermen are the ones benefiting from the quota limit where they seem to catch more fish than we do and we are stragling trying to maintain the quota and meet the needs of the industry. The report listed in reel-time.com says it best for us and I quote the following paragraph which explains in greater detail why we feel the way we do.

http://www.reel-time.com/articles/saltwater-fishing/states-schedule-hearings-on-striped-bass-commercial-increase-public-comment-accepted-until-oct-1/

"The Draft Addendum proposes two changes to the striped bass management program: (1) an increase in the coastal commercial quota, and (2) revising the definition of recruitment failure based on Technical Committee advice. The proposal to increase the coastal commercial quota is intended to improve equality between the commercial and recreational fishery sectors. Although Amendment 6 established management programs for both fisheries based on the same target fishing mortality rate, the implementation of state-specific quotas for coastal commercial harvest (and not for recreational harvest) has prevented the commercial and recreational fisheries from responding equally to changes in striped bass population size. Since 2003, coastal commercial harvest has decreased by 3.6 percent, while recreational harvest has increased by 13.7 percent. Under the option, the Board would select a percent increase to be applied to the coastal commercial allocations assigned in Amendment 6."

2. What do you think about the rule change?

• My own personal opinion is that the ban should continue to be enforced.


• The species is still gaining strength in the numbers and since it takes 2 to 8 years in some cases for a striped bass to reach maturity. http://www.arkansasstripers.com/morone-saxatilis-striped-bass.htm
  
• Because the Striped Bass is such as desired fish the state needs to protect the interest of this fish before if goes into a slow extinction.

Lab Observations:

This is my first time seeing a striped bass disected or any other fish for that matter. We learned the first thing to do when disecting or gutting the striped bass is to find where the head stops and the body begins. The striped bass is organized along a lateral line, a big nerve. Also, the striped bass has similar organs as humans due including a liver, and a stomach. It has gills instead of lungs and a tongue.

One thing I thought was fascinating was how organized the fecal matter flowed out of the fishes body in a very organized way sort of like a tube. The fat is mostly near the skin and is the darkest parts which is saturated by blood.

Regarding the recipes for striped bass. I've never cooked the striped bass before but do cook other fishes at home like Salmon, flounder, haddock, cod...but most of the time I do like to make them as a ceviche. I found the following recipe in the following link and I thought it might be one most would enjoy.

RECIPE: http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=17171

Ceviche Clásico

From chef Rick Bayless

Makes about 4½ cups, enough for 8 as an appetizer, 12 as a nibble

Working ahead: The fish may be marinated a day in advance; after about 4 hours, when the fish is "cooked," drain it so it won't become too limey. For the freshest flavor, add the flavorings to the fish no more than a couple of hours before serving.

Ingredients

· 1 pound fresh skinless Pacific halibut, striped bass or wild Alaskan salmon, cut into ½-inch cubes or slightly smaller

· 1½ cups fresh lime juice

· 1 medium white onion, chopped into ¼-inch pieces

· 2 medium-large (1 pound total) tomatoes, chopped into ¼-inch pieces

· Fresh hot green chiles to taste (roughly 2 to 3 serranos or 1 to 2 jalapeños), stemmed, seeded and finely chopped

· 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus a few leaves for garnish

· 1/3 cup chopped pitted green olives (choose manzanillos for a typical Mexican flavor)

· 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil, preferably extra-virgin (optional but recommended to give a glistening appearance)

· Salt

· 3 tablespoons fresh orange juice or ½ teaspoon sugar

· 1 large or 2 small ripe avocados, peeled, pitted and diced

· Tostadas, tortilla chips or saltine crackers for serving

To marinate fish

1. In a 1½-quart glass or stainless steel bowl, combine fish, lime juice and onion. You'll need enough juice to cover the fish and allow it to float somewhat freely; too little juice means unevenly "cooked" fish. Cover and refrigerate for about 4 hours, until a cube of fish no longer looks raw when broken open. Pour into a colander and drain off lime juice.
2. In a large bowl, mix together tomatoes, green chiles, cilantro, olives and optional olive oil. Stir in fish, then taste and season with salt, usually about ¾ teaspoon, and orange juice or sugar (the sweetness of the orange juice or sugar helps balance some of the typical tanginess of the ceviche). Cover and refrigerate if not serving immediately.
3. Just before serving, stir in the diced avocado, being careful not to break up the pieces. To serve, you can either set out ceviche in a large bowl and let people spoon it onto individual plates to eat with chips or saltines; serve small bowls of ceviche (perhaps spooning it onto a bed of frisée lettuce in each bowl) and serve tostadas, chips or saltines alongside; or pile the ceviche onto chips or tostadas and pass around for guests to consume on these edible little plates. In any case, garnish the ceviche with leaves of cilantro before setting it center stage.

Spectacle Island Observations

The trip to Spectacle Island was interesting because of the many things we found as a class. I was specially intrigued by the older items found such as the porcelan doll hand and the leather soles among other items like the many colored glass which decorated the beach for a stretch.

Another point of interest were the rocks on one side and the sand on the other and to discover the sand was brought in to actually make a section of the beach for bathers.

Finally, we observed 2 transects and it was interesting that in a limited amount of sand space there could be such a variety of objects, animals and things to observe and acknowledge. Animals like a razor clam or blue muscles, or the remains thereof, in habitat with rocks that appeared to be iron ore and coal, along with many broken pieces of glass that in a weird way, embellesh the recovering island.

Our trip to Spectacle Island was somewhat of a dissapointment because when we were in the boat to come back to shore I found out through a couple of the classmates that Spectacle Island has the highest point on the Harbor and you can see a great stretch of Harbor from that point. I was dissapointed to not have taken advantage of that opportunity but the bright side is that I hope to do so in the near future.

Day 4 Lovell's and George's

Comparison of day 3 vs. day 4 habitat:

• Although both were in sea water, the composition of the surroundings was different.


• Day 3 had an open ocean to swim in and out off while the day 4 experience at Lovell's involved multiple tidepools, three to be exact.
  
• In addition to the surroundings, we were able to actually go into the habitat's environment in a more direct way vs. the night before where we could only lean forward and hope to grab something.
• Water temperatures varied dramatically as we walked through-out the tidal pool going from a cold temperature to a very comfortable temperature where the sun was. It was explained that the water coming from the sea in the further-out pools were causing the water to be colder and yet the water in the inner pool was warmer because it had settled there longer.
• The water appeared to have a whitish film of some kind in certain sections near the perimeter of some of the rocks.
• Aside from the comforts of the field study and the overal environment, the animals were of a sligh variation at least for me,

ANIMALS:

--Periwinkles seemed to be more so than day 3.
--Asian Shore Crab: there were plenty of these to go around and easy to get to by
just flipping the rocks over but I thought difficult to spot at a glance because of
their size and how they camaflouge with the other sea colors.
--Tunicates: I saw several of these in the 3rd tidal pool. I had not seen them squirt
before therefore this was a first for me. (picture found using google images)

PLANTS:
-- The far tidalpool had a set of plants that looked like a mini-coral reef.

SHELLS:
--Sea Urchin Shells there were some around the pool but I did not see the actual
Urchin inside. The shell was round with a whole in the middle and spherical all
around with a green almost sage color.
--Empty clam shell was found with some muscle left inside.

The snail shells found all over the Island were mostlikely consumed by the birds. Maybe a songbird or a duck.

Day 3 Three Experience on the Harbor

SPOT 1:
Plants:
The wall had a line of green and black plants. Green plant appears to be Sea Lettuce and I am not sure about the black plant. The plants were in and out of the water as well.
There were also green mossy plants smeared on the wall which appear to be Spongomorpha.

Animals:
no animals were seen at this location.

SPOT 2:
Plants: Black moss against the wall but I am not sure what it would be.

Animals: Here there were some very small black fish swimming in packs around the corner of the wall area. The distance was great enough that I cannot tell what they were.

SPOT 3:
Plants:
There was again a moss substance around the intertiddle zone. The substance continues to look like the other moss substance seen in previous spots.
--Fernlike plant smothered by the insect-like species.

Animals:
--Jelly like substance attached to the Algae that looks like a Barnacle.
--Also, insect-like species that were thriving in the plants.
--Clear squigly fish or species that swam in the water and was about the size of a dime and bends in many forms.

Day 2 Class Experience on the Harbor

Last year the company I work for hosted a "Spirit of Boston" cruise that a few hundred people attended. I did get a chance to feel the wind on my face and see the shore line but not like today. Today I stepped-out to a clean sunny or maybe the correct description would be, overcast day. There were some clouds over us at times but the sun and the fluffy cumulus clouds overpowered them.








I saw the harbor and there were names to the islands and locations, to identify where we were. It was nice not to sit in traffic and get to Quincy so fast. The ship yard with the big gray navy ship and the blue and white waste tanks on the other side where the plant is located, made for some interesting conversation. A plant that sits wide in the open for all to see but the contents remain hidden and unexposed. Just the way we like it. No scent left behind!


The fish however weren't so subtle. Of course, it is the ocean but I could not remember last year such a potent scent. The wind was blasting as the captain tortured us with his "lead-foot" driving over the Atlantic/Boston Harbor currents, as we experienced the boat going up and down like a see-saw. The white egg-shaped buildings, I never knew that was Deer Island. We saw the Fore River in Quincy and a pack of seagulls chasing a snack around the Harbor. The sea-salt swirled around the ocean waters like someone had just dumped a 2-ton salt shaker in
the water.

The professor went around the group and labeled each one of us as a part of the sewage water system and everyone worked their part nicely. He also mentioned the problems of the harbor and discussed an interesting story about his friend and his response to a very unpleasant situation involving manure around the harbor. The professors friend stepped into manure while he was jogging and sewed multiple towns around to make the point clear regarding the condition of the harbor and impact change. We learned that by next year the pipes that continue to feed waste into the Harbor will complete be removed by next year and that every time it rains there is a very small percentage of bacteria in the water. I also was not aware the Intercontinental Hotel has a tunnel running under it. Overall the harbor looked great except for the random pieces of trash floating here and there. The locals sat in their boats, living it large and waving at us, and we observed a harbor I was formally introduced to, today.

Introduction/Water flow direction

Hi Class,

My name is Niurka De Leon but people usually call me Nikki. I am a senior at BU and hope to complete my degree requirements by the end of this year. This class was presented to me by my advisor who spoke greatly about it and highly suggested I consider it, to meet the requirements of the degree. She also said that everyone that takes it usually has wonderful things to say about it. She sold me on the idea, so here I am. As far as my sea escapades, I love the beach for personal pleasure specially the tropical island beaches, the sand, the clear blue water, the palm trees...you get the picture. I am looking forward to what appears to be an experience vs. a another class.

As far as the experiement goes, I saw the water twirl down in a clockwise direction. In researching this online the Coriolis effect kept coming-up in the articles I found, one in particular: http://ww.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-somebody-finally-sett . As far as I can tell this this is not a credible reason based on most arguments presented because the Coriolis effect has to do with "why things appear to speed or slow as the world spins out from under them." per discover.com article "The Skinny on Why toilet Bowl Water Twirls Clockwise". The argument kept coming-up that the water twirls differently in the northern vs. southern hemisphere. I personally don't believe this is true because I cannot find credible information to suggest that it is.