DAY 2: What a Day!
News of the day includes a gentle awakening fly by from a pair of graceful spotted eagle rays, then we got more corals re-attached to the reef with some welcoming banded butterflyfish, pesky blue-head wrasses eating anything we scrub off the backs of the coral transplants or substrate, and a curious spotted moray eel slinking in and out of his crevice.
We decided to spend our mid-day and lunch break counting and documenting the number of fish that occur around and about the habitat, guessing about 25-40 species. Already we’re up to 58 species - the newest spotting is two graysbies, but most impressive are the two goliath grouper that constantly keep peering in and around our view ports, on all sides of the habitat. Look for these two characters later tonight on the gazebo feed, my brother says that you can always tell when the grouper is coming by because all the other fish disappear and then the big guy passes, and again soon the fish frenzy returns after he’s gone by.
This evening, upon return to the habitat (5:30 pm) we were alerted that the bivalves were spawning, and when it comes to spawning…I can’t miss a thing! We followed up and found the oysters spawning - some were the typical males “smoking” and the others were releasing streams of white and orange (very skinny silly string-like), which we assume are eggs, but it was too fine to distinguish. It’s possible that a single oyster was releasing all three, as it seemed that individuals were spawning in one spot, then you turn around and find another releasing at another location. One of the two goliath groupers accompanied us into the wet porch while we were breaking down our rigs and getting out of the water, which Abel tried to photo.
Tonight we’re chatting and discussing the day and planning our dives for tomorrow. Conditions are great, the water is very clear and calm and current was minimal all day, picking up a bit tonight. Can’t wait to dive tomorrow, I’m ready to go back in now of course, but I guess I’ll have to settle for some sleep first.
Signing off until tomorrow, Aquanaut MacLaughlin saying goodnight to all.
Note that Aquarius sits within a research only zone within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, so it is illegal to fish around Aquarius and this is enforced by the marine patrol!
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