Mari Ness - Keys Trip, Day 4:

One of the many problems with being a lowly graduate student is that when a particularly unpleasant task suddenly appears on the horizon -- like, say, making a shark swim through water -- a gleam appears in the eye of any nearby scientist, who says, with joy, "Hey, I know! We'll make the graduate students do this -- and we'll tell them it's a really great experience." This is particularly true when said graduate students are coming from a place known for studying sharks, even if said graduate students are actually focusing on corals, fisheries management, or the Florida Everglades, none of which are particularly shark-centered.

As in our recent conversation, where a scientist, realizing that he had four comparatively healthy and cheerful graduate students, realized that we could help him make sharks move round and round in a tank. I immediately thought of 3000 things I would rather do, and in the next second, another 3000. For instance, I could have given Dubya English lessons. Useful, and, not including sharks.

But since we are on State of Florida property, not federal property, this was apparently not an option. So, shark pushing we went.

Second on my list of things I did not want to do today was to wake up at 5:30 in the morning so that I could push sharks around, but we apparently had a narrow window of opportunity at a lab, so, 5:30 am it was, which had a lot against it, including the fact that it was seriously too early for me to think about anything, but did have the hopeful benefit of making me think about coffee, and not sharks.

Here's how the shark thing works:

1) Two people get into shark tank number 1 and try to capture the sharks in a net. These two people did not include me.

2) Sometimes the shark stays in the net, in which case you go on to step four.

3) Sometimes the shark jumps out of the net, which upsets all of the sharks and causes frenzied swimming. This was about when I pointed out that I really needed another cup of coffee, preferably heavily spiked.

4) The shark is then flipped into a small tank, where two people (not me) hold the shark down and inject it with something. The shark thrashes about wildly.

5) Once the shark stops thrashing, the shark is lifted out of the tank and placed beside the tank where people very rapidly draw blood from the shark (you have to move quickly or a) the shark may die and more importantly b) the blood won't be in good condition for the lab.)

6) Then the shark is moved into shark tank number 2, where strong young graduate students, their description, not mine, start moving the sharks through the water to get them to breathe again.

This is a hell of a lot less fun than it sounds, not just because, let's face it, you're holding a shark, but also because even when the revived sharks are pointed in the correct direction they are, after all, sharks, and feel like making the point by swimming back where you are trying to revive the next shark and hitting you in the leg. Very high on the list of things I never ever need to experience again is a shark ramming me in the leg. Three times in succession, and then a break, and then more. (And yes, somebody did get injured -- not me, at least not then. I ran into some mangroves later but this is not that story.) Frankly I am not convinced that I needed to experience this in the first place. And the sharks weigh about what you think they would weigh, which means this is also not easy on the back.

The experience greatly renewed my fondness for the Florida Everglades, which are renowned for not having sharks, and made me think considerably kinder thoughts about coral reef monitoring, which rarely involves sharks.

After this is seems kinda anticlimatic to note that today's extra dives included, FINALLY, a look at Florida mangrove roots and sponge systems at their roots (the rest of you might have liked the groupers and the turtle there), an exciting moment where I thought the ocean current was going to carry me and another student away to extremely exciting destinations, and the realization, yet again, that eight years is not, in fact, enough time to destroy videotape. Sigh.

More later.