It was a sad day for tuna

At 5 am, March 24, 2011, Nate, Kris and Javier met Jamie and his dad, Don, at Awase port. We chartered a fishing boat for the day. The Sencho (capatain) took us out to the payaos, which are submerged platforms in about 3500 meters of water. As far as I can understand, payaos are in the water to provide fish habitat and good fishing grounds. It was dark and cold, so Jamie and Don took a nap on the 1.5 hour ride out to sea.



We were on a very nice fishing boat, probably about 45 feet long complete with a remote control for the throttle. Below is the Sencho with the remote control. The glass ball on the line at the bow of the boat is a squid light. One of the types of charters this boat does is night fishing for squid and then using the squid to catch big tuna from about 500 meters.



Payao fishing is pretty simple...the boat drives up to a payao and then drifts away in whatever direction the current and wind takes it. Sencho gives a signal and everyone drops their lines in the water with a silverside on the hook (see below).



It wasn't long before the fish started biting. Shoals of Katsuo (Skipjack tuna...Katsuwonus pelamis) were all over the surface of the water. We kilt 'em! Below you'll see Don pulling in a Katsuo, then Kris with her first, then Nate, and then Jamie with his first.




When Sencho gave the signal, we all pulled in our lines and he brought us back to the payao and we dropped the lines in again. As we would drive, someone would trawl with a squid lure. We pulled in at least 5 more Katsuo this way. Among the many Katsuo caught, there were also some Maguro (Yellowfin tuna...Thunnus albacares). Maguro make great sashimi! You could tell if you had one on the line because they seem to be a lot stronger and pull a lot more line out. Below is Nate pulling in a Katsuo after trawling and Kris with her first big Maguro!



It was a fun and successful day. We didn't get back to the dock until about 5 pm. We then laid out the catch to see what we ended up with. Between the five of us, we caught 66 fish! Ten of those were Maguro and the rest were Katsuo.




You'll notice that Kris caught the biggest fish of the day, although they were all big'uns! We divvied up the fish and then had to go home and clean them all...sigh. We got the hang of it pretty quickly and between Nate and I we finished cleaning in about two hours. Most of the Katsuo was pretty easy because we just took out the gills and guts and cleaned them up to give as presents. We gave some to our neighbors, our friends at Mou (the restaurant down the street), and Obuchi-san. They were all pretty excited about it!

We ended up with a LOT of fish! Below is all of the Maguro meat from four fish. Sashimi heaven and a freezer full of fillets. At the end of the blog is a video of Nate in a very fancy fishing chair.

Amamioshima

Kris, Megumi-san, and Obuchi-san went to Amamioshima to do some collecting on a bit of a last minute trip to spend the rest of our budget money. Unfortunately, Nate could not join us due to the high cost of plane tickets. He kept busy working, diving, and going to housewarming parties here on Okinawa.



Amamioshima is a very interesting island with many very high mountains, an endemic black rabbit, and giant beans! Below is the view from one of the highest points on the island. Click on the picture for the full effect. We were so high that we were in a cloud forest!



Last year's rainy season was very wet, causing many avalanches. As we drove along the mountain roads there were many roadblocks where one lane was covered in rocks and dirt. In a few places, the road had even collapsed!



The Amami rabbit, Pentalagus furnessi, which is very primitive looking with short ears and long front legs. We didn't see any of them, but we did see many caution signs due to their decreasing population. Their numbers are decreasing due to feral cats and dogs, the introduced mongoose (to cut down on the Habu population), and cars.

We went to this beach with very smooth rocks due to erosion where Obuchi-san felt like rolling down the slope. We also saw the giant beans, Entada phaseoloides, in a very pre-historic looking forest.



We did a lot of diving in VERY cold water. Samui des, ne! We went out on a boat with a diving shop and did two dives for two days. After the second dive each day, I literally couldn't feel my fingers or toes. It was worth it though, because I found hundreds of amphipods! In the picture below you can actually see two amphipods (arrows) inside this clear tunicate (a.k.a. ascidian or sea squirt).



We saw dolphins from the boat between dives. They were the first ones I've seen in Japan and the first ones Megumi ever saw! It was a very exciting day. We saw this giant green sea turtle on our dive as well.



We also did a bit of shopping and found this great t-shirt! I don't know how they come up with the sayings. And we found some nice melons. Check out the price on those! That translates into $34 per melon. I think I'll pass.



Below are two movies. The first is of the dolphins from the boat and the second is of a soldier crab eating. We saw hundreds of soldier crabs walking on the sand flat at low tide to check out the mangrove forest.

Famous on Okinawa

Hey everyone. I just thought we would let y'all know that our reputation is spreading here on Okinawa. There is a really great restaurant run by a young couple down the street from our apartment that we often go to for lunch. When our friends were visiting we went for dinner and landed a spot on their blog!

Check out the link: http://mou.ti-da.net/e2990946.html

The title of our link on the webpage is "Hilarious" or "Cheerful," apparently depending on what time of day you look at it. The English translation is awesome!

And a bonus picture taken by Awantha while Nate and I are sorting rubble at Toguchi beach.

Earthquake update

Thank you all for your concern, but Nate and I are doing very well. Life goes on as normal on Okinawa. In fact, y'all probably know more about what is happening in Japan than we do.

Okinawa is 1852 kilometres (1151 miles) away from Fukushima, where the nuclear reactors are, so in the case of an even worse tragedy, we are likely safe from any direct effects.

Our thoughts are with the people in Northern Japan, who are experiencing this devastation.

Cherry blossom time

Well, it has been a very long time since our last post, but we have been very busy. We had another visitor from the U.S. Flat Stanley arrived from Tennessee after we got back from Nagasaki. He joined us for the Cherry Blossom Festival up in Nago at the beginning of February. Okinawa has the earliest blooms in Japan, obviously because we are so much farther south than the main islands. Stanley from TN met Stanley from Arkansas, who was visiting our friend Carey at the same time. They both had a lot of fun with Martin at the Isakaya near our apartment!



So, just for something different, we've done a lot more diving! See below, Ninja Nate is ready to go in at Manza. The water is actually warmer than the air this time of year! Nate also got a great picture of a clownfish in his anemone.



A group of us from the lab went on four dives at Oura-wan Bay. This bay is a very unique habitat for the area as it connects directly to the Pacific ocean. It is also the future sight for a U.S. military helicopter landing pad that will be created by filling in part of the bay. People have been fighting this for about five years, but somehow it seems that it will eventually get built there anyway. We saw some really neat things on these dives, like a large octopus that changed colors about 10 times as it swam away from us. Obuchi-san pointed out this scorpion fish that perked up when he poked it!



There were ascidians (sea squirts) and sponges galore at the sites we dove in Oura Bay. This is a picture of a purple and white nudibranch (sea slug) on top of a sponge and a red ascidian. Inside ascidians and sponges is often where I find the leucothoid amphipods that I study. The orange amphipod is another new species that we collected from Oura Bay and nowhere else!



Hold on to your hats! The most exciting part of the last month (in Kris' world, anyhow) is that we have set up a tank in the lab for keeping live amphipods! The intention is to keep ascidians alive and to study the ecology of the amphipods living in the ascidians. There are lots of bugs to be worked out, but we have already learned some of what not to do. See exhibit 1 below: Box design A with live tunicates in them.



We captured some live amphipods and put them in the boxes with the tunicates and were very excited. We came back in the morning and all of the amphipods had escaped from the boxes and through the filter. (I assume they went through the filter because they are nowhere to be found). Hence, box design B. We replaced the styrofoam with fine mesh on the sides of the boxes and a piece of a plastic "Pet" bottle on the top. This design seems to be less flawed, but hopefully we will find out tomorrow when we get some more live pods to put inside!



Until next time....Ja mata.