Cowboy hats and fish surveys for me!

Hi Sea Fans!

In Texas, on my time off I got to wear cowboy hats and when I was "working" I got to wear a life jacket, immersion suit or sunglasses...ha ha ha ha!

While I visited Kelly, I got to take part in a research trip to Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. 

I helped Captain Mike pilot R/V MANTA during dive operations at Stetson Bank.

This trip was specifically to collect long-term monitoring data at Stetson Bank. Both researchers and volunteer science divers from Texas A&M University Galveston took part in this trip to collect images and conduct fish and benthic (bottom of the sea) surveys.

Me enjoying the view! (The water in the sanctuary is so much clearer than the muddy coastal water of Galveston.  This is because there are different current patterns in the Gulf of Mexico and because of the sediment load (sandy deposits) from nearshore rivers).

Here are some pics from our trip to show you what the scientists get up to:

"Helping" (more like supervising or just checking things out while others work :)) one of the science divers from the university enter data from his dive surveys into the computer on board R/V MANTA.

Identifying sharks that were spotted on the dive.

Man I love this!  For more information about Stetson Monitoring, go to 
http://flowergarden.noaa.gov/science/stetsonmonitor.html


Have a great weekend Sea Fans!
Cheers!
Abby
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PS. All NOAA images credited to NOAA Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary