NSFW Before my day turned to crap...

[geechie]

... I got to go out on the boat and show off a bit.

These days, I don't do much biology, It's mostly all computer database stuff. But every now and then, I go out as the biologist/deckhand on educational cruises. Today's group was an invertebrate zoology class from the College of Charleston. Since it was one of her day's off, I invited the Pegster to come along for the ride (she took the pictures).

The boat was designed and built in New Brunswick. Up there, they become lobster boats, but we've modified it for our purposes, mostly trawl and longline work.

Leaving the boat slip at Ft. Johnson...

http://r1150r.smugmug.com/photos/65087923-M.jpg

I would be the one with the grey hair.

Winching the cable back in...

http://r1150r.smugmug.com/photos/65087925-M.jpg

Bringing the net back aboard.

http://r1150r.smugmug.com/photos/65087926-M.jpg

This is where it starts to be fun...

http://r1150r.smugmug.com/photos/65087928-M.jpg

I get to show off for these sweet little co-eds.

Ooh! Look! A seahorse. Hippocampus erectus I do believe. And yes, it's a pregnant male!

http://r1150r.smugmug.com/photos/65087929-M.jpg

And this little gem, is a Striped Burrfish, Chilomycterus schoepfi for those of you taking notes.

http://r1150r.smugmug.com/photos/65087931-M.jpg

Yes of course you can hold him. Just be careful, he's not called a burrfish for nothing.

http://r1150r.smugmug.com/photos/65087933-M.jpg

If it's any consolation, I'm not getting rich doing this stuff. But it is fun.

George

[DarthRider]

Cool George!
I didn't know you are a biologist...

Dave

[Tipstall]

Thanks for sharing.

Ken

[1MPH]

George....you old salt you.....maybe we should call you "Bosun"..
Thanks for the write up and pictures. :eusa_clap: :)

[DJ Down Under]

Thanks George...great pictures..it looks like you had perfect weather...what's that black stuff on the table in pic 3..looks like someone had a haircut.

btw...Nice sea horse...we have much bigger ones down under..:icon_mrgreen:

DJ

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~djp1/mypic2326.jpg

[GPM]

btw...Nice sea horse...we have much bigger ones down under..:icon_mrgreen:

DJ

OUTSTANDING!!!!

[BobFV1]

Hippocampus erectus

He he, he he.

[Wild Will]

Very cool stuff, indeed. Look at the map sometime across the country from S.C. and look for Point Arena, Ca. That's where I'm located. It's a bump on the coast a hundred miles N of S.F. No such creatures here, but we have great whites, interesting pinnipeds (sea lions and seals), and large edible mollusks called abalone. Your students are lucky to have access to your passion! So are we, Amigo!

[DarthRider]

Bob got that male Seahorse pregnant...

Dave

[Acacia]

And DJ is sjhowing off Gay Aussie horses!

[TorqueMonsterMT-01]

George;
Great pictures. I like your choice of professions. Add some wind, rain and a floppy yellow hat and I would buy frozen fish sticks from you!

DJ;
That poor horse looks like he is a little embarrassed. I'm sure he would have fought back if he had some thumbs.

[arkline]

George,

What I want to know is why the younger folk weren't doing the winching. It WAS an educational trip wasn't it?

[Gord]

George,

What I want to know is why the younger folk weren't doing the winching. It WAS an educational trip wasn't it?

And they learned the lesson correctly.

Let the old F&@K handle the winch!

*grin*

George I am sure that the young folks of today appreciate not just your labour, but your willingness to get out there and share your experience.

Good on you mate!

[Ed K]

George, Looks like a great place to live, George... and to study Biology.

Are you employed by a university?

[geechie]

DJ: Man! Now THAT is a sea-horse. I stand in awe.

And I sorta figured some of you all would pick up on the umm... gay aspects of a pregnant male sea critter. You guys are so predictable.... errr, dependable.

Just to set the record completely straight; my job title is Biologist II, but I do not have a degree in biology. (I've got an Associate in Science, Computer Technology.) My education in biology, extensive as it is, is pretty much all self-inflicted. I came to work for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Marine Division in 1976. I hired on at the Marine Resources Research Institute as a Technician II. I knew right off the bat that I had found my niche in life. I spent a lot of time in our research library, and about ten years down the road, earned the label "Biologist". I'm very proud of it. A few of you may know that I consider myself an atheist — any prayers on my behalf are appreciated — but I do have a religion; it's Biology. I believe in life... and motorcycles.

George

[GOGRL]

Geechie - that is so cool. I'm a cell bio/phys major myself, pre-law minor, and took some field courses in marine bio and wildlife ecol, my favorite being a research trip to Belize (no hippocampus erectus, but plenty gorgonia flabellum and cyphoma gybbosum - SORRY for the typos, Linnaeus).

Living in the desert, also did research on the desert tortoises - I'll have to dig up those pics. Thanks for sharing your other life.

[DarthRider]

George said:
"...I believe in life... and motorcycles..."

Motorcycles *are* life...

Dave

[Ed K]

Someone last week told me I was "wasting" too much time on motorcycles... and to that I replied... Incredulous I calmly said: "You got it wrong... everything else is a waste, this is life!"

[socalrob]

My brother is a phd plant pathologist up in Alaska. Biology looks like a petty cool science.

I had one of those puffer fish in a salt water tank as a kid. Lived years & years. Got to be very friendly.

[BobFV1]

My BA is in biology. But it didn't take. I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground. But I did have a Summer job at the zoo when I was in college, and I got to skin a Rhino.

[jamming]

Bob, how the hell did you get the Rhino to stand still for that?

Roger

[DJ Down Under]

Gotta watch out for those Rhino's....:003:

DJ

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~djp1/mypic2333.jpg

[Wild Will]

My BA is in biology. But it didn't take. I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground. But I did have a Summer job at the zoo when I was in college, and I got to skin a Rhino.

I can't wait to hear the details.

[Promethean]

WW,
You don't know what you've asked for. :)

I can't wait to hear the details.

[mnnden]

George, Very interesting and great pictures, our son has taken two trips with the CG on the USCGC Healy, across the arctic, they are mapping the ocean floor and collecting data, scientists from several countries participated, I followed closely via the internet, interesting stuff, Den

The USCGC Healy,
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y90/mnnden/Healy-in-ice.jpg

What I remember about science class,
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y90/mnnden/science-teacher.jpg

[BobFV1]

Well - I had a summer job in 1977 preparing rodents as specimens at the LA County Museum of Natural History. Mostly I worked with Woodrats and Kangaroo Rats which had been trapped in the wild and frozen. I would thaw them out and then get a per rat fee to skin them and prepare the skins as stuffed specimens - also had to catalog the specimens once they were stuffed.

Well we got a call one day that a White Rhino had died at the San Diego Zoo and they offered the skeleton to the collection at our museum. We had a warehouse full of flesh-eating beatles where we took large, skinned specimens and let the beatles eat the flesh off the bones.

A small group of us mounted up our cars with whale flensing tools (we were big on collecting marine mammal skeletons so we had lots of "knives on a stick" and down we went. When we got to the autopsy room the rhino had already been autopsied, and she was upside down on the table, gutted with a mid-ventral incision and the viscera removed.

We just got to skinnin' - took all day. Got several six packs of Coors to help us along - threw the bones in the back of a pickup and took them back to the warehouse in downtown LA for the beatles to eat the flesh.

And that's my rhino-skinning story! Sorry for the hijack, but the question was posed.....

[Sir Limpsalot]

Flesh eating Beatles eh? Who'd have thought it? They always seemed such nice boys!
Si

[BobFV1]

Flesh eating Beatles eh? Who'd have thought it? They always seemed such nice boys!
Si

Google "dermested beatile" - that is what we used....

[Gord]

...I got to skin a Rhino.

Bob I am assuming that that expression is not a euphemism of some sort!

Did skinning the Rhino make you horny?

Yeah, I know. Bad joke. Or no joke!

[BobFV1]

Bob I am assuming that that expression is not a euphemism of some sort!

Did skinning the Rhino make you horny?

Yeah, I know. Bad joke. Or no joke!

Not sure if it was skinning the Rhino that did it or not.....