The British are chumming! The British are chumming!

Okay so I think I'm funny. Because it was me plus Team UK (Amy, Adam, James, and Ed) out on the boat today. I told my joke to Ed, but he didn't get it. I guess Paul Revere is not as major a figure in British history as in American history. Whatever. I bet Mom laughed, at least.

So I went out chumming today, with the Brits and Ryan. We were the second shift, apparently the first shift tends to see more action. We sat at anchor down at Hartenbos, which is north-ish of here, for a few hours. We use shark livers in bags to get oil into the water, and sardines on a rope to attract the sharks. (BTW my hands still smell like shark liver, and I already showered. The house sort of always smells like fish. You get used to it.) We also pour out chum water, which is basically made by one person stomping on a bunch of sardines in a bucket of water. We also had a seal decoy out, which is made out of foam and carpet, actually, and cut in the shape of a seal. It floats on the top and attracts the sharks. So I was on data collection today, which basically means writing down when we see sharks, any distinctive markings or tags that are on them, environmental observations, etc. One person holds the bait rope and throws it out to the sharks, then has to pull it away to make sure they don't get all the fish from it. Another person takes pictures, since we are trying to identify the sharks by their dorsal fins. I actually did this with dolphin fins at UCLA, too. All the dorsals have different patterns of notches along the edge, and each is unique and can be used to identify the individual.

Unfortunately, we didn't see much today. We did see one white shark, about 2.5 m long, which is pretty small. It checked out the decoy, checked out the bait rope, and buggered off (as they say). So after like three hours of chumming, we decided it was a lost cause. Ryan wanted to show me some sharks on my first day, though, so we towed the decoy behind the boat as we drove laps around Seal Island. If you've watched Sharkville, you've seen this process before. Anyway, we all stood on the back of the boat, cameras poised, for about 45 minutes. I got some great shots of Seal Island, but unfortunately that's about it. Everyone told me this is about as uneventful a day as we get chumming, so it's all uphill from here. At least I saw one shark! And we're doing an extra-early chum trip tomorrow, so I should see some more action in the morning.