Broad Key Marine Life #1

Just a few minutes ago I went to the boathouse.  I discovered why.  A 14 inch diameter (typical size) Moon Jellyfish was swimming through. There were several other smaller Moon Jellies there too. It was fun to watch the big one. Without question it was swimming. Often we have a mental image of jellyfish floating but that is not accurate. They swim and this one was "stroking" along at a good rate.

A moon jelly side note:  On one of the trap retrieval trips, a flock/pod/gaggle/school (?) of at least 50 moon jellyfish went past us. They actually interfered with the rigging on the traps. But credit Matt and Andy for their patience as they worked to not hurt or sacrifice the jellies in the process of bringing in their traps.

I got to thinking you might like to see some of the marine life here at dock side and the boathouse. But please note that the pictures are not mine. I have tried to shoot some but taking pictures from the surface is very hard. there are definitely technical issues to overcome. So what I will show you are pictures I have discovered online that come as close as I can find to what is to be seen by looking off the dock.

Spiny Lobsters are around the dock and boathouse and in between. They are not the cold water type with the pinchers. In place of the pinchers there are long "antenna". This a lobster sanctuary. Commercial harvesting is prohibited. (See another side note at the bottom of this post.) But there are hundreds of them, literally, around the boathouse. They are a social critter and are found backed into any crevice or hole they can find. Recently, it was molting season.  The bottom is now littered with the evacuated shells of this curious crustacean.

A few days ago one of the students was fishing off the dock for barracuda. Long story but not for now. In the process he caught a Nassau Grouper. It was a smaller one at about 20". We worked together to carefully free it from the hook and return it to the water. Not sure but I don't think catching them is appropriate. I have so much to learn...

The afore mentioned side note:  The other night, as we returned from a trap setting run, I was confused by some lights that were not where they should be. Using the boat's search light I lit up a pair of boats at the edge of the channel. Their lights were what confused me. There was not supposed to be anything there. I let it go, feeling bad for flooding their boat with bright light (their night vision was not going to be returning for a while...). The next day I was discussing this find with the "captain" working with the grad student who is here for the month. He informed me that I had run across Cuban lobster poachers. He, too, had run across them later on his night run.  He called it in to the FWC (Fish and Wildlife Commission) who indicated they would be patrolling the area and to not approach the poachers.    And you thought I was kidding when I said part of my job was to keep Cubans off the island...

cz, 1200 9/24/2014