Author: Sofia Grabiel Butler

Late Friday afternoon, I stepped off a plane and breathed in Arctic air for the first time. I am currently in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, about halfway up the Arctic Circle in a Norwegian archipelago. Associate Sea Rover Faith Ortins runs the company BlueGreen Expeditions, and she has been extraordinarily generous in inviting me to join her and BlueGreen on their two-week Arctic expedition through Svalbard and Greenland. I am only the second BSR Intern to join Faith on one of her expeditions – last year’s intern, Logan, joined last year’s Arctic expedition. I am grateful beyond words that Faith extended the offer again to host the Intern and allowed me to join her here. It’s barely been 48 hours and I already can hardly believe the experiences I’ve had, and can’t wait to see what the next two weeks bring. 

This far north, the sun doesn’t set at all. It’s daylight all 24 hours, which made my first night of sleep very confusing for my circadian rhythm. 

For my first full day in the Arctic circle (still an insane thing to be able to say!), I spent the morning at Longyearbyen’s husky dog cafe. In the afternoon, I visited the North Pole Exploration museum with my roommate for the boat, Emily. She and I ran into each other, both on our way to the museum. I didn’t know before, the race to the North Pole was actually via airship (as in a dirigible, not a plane)! What an absolutely wild and whimsical concept, I love it. Unfortunately, it’s a tale full of tragedy as well as daring and whimsical adventure, but a fascinating tale nonetheless. Several different explorers, from many different countries, flipping between working together, racing each other, and (possibly) sabotaging each other in the quest to be the first one to reach the North Pole. The more you know!

That evening, the whole expedition group gathered in the Longyearbyen cultural center for introductions and logistics for the next day. Afterwards, I went for dinner with some of the new friends I met at that orientation.

Today we boarded the ship! This morning, I woke up early to pack up all of my gear before check-out time. I signed up for the dog-sledding experience, so at 9am I was a part of a group that got driven to the dogsledding company’s kennel down the road from Longyearbyen. They have 131 dogs there, and they were all super happy to get pets from new people. Once we had greeted and pet the dogs for a bit, we were shown how to put the cross-back harness on them and hook them onto the lead. Each of the dogs we were told to harness were so excited to be getting ready to run, it was really cute! Once all five sleds were set, I released the brakes and the dogs started to pull us along, as I (and each of the other drivers in our groups) followed our guide up and down the dirt roads. We passed one of the old coal mines too, where the soil turned black with all the coal that had been deposited there. The scenery was so picturesque, and it was so much fun to be driving around with these dogs in such a beautiful place!

It was lunchtime by the time we got back, and then we reconvened in the hotel for the buses to the ship. We loaded the bus, and then got our first glimpse of BlueGreen’s ship the Ortelius as we rounded the corner of the bay. Once all the bags were loaded, it was time to board and take off!

I’m not sure exactly what I had been expecting, but the Ortelius is a much bigger and well-outfitted boat than I was expecting. There are six decks, complete with a full dining room and a lounge/bar. We all convened in said lounge/bar once we double-checked that our bags had all been brought to the right rooms.

Our Expedition Leader, Chloe, gave a presentation about safety procedures on the Orelius, and then we all went back to our rooms to grab our lifevests and do a emergency disembarkment drill, where we walked the path we would take in case of an emergency where we’d have to board the lifeboats.

After that, Chloe continued her presentation and told us the plan for the next few days: heading south instead of north (which had been plan A) due to the big storm sweeping northern Svalbard for the next few days. She also introduced the rest of the expedition crew. We’re in great hands, and in for a fantastic two weeks, that much’s for sure!

Dinner time! The crew made a fantastic dinner buffet for our first night, and I sat with and had some lovely conversations with Associate Sea Rovers Greg Skomal and Nick Caloyianis, who are both here to tag and study Greenland sharks! The amount of research and citizen science happening on this expedition is absolutely inspiring and I can’t wait to get involved.

All in all, it’s been a fantastic first two days, and I’m so happy to be on the Ortelius with so many incredible people and divers.

– Sofia

At the end of my week at the New England Aquarium main campus, I drove down to meet Dan Dolan (friend of the Sea Rovers) and his wife Dawn at their home in Higham, MA.

We went for a lovely dinner while we talked about my week and the experiences I had at the New England Aquarium. It’s truly been an incredible week. As I told Dan, I thought I knew the aquarium well, having spent so much time there in the past and then having interned as an educator last summer. However, every single day I was learning about new behind-the-scenes areas, new aspects of exhibits, and new responsibilities and roles off the staff that I never knew about. Dan and Holly are good friends and coordinate their respective Internship aquarium weeks in conversation with each other, and I think that it was very interesting for me personally to learn so much at the different facilities because of my amount of experience (or lack thereof) at each aquarium. In Baltimore, I was learning that aquarium for the first time, and I was exposed to a lot of the behind-the-scenes cogs and systems before I became too familiar with the layout of the Aquarium itself. Because of that, my understanding of the Aquarium and how it runs was being filled in from the inside out, as one big picture revealing itself. However, because I already knew a lot about the guest side of the New England Aquarium operations, seeing so much behind-the-scenes expanded on and colored in my previous understanding of how it runs, and I saw NEAq from completely new angles. Two very different learning experiences at two different aquariums, and I’m glad I got to have both, since I got different things out of each!

After Dan and Dawn and I finished up our dinner and conversation, we stepped outside to find a Beatles tribute band playing by the harbor! 

The next morning, Dan and I drove down to the Quincy animal care center a few minutes away. I had heard about the Quincy center in the abstract, but knew very little about what actually happened there, so I was very curious to see what it was like! I would be spending the morning in the husbandry section, and after lunch would move over to the turtle rehab section. The first thing I saw when we walked in was the tank with the cownose rays. Most of the tanks there have viewing windows on their side, and the cownose window faced the entrance directly, so I could see them all swimming by.

Dan gave me a tour of the husbandry area, and after introducing me to the cownose rays, he brought me to a darkened viewing area to see into the tank with three juvenile sand tiger sharks! They were beautiful, and very different from what I know adult sand tigers look like from Shark Alley in Baltimore.

After my tour, we got to work. Dan and I worked together to vacuum the floors of two of the larger tanks, before I joined the 10am cownose ray feeding. Their biggest and oldest cownose is named Mystic, and she’s very noticable because she’s at least two-thirds bigger than the rest of them. The rest of mine and Dan’s morning was spent helping to build a new rack for smaller tanks. We helped cut the fiberglass bars, and I was the driller making all teh holes for the screws and helping to screw it all together. After we had finished the first story of the rack, it was time to break for lunch – our thai food had arrived.

After lunch, I headed to the other side of the warehouse to the turtle hospital. Most of the sea turtles have been released, with only two left (one just finished medication, the other is getting moved to a longer-term treatment facility). I carefully siphon-vaccumed their two tanks and then helped the team finish draining one of the empty tanks. Once the turtle team was done for the day, I rejoined the construction efforts and we finished another section of the rack.

And then, all too soon, my time with Dan at NEAq was done! What a whirlwind week, every day brought so many new experiences to the table and I love the New England Aquarium even more for it. It was truly such a fantastic week, and I couldn’t have asked for a better wrap-up to my aquarium weeks. Thank you Dan!

– Sofia

When I showed up to the aquarium for my day shadowing the Animal Health Department, I didn’t go inside the building for an hour after I arrived. The harbor seal exhibit by the ticket booths outside the aquarium had been completely drained that morning, and the animal health team was inside with some of the pinniped trainers, doing blood work on the seals. As I learned from the pinniped staff also observing the blood draw, the seals’ blood is taken and tested twice per year to make sure everything is running smoothly. All the aquarium’s harbor seals have exceeded their natural life expectancy of 20 years by a decade or more, mostly thanks to the medical care they are able to recieve at NEAq. For example, in addition to the blood draw, the seal Reggae needed an eye exam and some extra fluids so they had also brought IV bags for him.

Back inside the aquarium, I was shown around the Animal Health Department on the fourth floor and officially met the AHD team: veterinarian Melissa, and vet techs Mary Beth and Alyssa. There’s a surgery suite and a radiology room right there in the AHD department! The only animal living back there at the moment was a pork fish from the GOT that had been removed after getting attacked by some of the other GOT fish. The GOT and AHD teams decided to give him space and treatment to heal and to try and figure out why he might be getting targeted. Soon, Abi from the GOT joined us for porkfish treatment time: sedating him, taking an X-ray, and giving him his injections before putting him back into his holding tank.

Soon enough it was time to break for lunch, after which I had some time to explore the aquarium before meeting back with the AHD folks to observe their eye exam on one of the African penguins, Aewa. She’s in the middle of her molt so the penguin trainers had to be careful not to get her too wet as they brought her to the platform. The last thing I got to see that day was a necropsy on a weedy sea dragon that had passed away. The aquarium does necropsies on all the animals that pass, so Mary Beth was kind enough to bring me into the room and explain what they were doing as they did the procedure.

It was really interesting to see how much the Animal Health Dept does! They interact with all different parts of the aquarium and with all different types of animals. I’m really grateful I got to see so much, especially the harbor seal bloodwork.  

Speaking of the harbor seals, Thursday was my day with the Pinnipeds team!! The New England Aquarium has harbor seals and southern sea lions. In the morning, I helped with food prep, inspecting and cutting the fish and squid for both the seals and sea lions. When that was done, we headed across the aquarium to the seal exhibit (full of water again) for training. I got to walk all the way down the exhibit to sit with trainer Mollie, with Trumpet and Chacoda (a mother and son in the “spotted family,” one of the two harbor seal families). I was really impressed with how extremely well trained they both were! Granted, they’ve had 30-40 years of training from professional animal behaviorists, so it makes sense. They were so well-behaved that Mollie had me feed Trumpet some fish as a reward and got kisses from both the seals!

After seal training, it was time for the sea lion talk! The pavilion at the back of the aquarium was packed. Two of the trainers came out and walked sea lions Farley and Sierra through different skills and behaviors while Mollie gave a talk about sea lions, training techniques, and ways to help wild sea lions.

Then, I helped Thayna, the intern I helped food prep with, put together some toys (complete with fish and scent) for the seals, delivering them and watching the seals engage with them before taking them back to get ready for the next sea lion talk. There’s a second area behind the scenes where the rest of the sea lions spend time while two or three are out in the exhibit, so Farley had been brought back there. This time it was Sierra and Gio who were on exhibit and they did some really cool skills. Gio is working on a backflip!

Back in the behind-the-scenes area, Alyssa from AHD was with some of the trainers as they practiced some procedures with Farley. It’s important for the animals to participate in their own healthcare by being familiar with what is asked of them during procedures. Rather than sedating or subduing the pinnipeds, the aquarium trainers positively reinforce the behavior Farley needs for giving blood: laying on his side, flipper out, holding still while people touch and prick him. He did great, and they rewarded him with tons of fish and some jello as a treat.

Once again, I am incredibly grateful for the day I had at the New England Aquarium. The pinniped trainers were wonderful, and always willing to include me in whatever they were working on. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to learn from them!

– Sofia

On Sunday, I was with another staff member on their birthday, this time with penguin aquarist Mia Luzieti!

Similar to the GOT, the first task of the morning for the Penguin team is food prep. The penguins’ food rotates through several different species of fish, and that day we were feeding them herring, anchovies, and capelin. Ellie, the penguins co-op, and I were in charge of stuffing some of the herring with medication for each of the penguins. Once everything was ready, we suited up for the penguin tray! The water in the penguins exhibit is cold (to mimic the ocean temp in their natural habitat), so our wetsuits were 7mm thick and double-lined. We carefully climbed in the rockhopper exhibit and made our way through the water gates to the African penguin section. Several of the penguins are molting right now, so their feathers were all over the rocks and in the water. Ellie and I used nets to scoop them up and then got ready to help with the morning feed for the African penguins.

Each feeding requires two people: one to do the feeding, and the other to record how many of which fish the different penguins eat. Penguins are self-regulatory feeders, so they will only eat as much as they are hungry for. Recording how much each individual eats can give the trainers insight into their health or their molting season. Mia sat herself on the rocks, and I stood a few feet away observing and tallying the different fish as Mia called out the names of the penguins she fed. The NEAq penguins all wear colored bracelets to tell them apart, but Mia and the penguin trainers all know them by heart. We fed the older African exhibit first, and then moved to the larger and younger group. However, the penguins that are molting can’t come in the water, so we went over and offered them food separately.

After the feeding it was enrichment time: the trainers had a new enrichment toy, these reflective silver balls. We introduced them to the penguins, and some of them played around a bit with them curiously. After lunch, we hopped back in the tray and I helped with the rockhopper feeding this time. Then we brought out the silver balls again, as well as some colorful plastic ones. We let the penguins play around with them some more as we kept cleaning the exhibit. All the rocks get scrubbed down and disinfected each day, but the floor also gets dirty so my and Ellie’s job was to scrub the rockhopper floor. I got into a real groove after a couple minutes, twisting my foot that I had pinned the doodlebug down with to scrub the floor.

On the way out of the penguin tray, Mia decided to give the Rockhoppers a chance with the balls again. They didn’t seem to know what to do with them, so Mia tried showing them they were for playing by tossing one into the air and catching it again. The Rockhoppers were transfixed and they looked like tennis-goers, bobbing their heads to follow the ball’s movement. It was really funny and we were all cracking up!

The rest of the afternoon I was on observation duty, going around with one of the trainers to check on all the penguins from outside the exhibit, making sure to note any specific behavioral or health concerns. And then, just like that, my day with the penguin team was over.

On Wednesday, I was back with the GOT team. I was proud that I was able to help more independently with food prep in the morning, but I also had the chance to see new aspects of the GOT day and learn more about what they do. After I (with GOT volunteer Alan’s supervision) fed Myrtle, I joined him to see the process for turning on the vacuum: confirming that the divers were all set and ready and then voyaging into the basement to turn the valve on.

While the divers were in for their morning feeding and cleaning dives, I helped the rest of the team with the various chores and tasks on the checklist for the day. Then, in the afternoon I fed Brody the barracuda and did dry support for the divers, taking their empty containers when they were done and giving them the next ones. After that was done, one of the interns (Maddie) and I got a tour of the area behind the scenes of the Temperate Gallery. It was crazy cool to see from the tops of the tanks, and see what was being cared for behind the scenes! The aquarist intern who showed us around told us all about the various personalities of the different fish and species they take care of.

My days at the aquarium just keep getting better! Each one is offering something new, and I am so glad to be able to experience so many varied roles that make NEAq run so smoothly.

– Sofia

On my first day back in Boston I was excited to continue my Aquarium experiences, this time with the New England Aquarium. Saturday morning, I met with Dan Dolan, a friend of the Sea Rovers, before the Aquarium opened. He and I walked through the aquarium and he introduced me to his fellow friend of the Sea Rovers, Lissette Bayona. Lissette is a dive safety officer with the Giant Ocean Tank that fills the center of the aquarium, so she brought me up behind the scenes on the fourth floor of the aquarium to the Giant Ocean Tank prep area.

The first order of the morning was food prep for all the animals that live in the GOT. There are over 400 individual animals in the GOT, of 69 different species, so there’s a lot of food that needs to be organized and prepared properly each day! Some of these animals are fed by scattering pieces of fish, squid, shrimp, and krill into the tank, but others need more specialized feeding. For example, the boxfish and filefish get fed separately, and each of the sea turtles gets food prepared specially for them, as do the groupers, moray eel, nurse shark, and the barracuda. I put together the groupers’ food, with volunteer Alf’s help.

After we prepped the food, I got ready for my guest dive in the GOT!! I grew up coming to the New England Aquarium all the time, so I know it very well, and the GOT has always been one of my favorite exhibits. Every time I visit and see divers there, I always tell myself “one day that will be me,” and thanks to Lissette, Dan, and the Sea Rovers, it was me! It really felt like I was fulfilling some sort of prophecy.

Immediately after we dropped down, Lissette and I spotted Myrtle the green sea turtle right below us!! Myrtle is the queen of NEAq, as she’s been there since 1970 (she arrived just six months after the aquarium opened). At roughly 75-95 years old, and just over 500lbs, she is a sight to behold. We descended down to her and Lissette demonstrated how to give her shell a scratch before I dropped down and scratched her back. Sea turtles’ shells are connected to their spine, so turtles like Myrtle can feel things that touch their shell. Myrtle herself is well-known for asking divers for back scratches! It was truly some kind of spiritual experience to be interacting face to face with this creature I’ve “known” since I was little. Somehow she’s even bigger up close than I would have guessed!

After sufficient scratches, Lissette and I continued our dive, swimming along the edge of the fiberglass coral structure. We spotted Cirri the nurse shark and Thomas the green moray in a corner, cuddling together. We also dropped down into the area of the tank called Turtle Alley – aptly named, since both the loggerheads (Carolina and Retread) were hanging out there. Then we swam inside the structure and were greeted by one of the cownose rays, which really loved swimming over my face and through my bubbles.

It was just a half-hour dive, but it felt like a million years in the best possible way. It still felt surreal as we surfaced and got out of the water. I was still grinning ear to ear as we rinsed off our gear and talked about the dive, and even after we had finished changing for lunch.

I spent lunch outside with the Saturday interns and volunteers of the GOT, who were all incredibly lovely and lively people who took me under their wing right away and made me feel really welcomed. They also kept me busy: after lunch, I helped with the afternoon feedings. The morning feedings had happened just before my dive, so I hadn’t been able to help, but this time I got to lend a hand! Alf and I tag-teamed feeding the boxfish and filefish, which was a lot more complicated than I imagined. Their targets were lowered into the water, and while we waited for them to come get some food, we had to shoo the cownose rays away from the food and distract myrtle so she didn’t knock into either of the targets. It was a lot of coordination, but we made a good team! Then, once the targets were put away, I got to feed Myrtle her afternoon food: the remaining half of her 5lbs of lettuce and cucumber, and some capelin. It was an amazing experience, I loved getting to be a part of the feedings. For the rest of the afternoon, I helped out with dishes and the remaining tasks on the chore list. And after the work day was done, we all headed to the small beer garden and snack shack just outside the aquarium, to celebrate Lissette’s birthday!!

I’m so grateful to Dan, Lissette and the GOT team for welcoming me to the team for the day and for taking me inside the GOT! I can’t express what an amazing day this was. Thank you so much!

– Sofia

On my fourth day, I spent the morning with the aquarists for the Atlantic Coral Reef (ACR) and Blacktip Reef (BTR) exhibits, as they prepped the food for that morning. I joined BTR aquarist Emily for the morning feed of the BTR animals. I got to walk out onto the walkway on the far side of the BTR and throw the surface scatter (krill, small fish, squid, clams, shrimp, etc) into the water for the fish to eat, before rejoining Emily for the ray feeding. There are three whiptail rays and one roughtail stingray in the BTR, and they are all at least three feet wide, with long tails that trail behind them as they swim. Each ray gets fed a few fish at a time, which are skewered on a long pole to be able to reach down to the sand. Also feeding the two zebra sharks, Zuri and Zoe.

After the feeding, I got to help with the transfer of a triggerfish and a boxfish into the ACR. The ACR team and I waited at the loading bay, carefully monitoring the oxygen levels of the water in a transport bin that the boxfish was in. When the truck from the Animal Care and Rescue Center pulled up with a large tub with the two fish. We loaded the tub onto the deck and carefully acclimated the two tubs with water from a pump connected to the ACR. Once the water in both were the right temperature, we transferred the boxfish into the larger tub and wheeled it up to the ACR. 

Moving animals between exhibits is a surprisingly intricate process, they have to be acclimatized several times as they are moved, and the temperature and oxygen levels are monitored to make sure they are right for the fish. When we got to the diving deck of the ACR and had cordoned off that area from guests, we had to give each fish three minutes in freshwater to kill any remaining parasites before releasing them into the ACR.

That afternoon I got to see those fish in the ACR when I joined Holly and a new volunteer on his final check-out dive. We did a loop around the tank before they began his remaining skills, and I was able to explore around that area more. I’ve always wanted to dive in an aquarium, and this time I didn’t have any skills to focus on or devote my attention to, so I had the time of my life watching the schools of smallmouth grunts and waving to the little kids on the other side of the glass. Diving at the National Aquarium was truly an exceptional opportunity that I am so so grateful Holly organized for me!

On my final day in Baltimore, I spent the morning at the Animal Care and Rescue Center (ACRC).The team there gave me a tour of the facility and let me join to feed some of the many tanks. I also got a tour of the areas where they keep their turtles, reptiles, and birds! I also got to see the two blacktip reef sharks they removed from the BTR earlier in the week, and accompanied one of the caretakers as she applied a test treatment to one of the coral samples the Aquarium is caring for as a part of a national restoration project. The ACRC team were all lovely, and it was fascinating to see how they take care of so many animals.

That afternoon, I got to explore the aquarium one last time before Holly dropped me at the airport for my flight home. It feels like my week in Baltimore went by in the blink of an eye! I’m so grateful to Holly for curating such an amazing week full of all kinds of different experiences and behind-the-scenes glimpses. I learned so much and definitely want to visit the National Aquarium again now that I know more about how it’s run. Thank you so much Holly, for being such a welcoming and fun host!

– Sofia

On Wednesday, Holly and I, along with two other DSOs, headed to the dolphin exhibit across the skybridge with our dive gear. There, we met the marine mammals team for the exhibit section of their extraction training. The dolphins had all been closed off in the training pools in the back section of the dolphin exhibit, so we wouldn’t have to worry about them getting too close or too curious while we worked. We all filed into the pool, and Holly gave the briefing. My job was to document the training with the Aquarium’s camera, so I brought that in with me as well. Then, we all descended to the bottom of the pool. It’s 23 feet deep (according to my computer), and very wide and long, with windows along the top and another at the bottom far end. One by one, the marine mammal team took turns practicing rescuing and lifting someone from underwater. As I took pictures, I could see some of the dolphins looking in at us curiously from the gate to the back pools. I’m the first Sea Rovers intern to ever dive in this pool, and it was amazing to be so close to the dolphins and swim where they swim. I also really loved helping out with the extraction training! Once the lifts were done, we moved over to a back pool, while the dolphins moved back to the front. There, the dolphin team practiced removing someone from the water using the extraction board. As we were packing up our gear afterwards, the other trainers came out and did some training with the dolphins, and we watched as they did jumps, specific swims, and came up on the platforms as directed by the trainers.

After lunch, Holly walked me over to the Aquarium’s jelly lab a few piers over, where researcher Annie and her team take care of all different species of jellies and study their reproductive patterns. She told me that jellies have a very unique life cycle where they grow from microscopic planula to a polyp fixed to a substrate, which then flowers off into small ephyra that grow into adult jellies. Absolutely wild! I helped her feed some of the jellies, and then we pulled some microscopic planula from one of the tanks to look at under the microscope. There were so many! Then we pulled some ephyra, which were still really small, but visible with the naked eye. The ephyra pulsed under the microscope, opening and closing their flower-like bodies to scootch around in the drops of water on the microscope slide. Thank you Annie for showing me around the jelly lab!

– Sofia

I had just gotten back from Newfoundland when I found myself on an early morning Amtrak down to Baltimore to meet Holly Bourbon, a friend of the Sea Rovers. Holly is the director of dive programs and a DSO at the National Aquarium, and she graciously invited me to stay with her for a week to get a glimpse behind-the-scenes at the National Aquarium!

When I arrived at the Baltimore train station in the afternoon, Holly was waiting for me outside and we headed straight to the dive locker. I met Brittney, one of the other DSOs, and Holly and I got set up for my check-out dive in the Atlantic Coral Reef exhibit!

I was absolutely buzzing with anticipation as Holly went through the briefing. I had never dove in an aquarium before, but had wanted to since before I could remember. I went to aquariums all the time as a kid, and always wondered what the exhibits looked like from the inside, long before I was a diver. Knowing that I was about to find out, I could hardly contain my excitement!

As we stepped out of the elevator, I got my first glimpse of the National Aquarium. We wheeled our gear over to the far end of the Atlantic Coral Reef (ACR) exhibit and blocked off the walkway behind us to give ourselves safety and privacy to get ready. Holly and I did a lap tour around the loop of the ACR, passing columns of fiberglass coral and swimming through hidden channels behind the coral before popping up by the windows that face the rest of the aquarium and then passing back into the main part of the ACR where guests in the middle of the ACR loop could see us.It was so much fun to wave to all the little kids following us from window to window! When we got back to the more open area underneath the dive platform, Holly and I planted ourselves on the bottom to check off some basic skills and a peg-board task. Once I finished with that, we had time to explore more of the ACR! We passed one of the green moray eels tucked into the coral, and met the other one in a small passage underneath another coral structure. The huge tarpon swam laps around the ACR and Odie the sea turtle came and checked us out as we finished our dive. What a way to start my time in Baltimore!

After a solid night’s rest at Holly’s, I was ready for my first full day at the Aquarium. The first thing on the docket was the extraction and rescue training that Holly and Brittney were running for the Marine Mammal team. Tuesday was the classroom session, and I observed and helped out as necessary as the Marine Mammal team practiced various CPR roles and learned how to use an extraction board.

Then, Holly gave me a tour of the aquarium, plus some behind-the-scenes areas behind the galleries. I had never been to the National Aquarium before, so it was fascinating to be introduced to it from the guest-facing and behind-the-scenes sides at the same time! In the afternoon, I returned behind the scenes to watch a dive in the Shark Alley tank underneath the ACR. This dive was to get one of the sawfish more acclimated to divers in the water. The senior aquarist of Shark Alley, Lindsey, explained the concept as she and her dive buddy got geared up. I then watched their dive from the catwalk above the tank as she and another aquarist (also on the catwalk) strategized the best approaches. The sawfish was very skittish when the divers were in the water, and even got spooked by one of the rays that swam too close. Ultimately, the aquarists had to call the dive, since they didn’t want to stress the sawfish out too much. When Lindsey surfaced, she had two Sand Tiger Shark teeth for me that she had picked up off the floor of the tank! Sharks lose teeth all the time, and their multiple rows of teeth act like a vending machine where they will move forward to fill in the gap of a lost tooth. 

I stayed in the Shark Alley area for the rest of the afternoon, exploring on my own and listening in on the shark talk given about the diversity of sharks in the Blacktip Reef exhibit on the floor of the aquarium (blacktips, zebra sharks) and Shark Alley (sand tiger, nurse, sandbar sharks – sawfish are actually a type of ray, not shark!).

Once we finished up at the aquarium, Holly and I got some dinner and walked down the street to the Orioles ballpark. It was game time: Baltimore Orioles vs. the Toronto Blue Jays! It had been absolutely sweltering out that day (up to 100 degrees!) but luckily our seats were shaded, and it only got cooler as the night went on. Two of Holly’s friends, one of whom works at the Animal Care and Rescue Center I would be visiting on Friday, joined us for the game. It was a close one with lots of runs and good hits, and ultimately the Orioles won, prompting orange fireworks from the stadium.

My first two days at the Aquarium were spectacular, and I was only more excited for the rest of the week!

– Sofia

On Monday afternoon, after our dives at the Lord Strathcona and the Saganaga, I helped supervise a test-tank dive that a stunt team was doing in the OceanQuest pool. Netflix is currently filming a new limited series called The Sea Creature that’s set in Newfoundland, and they’ve been working with OceanQuest for all the boats and diving operations they need. As a result, I got to help with their rehearsal dive! The goals were to make sure all the stunt diver Darren’s rental gear fit and worked, and to shoot a demo of the lines he says at the surface. Two other crew members from the stunt team were there too, and we helped Darren get his kit set up and in the water. After that, the rehearsal dive itself was fairly straightforward: he would surface and say his lines as he would in the show while Angie, one of the two stunt crew, recorded the scene. It was really interesting to get a window into how diving is done on TV, I’m really grateful that Rick asked me to join.

Tuesday was my first dive back with my camera (a real learning curve to get used to shooting with dry gloves), as I had wanted to make sure I was acclimated to the dive profiles of the wrecks and the cold water temperature before adding the complication of a camera. Armed with my TG-7 and a truly insane number of undergarment layers, I was ready and excited to see the last Bell Island wreck, the Rose Castle. It was a really cool dive, though Glenn and I couldn’t stay down long since the deck of the ship was at about 100 feet. What I did see of the deck and some of the portholes was really cool – there’s a whole control room in there! For our second dive, we went back to the PLM. Since Glenn and I were both properly weighted this time, we actually got to explore it more! It’s a beautiful ship, and we took some refuge from the current by dropping down the bow and seeing the huge anchor that’s still dangling off the side.

Unfortunately, Wednesday’s winds were too strong for us to take the boat out, so the group explored some of the nearby towns instead, and we had beautiful group lunches and dinners. On Thursday we were able to return to the Mermaid in full swing! We all wanted to go back to the Rose Castle, so we dove that one first. Now that Glenn and I had seen the layout of the ship underwater, we were able to make a better dive plan: when we got down there, we used our limited bottom time to absolutely book it to the stern gun to see it before we had to drift back with the current.

Friday also had bad winds so that morning we called off the boat dives. Instead, we piled into trucks and drove out to the Conception Harbor dive site, a set of three rusted wrecks just off the shore in Conception Bay. The bow half of one of the ships was sticking right out of the water, which looked really cool from the surface. Below, all three whaling wrecks were covered in a ribbony kelp that hid sea stars, crabs, urchins, and even a little lumpfish I saw hanging out by the surface!

Most divers were pretty wiped from that, but Lauren and I opted for one more dive that morning, this time at the Harbor Main site. Harbor Maine wasn’t a wreck, instead it was a little cove with hundreds of flounder all over the seafloor, and urchins strewn around wearing small “hats” made of out shells and rocks.

We got home in plenty of time to get ready for our final dinner together. Debbie and Rick took over the kitchen as they made their signature seafood pasta, and we all gathered around the dinner table to enjoy a beautiful meal (extremely well-cooked, the fresh cod was amazing) while we talked about our fantastic week and swapped all kinds of stories. What a warm and wonderful final day.

My time in Newfoundland felt like it flew by. As I was packing my things it seemed like I had only just arrived! I’m incredibly grateful to Rick Stanley for inviting me and hosting me at OceanQuest. He and Debbie are such wonderful people, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to spend time with them and get to know them better. I almost can’t believe the week I had! It was extraordinary, and full of new dive experiences, impressive wrecks, and warm soups. I’ll cherish these memories for a long time. What an experience!

– Sofia

When I heard earlier this summer that I would be staying with and diving with Sea Rover Rick Stanley, I couldn’t wait. Rick and his wife Debbie run OceanQuest Expeditions in Newfoundland, Canada, just out of St. John’s. And while I’d never dove in water that cold or that far north, I wasn’t worried after meeting the two of them. Everyone I had talked to earlier in the summer praised the two of them for being such wonderful and fun hosts and friends, and I could tell once I arrived that they were right. On top of that, they are always making sure people are safe, and are really responsive to the needs of each diver. Rick and Debbie are absolutely lovely people, and so was the rest of the group! There were nine of us: me, Mike, Annie, Lauren, Fred, Lewis, Mark, Andrew, and my dive buddy Glenn. Glenn and I were the only two people diving single tanks, everyone else was using either doubles or rebreathers.

We became really close really fast, since we were all living in the same house. The first two floors of the house were for guests, complete with a living room, kitchen, and dining table. Just above us was Rick and Debbie’s portion of the house. It really did feel like we were a family all living together – we would all make breakfast together, hang out and swap pictures in the living room in the afternoons, and go out for dinner together. 

We also spent lots of time together on the OceanQuest boat, the Mermaid. The boat was super close to OceanQuest, so once all our gear and tanks were loaded from the gear room onto the pickup trucks, we would hop on the back of the trucks and ride down to the dock. The boat was beautiful (almost all of it was customized and built by Rick himself!) with plenty of room for so many people. The dive sites were about 45 minutes away, so we had time to chat and hang out before we got briefed for the dive and started to gear up.

We did all of our boat diving at the Bell Island wrecks, a group of four ships sunk by German U-boats during WWII.
On our first day, Rick told us the story of how the two ships we’d be diving were sunk: The French steamship PLM was hit by a single torpedo from the German sub U-518 on Nov 2, 1942 and sank alongside twelve crew members (the survivors all washed up on Bell Island). Rick showed us a 3D model of the wreck and pointed out the features and swim-throughs to know about. Unfortunately, Glenn and I were both underweighted on that first dive, so we didn’t get to see as much as we had hoped. We knew we’d be back later in the week though, and we were excited to go back and see more!

Our second dive that day was the Lord Strathcona, an ore carrier that was struck by torpedoes from U-513 on September 5, 1942.

The conditions were gorgeous on this dive, and the anemones that covered every surface of the wreck were in “full bloom,” as Debbie put it. We swam from the bow to the stern of this impressive 400-foot wreck, and I was fascinated by the massive gun mounted on the stern. It was absolutely covered in frilled and colorful anemones.

On the way back to the mooring line at the stern, we spotted ten or fifteen Lion’s Mane Jellies that had gotten tangled in the railings of the Lord Strathcona. As we swam, Glenn and I also followed Rick through several swim-throughs on the deck of the ship. It was really breathtaking to be surrounded in a tunnel of anemones and be able to look around and see ladders, portholes, and operating panels that have become part of the ocean ecosystem.

We went back to the Lord Strathcona on our second day, and this time Glenn and I took a different route around the wreck that Rick had suggested. After some hot chocolate, we relocated for our second dive on the Saganaga. The big excitement in the dive briefing was about the lumpfish that live on that wreck. Rick and Debbie were able to tell us where to look, so when we got down we went right to the collapsed stern, and lo and behold: a female lumpfish! We watched her swim around for a bit and then continued down the deck of the ship to see anemones, lion’s mane jellies, and a second lumpfish between the massive smokestacks about two thirds of the way towards the bow. What a dive!

– Sofia