Bag 'em and tag 'em
Last week we spent a few days in deep Louisiana at its southernmost port. Port Fourchon (pronounced, Foo-shon), wasn't exactly what I expected. As you drive up to it at night, it's lit up like a Christmas tree. You're thinking you're driving up to a fishing town, but you discover that it's an industrial metropolis. Helicopters always buzzing overhead, you're surrounded by the offshore oil industry. Apparently, this port supplies 16-18% of the US oil supply and produces over 90% of the Gulf of Mexico's deepwater oil.

If it’s sustainable, shove it in your pie hole.
A few years ago, I was down in Key Largo, FL for a ROV conference. It wasn’t a huge gathering, so I met quite a few people because of the intimacy of it all. I met the former director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which was pretty rad. He had moved on to a smaller aquarium somewhere up in the northeast. He gave a presentation on the uses of the ROV for large and small aquariums. When he was still in California, they had an ROV at Monterey Bay for kids to explore the bay behind the building. He also mentioned that they used their little sub to retrieve dead bluefin and yellowfin tuna in one of their bigger tanks. He said they would use the grabber to hold on to the keel right behind the ca

Sea Trees? part deux
Sorry for the lack of writing as of late. I guess its been a mixture of bloggers block and sheer laziness.The epic saga of the sea trees continues...We made it back out to the Gulf for some more ROV/Hook Selectivity experiments last week, and it was a fun trip. Kate, a colleague of mine, and her friend Kristy drove from LSU to join the field crew (Btw, I love to use the term "colleague"...it's so humorously academic and pretentious. I can't say it without laughing and rolling my eyes). We also recruited some other charter boat captains and deckhands to help with the fishing. So we had some real cooperative research going on with an equal mix of fishermen and scientis

Sea trees?
A few weeks ago we were doing some offshore research, filming some natural and artificial reefs with the ROV, and the Captain and I had an interesting conversation on the way back into port.“I know a good spot for you guys to film some natural bottom with the ROV.”“Oh yeah? What is it?”“Trees.”“Trees?”“Yeah, trees.”“Like some logs that were dumped by someone?”“Nah, these are trees that are kinda growing out of the ground on the bottom.”“Haha….riiiight.”Last week, we decided to take a look....and he wasn't joking. I’ve never seen anything like it. Tr

Kiwis and Micky Dees
in all its gloryThe Filet-o-Fish sandwich. Regrettably, I’ve never had one. I just can’t bring myself to order it. Maybe it’s because of the shape of the fish "filet". A square puck of deep fried mystery isn’t too appetizing to me. Same thing with the McRib,