The lazarette Gazette NEWS FROM The University of Texas at Austin MARINE SCIENCE INSTITUTE Port Aransas, Texas 78373-1267 (512-749-6760 -fax 512-749-6777) (internet: thompson@utmsi.zo.utexas.edu) Vol. 4, Issue 10, 19 May 1995 In this issue of Lazarette Gazette Hayden Abel ..................... ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . coverTony Amos: Ellery's elegant corer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Them guys from that ther Mayreen Insteetoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Small Boat Operators Workshop to offer "come home" tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Diving courses scheduled for recertifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Regular sections: personnel -p. 1, tony's tidings -p. 2, egabrag woes -p. 4, cruise reports& boat operations -p. 5, fiscal office facts p. 7, letters to the editor -p. 7, seminars p. 7, library -p. 8, trip reports & travel -p. 9, attaboys -p. 9, irish pennants -p. 10,editor's note -p. 10 Hayden Abel -On May 24 Hayden Abel will be receiving a $1,000 honorarium along with his Excellence Awardat the President's Excellence Honorees Reception. Hayden was selected by a special committee. The Excellence Awardrecognizes consistent, high-level perfonnance by an employee of The University. Hayden graduated from King HighSchool in Corpus Christi and entered the Navy, becoming an Anti-Submarine Warfare Technician. Later he worked bothas an electronics technician and a mechanics helper. Hayden first oegan work with the Marine Science Institute in 1976as a Technical Staff Assistant II, working as a ta~onomist in the Bent.hie Ecology Laboratory classifying polycheat.e wonnsand helping gather samples aboard the RIV LONGHORN. Within a few years, however, Hayden moved from the scientificside of MSI to boat operations, becoming a Mate on the RIV LONGHORN. By 1988 Hayden had been promoted to Bo.at Captain. Hayden and his spouse, Liz, reside in Port Aransas, and have two children. Brince is eleven and in the fifthgrade at H. G. Olsen Elementary and Kelsey is two years of age. Hayden is active in community affairs; for many yearshe has helped with the Keep Port Aransas Beautiful campaign. He coaches Little League Baseball and is a Scout leader,graduating from Port Aransas Cub Scout Pack 29 (along with son Brince) Webelos Leader into Boy Scout Troop 29,Assistant Scoutmaster, at the recent Scout Blue and Gold Banquet Finally, he is the proud owner of the rustiest vehiclein Port Aransas. -. ... t: ... Django Sanders -All those MSI folks who were around from about 1972 through 1977 will be happy to know that Django Sanders is apparently still doing well. It may be, however, that you don't remember This is because you knew him by the name of Howard Sanders Finkelstein. If you were ol' Django. watching a Corpus Christi Public Access TV station the evening of Friday, May 5, you would have seen Django, who was appearing on a program concerned with massage therapy. Django has changed his vocation from geology to massage therapy. He continues to stay in touch with the earth, however, by going barefoot. New arrivals: • CARRIE, 8 pounds, to Jian and Huang Li. • CONNOR MCCLOUD, 6 pounds, 5 ounces, to Philip and Cammie Hyatt. • SETH MONTANA, 5 pounds, 6 ounces, to Philip and Cammie Hyatt. Old arrivals: The following MSI employees have completed 10 and 20 years service with The University of Texas at Austin. (weights not available) MIKE GIBSON, 10 years. JOHN SHAW, 10 years. SCOTI HOLT, 20 years. PETE~THOMAS, 10 years. JOSEPHINE JONES, 20 years. RICHARD TINNIN, 20 years. VENUS MILLS, 10 years. DOLORES VILLARREAL, 10 years. A traditional MSI Hallway recognition ceremony is planned. It will probably be considerably more serious than this news item. Weather Report for May 1-May 14 'Ii •· Ellery flies the "Knight" corer L ynn Amos and her Honda· give some idea of the size of this leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) which washed up dead on Mustang Island beach recently. Weighing in at an estimated 1,000 lbs, this monster sea turtle was one of 16 leatherbacks to wash ashore on Texas beaches in ·only a few days. Normally, we are lucky to see one leatherback every three years. Whenever possible, Donna Shaver of the National Biological Survey does a necropsy right on the beach. The length of a leatherback's intestine is incredible! So far, most have been females. What brought them in? Maybe this year's bumper crop of cabbageheads (Stomolophus), as these huge animals eat jellyfish almost exclusively. What killed them? We're hoping the necropsies might shed some light on that one. UTMSI workers Andi Wickham, Chuck Rowe and Tony Amos are the Mustang Island region's volunteers for the national Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network. E llery elevates his elegant corer. . On Longhorn cruise LONGSECS 09 (the ninth in a series), Dr. Ellery Ingall tested his "Knight Corer" for the first time. The test was a success despite some anxious moments when the umpteen-thousand-pound device began swinging around during the recovery operation. This Monday (May 22), Ellery will do further tests aboard Longhorn after making some modifications to the corer. Pssst! He wants to do this again? Ellery describes the corer for LazGaz readers thus: It is a hydrostatically-damped multiple piston corer constructed following the general design of Lee Knight and . Rick Jahnke of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. It was built by TJ's machine shop of Ingleside. The design of the corer attempts to minimize disturbance of the near-:surface pore water gradients and particle distributions which usually occurs during sediment coring using other devices. This corer seals bottom water above the sediment core, eliminating artifacts in the surface pore water gradients caused by exchange with surface water or, in the case of 0 2, exposure to the atmo. sphere. The piston also prevents core shortening during the coring process. The hydrostatically-damped coring motion and frame design ensure near-perfect cores are obtained. After many successful coring operations using the original device, researchers at the Skidaway Institute have dubbed this device the "Knight Corer" in honor of the engineer who· designed it. Lynn looks at the Leatherback 3 Them guys at that ther Mayreen Insteetoot doan know nuthin!-Port Aransas has had more than its fair share ofcharacters. I have always thought ofthem as Island Characters rather than Port Aransas Characters. Every small town will have a few characters, but only the isolation of an island will produce the kind of characters which once populated Port Aransas. And as the isolation of Port Aransas has almost disappeared, we seem to have fewer genuine characters. For instance, there was Buck Gilliam (sp?). Buck was tall and lean with a high-pitched voice that was loud and in continuous use. Buck made his living working for Nueces County, collecting the dollar per car fee for crossing on the old nine-car ferrys before the State took over. B. J. Copeland has often told the story of a time in the early 60's when he was in Roy Turnbull's Island Cafe. Buck was sitting with someone at a table on the far side of the room, but B. J. could hear that he and the Marine Science Institute were the topic of conversation. One wonders what unfortunate experience Buck had with MSI to cause his somewhat derogatory opinion, which was expressed in the only way Buck ever talked-HIGH & LOUD: See them guys over there; they is from that Mayreen Insteetoot; they doan know nuthin out there; you could take them an airth werm and they couldn't tell you what it wuz. I remember the last time I saw Buck. ·He was working in the produce section at the Family Center. He should have been home in bed instead, because, as he arranged and rearranged the lettuce, you could hear one high-pitched, loud, sneeze after another. You could he·ar that. You could see that they were also wet (and all over the lettuce). In the same era there was An'dy Dallas. Andy was the island mechanic, fire chief, piling jetter, and grass fire starter. These last three were really a combination job. Ifyou needed some pilings jetted in, the best pump in town was mounted on the fire truck. A donation to the volunteer fire department was allthat was needed to get your pilings jetted. Andy always guarded against the possibility of a serious grass fire-by burning it off himselfin advance. He liked to address you with the phrase, well my good man. One time Dr. Parker took his ancient VW to Andy with a leak in the brake lines. When Pat retrieved the VW, Andy told him it was fixed but he should be just a little careful when he stopped in the future -because he had fixed it by simply pinching offthe line to one wheel. Also there was Dorothy Roberts. About the first week I worked at MSI, shortly after work one day I happened to occupy a stool at the Sea Shell Bar. The fellow on the next stool bent my ear at length about his divorce problems and how terrible his ex was treating him. Later that same evening I went to the Cook and Waiter Cafe and had my ear equally bent by the owner/operator/cook/waiter about her divorce proceedings. It was only after I became better acquainted in Port A that I figured out I had heard both sides ofthe same divorce from two (then) strangers in the same evening. Dorothy often kept the screen door locked when she was open. That way she could look you over before she let you in. I don't think any classical discrimination was involved. Most often the reason to be excluded was for a wise guy remark about her screen door. Dorothy's sideline business was selling fiddler crabs, which she often kept in a large cardboard box in the restaurant. The first time I saw this I made the mistake of asking what she was going to do with them. With a straight face she explained to me that she was going to make fiddler stew and if I came back the next day I could buy some. While I didn't come back to buy fiddler stew, over the next twenty years or so Dorothy told this story about me to every person I brought into the Cook and Waiter Cafe. In her version, I believed her (well, maybe I did). I still remember her great enchiladas-and favorably too, even though I upchucked a good many of them from the deck of the RIV LORENE. Actually, we still have a few characters around. For example there is a fellow who once worked at MSI and now is in business on the island. A while back he told me how he was feeling kind ofout ofsorts because he had just returned from cleaning up his girl friends place after she died from drinking a bit too much-you know I filled up three 55 gallon drums with her empty vodka bottles, and that was just from last week. -John Thompson (llllillBll:lltilltDll:ll~ill!rtllill,ll\llf"flJl11t?ll4!•Illllill CERTIFIED SMALL BOAT OPERATORS WORKSHOP-All those already certified to operate MSI's small boats should plan to attend a short workshop to be held at 1:00 p.m., Wednesday, May 24 (meet at the boat ramp). Important subjects to be covered include how to use the newly installed Emergency Come Home Package in the small boats and Trouble Shooting tips. The purpose of this workshop is to help operators make it home when a problem develops. Cruise #95-635 LONGSECS CRUISE08 was conducted on April 21, 1995 between 0830 and 1620. Tony Amos was the chief scientist. Participants were Ellery Ingall, Chuck Rowe, Steve Wilhelm, and Kristen Rodda. RIVLONGHORN cruised to 30 miles East of Port Aransas and tested the new Ingall Mud Coring device and occupied four CTD stations. At 0930 a general drill and abandon ship drill was conducted. The Research Vessel Cruise Assessment (UNOLS form completed by chief scientist) reported an excellent cruise -no problems. LONGSECS CAUISEOS UNDERWAY DATA: 04-21-1995 SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES THIS DAY; ere CASTS TIME U.TITVOE LOHOITUOE EVEMT 31. 517N e7• H S35 21 •s .... _ s~ ~ 1!:>! 27 34 . 04N ~ 51.31• SC2 1!~9 27 38. 71N ;& 5411 . ~"-• 503 2-:>cs 21 ''·97N ~ 5e.J~• s;,, OT'EA INVESTIG4TIONS end NOTi:S SUN PHENOMEN4 l.. . A . NOON (12: 25: 2~ LOCAL): F~IOAY; 04/2!/;~ liO eo ~~~~100 70 60 50 p.q,., I H •ES I JI ~----'-=-='--=--~~~~~~~~~---.-0 ! 0 00 1000 =j = 4000 I I I I 1 I 1 411000 ooc c o o o o oo----------'V9'.:f\JN gg gggg gggg gg g§ ggg ggggggg Cruise #95-636 was conducted on April 27, 1995 between 0800 and 1115. This was a class trip for 39 students of the Lamar Middle School. Rick Tinnin was the chief scientist. The cruise was conducted from three to five miles offshore of Port Aransas and included trawls, mudgrabs, and plankton tows at two stations. The Research Vessel Cruise Assessment form comments by the chiefscientist were: excellent trip; crew very cooperative; very safety conscious. Cruise #95-637 was conducted between on April 28, 1995 between 0805 and 1230. This was a class trip for 20 students of Dr. Robert McMahon's UT Arlington class. Rick Tinnin was the chief scientist. The cruise was conducted from five to seven miles.offshore of Port Aransas and included plankton tows, trawls, biological dredging, and mudgrabs at two stations. The Research Vessel Cruise Assessment form comments by the chief scientist were: excellent trip; crew was very supportive and helpful. 5 Cruise #95-638 was conducted from 2000, May 2 through 0600, May 4, 1995. This trip was for the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife for their Artificial Reef Project. Jan Culbertson was the chief scientist and participants were Chuck Rowe, Dale Shively, and Doug Peter. A general alarm and fire drill was conducted at 1500 on 5/3/95. LONGHORN CRUISE TPW 638 UNDERWAY DATA; 05-03-1995 SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES THIS CAY; CTil CAST• TUE LATiruDE UJH81T\OE EVEHT t•-c2 2!1 IHl . IHIN fr7 03. HW 01 OnER INYESTillATIDNll 811d NOTES -PHENOMENA SIMRISE (Ofl: 411: :90 LOCALI; Ol£IIHESOAY: otl/03/IHI L . A. HOOH lt2: 215: 18 LOCALI; WEDHE90AY: otl/03/911 BIA'