t . 
•••ntWS from 
'Ifie 'University of <J'e~as Marine Science Institute 
Vol. 1, Issue 8, 11 Sept. 1992 
Port Jllransas, 'Tt~as 78373-1267 
In this issue of Lazarette Gazette-Anthony Amos: Amazing Antarctic Adventures-Trip-Reports &Trave/(cover)....Ruth Grundy: UTCATand Arlel-Ubrary (p.3)....Greg's crabby T-shirts on sale--Marine Education Services (p.3)....Box boat fun-Egabrag Woes (p.4)....ln Memoriam -Dr. Hanuman Slngh--Pe1SOnnel (p.4)....Marlculture gift funds--Grants &Contracts (p.5)....Turtles elude RIV LONGHORN-Cruise Reports& Boat Operations (p.5)....Tonl's terrific taqultos-Gastronomic Gazette (p.6)....Avolding Polar Bears-Editor (p.6)....Weather data & tide predictlons--Tony's Tidings (p.7) 
Adventures in the Antarctic (Part II) --Seeing the animals of the Antarctic is one of the "perks" that 
offsets what some might consider the craziness of spending six weeks on a ship in those frigid waters instead of a summer here on the beach. 
I have made two winter cruises to the Antarctic before, but both were in the open ocean waters bordering the pack ice; truly a rough and stormy environment. RACER cruise IV was planned to go into the protected coastal waters between the South Shetland Islands and the Palmer Peninsula. -I did not know what and how many animals we would see in that ice-covered region 
as few ships have visited there in the winter. 
I was pleasantly surprised! Far from being an empty wasteland, certain animals abounded. Most prominent of these were the seals. Everywhere there was a crack or lead in the ice-cover there were seals;Weddell, Leopard, Southern Fur, and especially Crabeater Seals. The only ones missing were Southern Elephant and the rare Ross' Seal. At night (which was most of the time), seals would come and play in the 
hole made by the ship to allow us to deploy our equipment. Often you could hear their breathing in the cold, still night air. Sometimes that breathing sounded much too loud, and that was when we were visited by a Minke Whale, the smallest (but still 30-ft long) ofthe baleen whales. At other times you could see the black noses of seals poking out through breathing holes kept open in an otherwise unbroken piece of pack
;~e. 
One time, I saw and video'd a minke whale push a slab of ice up and stick its head out vertically to ,·eathe through a hole just big enough for the job. The sea temperature was almost constant at -1.6C (29F). 
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Then there were the birds. Penguins and Antarctica go together like ... whatever simile you want to 
name. I had not expected to see too many, because in winter they follow the pack-ice edge north to feed. 
Again, I was surprised, in fact, stunned on a couple of occasions. We saw Chinstraps and Adelies in sma.l}
groups of 20 or so on the ice, and were treated to some close-up views of their comical behavior. Peopf
always laugh when they see them belly across the ice or waddle in line with wings extended. I do, too, but 
realize their antics are not frivolous, and when they "fly" through the water they are the most graceful of 
animals. Stunning was the discovery of a lone Emperor Penguin in Charlotte Bay, miles from open water, 
steadfastly "swimming" through the deep snow-cover. We watched its painful progress for hours. Emperors 
are almost unknown from the Peninsula region. 
But really stunning was the group of 5,000 plus Gentoo Penguins on the snowy slopes of the 
mountains bordering the Le Maire Channel. Our way had been blocked by a huge tabular iceberg grounded in this narrow channel, thought by some to be the most beautiful place on earth. As we retreated to find another way around Le Maire, we saw two huge amoeba-like patches of penguins huddled on the snow. Taking the ship in for a closer inspection we could clearly see they were Gentoos, the third largest penguin after the Emperors and Kings. Little is known about this species' movement in winter and to find such a large group in July was a discovery. 
As for the flying birds, these too were in unexpected numbers. Guess what was the southernmost ofall 
the birds we saw (well below the Antarctic Circle)? A gull. The Southern Black-backed Gull was well represented, often associated with the seals, presumably feeding on seal left-overs. Their summer diet consists oflimpets, but these were hard to find as the ice covers the rocky shores of most islands in winter. Most numerous were the beautiful pure white Snow Petrels, but we also saw Antarctic, Cape, and Blue Petrels, Giant and Southern Fulmars, Antarctic Terns, Imperial Cormorants, and the peculiar Sheathbills. All existing in the dead ofwinter in an ice-covered sea. There was no chlorophyll, hence no phytoplankton in the sea. The water was exquisitely clear. Our PAR sensor (light meter) detected sunlight down to more than 200 meters (700 ft). Krill and other zooplankton were quite numerous and were apparently eatin' each other in order to survive before the Spring Bloom. 
To learn more (I have no room to tell you more here), a special issue ofDeep-Sea Research (Vol 38,#8/aX) was devoted to early RACER findings. RACER was featured in the Antarctic Journal ofthe U.S. (Vol 26, #5), and more A.J.U.S. papers are in press. H you want to read about the less-scientific side of RACER, 
read forthcoming articles in the South Jetty newspaper. Read how Amos soaked his colleagues with 29degree water in a comedy of errors on the ice at 5-below zero ... and other antics. 
August 29-September 11 Travel 
+ Don Gibson, August 31-September 1, Bryan, Texas, to pick up the RIV LONGHORNs repaired hydrographic winch. 
+ Curtis Suttle, September 4-12, Barcelona, Spain, to attend the International Symposium on Microbial Ecology, and present paper Viruses Infecting Marine Phytoplankton. 
+ Amy Chan, September 4-12, Barcelona, Spain, to attend the International Symposium on Microbial Ecology, and present paper Viruses Infecting Marine Phytoplankton. 
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First on-line records now on UTCAT --The first of the on-line records of books and series currently at ~he Marine Science Library are now on UTCAT. Our goal is to place our entire holdings on UTCAT so that MSI Scientists can access our holdings from their offices. It is our intention to completely catalog this collection within the next few years. To accomplish this goal, we are now members of the AMIGOS Bibliographic Council, Inc., the South-central section of the OCLC on-line union catalog. Through this catalog we are producing standard machine readable records (MARC Records) which are being loaded onto 
UTCAT. Our first records appeared September 3, 1992. 
The next time you search UTCAT, type: t advances in world aquaculture to view a sample of our records. 
Ariel work station --Tommye Adams will be in Austin the week of September 21 for orientation at the General Libraries and for further training with Nancy Paine, head of Interlibrary Services. She will be training on the Ariel work station. Ariel is a stand-alone PC-to-PC document delivery system. Ariel is designed to be faster, more reliable, and less expensive to use than FAX machines. With Ariel, users can scan, store, transmit, and print any text, including photos, charts, formulae, tables, and indeed any material that can be scanned. Rapid, error-free transmission of the highly compressed image and excellent printquality will be the result. A thinline ethernet line will be installed for use with this system. An Ariel work station is scheduled to be placed in the Marine Science Library in October 1992. Director of General Libraries Harold Billings' goal is for all services available at the General Libraries to be totally accessible to all branches. Location will no longer limit services. --Ruth Grundy 
Greg Street's crabby T-shirt-
The Ocean Emporium is now featuring a new T-Shirt design. Winner ofthe T-shirt design contest this past summer, the new T-shirt was designed by graduate student Greg Street. The design is printed on a 100% cotton high quality shirt and features a stone crab, hermit crab, fiddler crab, and mantis shrimp. The scholar/artist received his B.A. in environmental biology and philosophy from Western Maryland College
and is now working on his doctorate under Paul Montagna. Greg is interested in the community structure {the Laguna Madre and, in particular, which invertebrate species are selectively preyed upon by fish. 
One thousand eight hundred and ninety nine ''extra" visitors for the period May 23 through September 7 is the final count for additional persons in the MSI Visitor Center this summer. This is the number of persons who crone on holidays, Saturdays, and Sundays --days the MSI Visitor Center is customarily closed. These 1899 people can thank Coleman and Judy Renick for the opportunity. The Visitor Center was open on weekends and holidays this summer courtesy of a special gift from the Renicks. Linda Yates, who operated the Visitor Center on these extra days, reported one particularly memorabl~ Saturday when 83 people crowded the modest public area of the center before noon (maybe because it was raining outside), with afternoon visitors adding to a total of 140 walk-in visitors--a record for one day. 
More Box Boats --Recently I wrote about the old MSI air boat--a squarish plywood/fiberglass box. In the early sixties, MSI had two other box boats--a simplistic water scooter (two pieces of plywood for the bottom and deck, 1 X 6 planks for sides and frames, and an angled piece for the bow) and a catamaran coring platform (two long boxes joined by a large flat deck). The outboard motor on the water scooter had no remote controls--you had to steer by standing up and leaning. This made things interesting as you had to first get it going and then quickly turn around and stand up with the throttle set (usually wide open to get it to plane). To make things even more interesting, this boat would skid and slide like a greased duck on a really slick floor. The first week of my employment with MSI a friendly employee offered to introduce me to the boat. We launched it in the channel, and he demonstrated by darting back and forth between the MSI pier pilings. As the new guy I thought this must be usual procedure, so. I also zoomed back and forth between the pilings. Only later did I learn that the water scooter had been used only three times previously--once successfully by my friend and twice unsuccessfully by others (unsuccessful: two accidents, one with an injury requiring medical attention). My friend's hope had been to have, at the least, a few laughs. The water scooter disappeared during Hurricane Carla. The second box boat was known as the FLAT CAT (and next to the name a silhouette of a cat showed an unfortunate encounter with a truck tire) and was a boat built quickly by MSI personnel. It was powered by an outboard for short distances and towed by the RIV LORENE for longer trips. The FLAT CAT was a successful craft and served well for several years until, due to her light and quick construction, she fmally began to fall apart. Dis.carded as worthless by MSI, she was rescued and repaired by a local fisherman and was last seen carrying his fourwheel drive vehicle down Lydia Ann Channel. --John Thompson 
IN MEMORIAM --DR. HANUMAN SINGH -Last week we received the shocking news of Dr. Hanuman Singh's death on August 17 in Manipur, India. Hanuman had planned to take sabbatical leave from Manipur University this fall so that he could continue his research here at UTMSI. Many of us at UTMSI were eagerly awaiting his arrival in October and were looking forward to meeting his w~e. It is hard to accept the fact that he is dead and he will not be joining us soon. Our grief over losing a good friend and a cheerful colleague prematurely is shared with many other research groups he has worked with in the U.S., India and Europe. His death also represents a tremendous loss to the scientific community, especially in the subdisciplines of fish reproductive physiology and endocrine toxicology where he made major scientific contributions. Dr. Singh pioneered research on the effects of pollutants on the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis of fish. He was able to pursue his research interests on the endocrine effects of xenobiotics in fish during his last visit to Port Aransas using Atlantic croaker as an experimental model. However, Hanuman's primary interest had always been fish reproductive endocrinology and possibly his most important contribution to that field was the work he conducted as a Fullbright Scholar during his first visit to Port Aransas in 1985. Hanuman clearly demonstrated, for the first time, that growth hormone can directly influence fish reproductive function by stimulating steroid hormone production by the gonads. Since then, a direct gonadal action of growth hormone has been demonstrated in representatives of other vertebrate groups, including humans. This non-traditional action of growth hormone and other growth factors has recently become one of the most active research areas in vertebrate reproductive physiology. Dr. Hanuman Singh's scientific contributions will be remembered, and will continue to have a significant impact on the field for years to come. --Peter Thomas 
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Joan and Scott Holt speak to Audobon Society --On Tuesday, September 1, Joan and Scott Holt addressed the Coastal Bend Chapter ofthe Audobon Society in their meeting at the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History. The Holts discussed their diving trip on the Lighthouse Reef in Belize (see Scott's 
rticle in Volume 1, Issue 6). 
Lone Star Hatchery, Inc. has given $28,000 to the Marine Science Institute. The funds were provided to support mariculture research under the direction of Connie Arnold. 
Cruise #92-594 --RIVWNGHORN carried out a hurry-up cruise for the National Marine Fisheries Service on Wednesday, September 2. We were first contacted by Pete Sheridan (NMFS --Galveston Laboratory) on Monday. The NMFS was looking for someone who could trawl in the Aransas Pass and from 3 miles 
North by 3 miles South and 3 miles off shore to survey for the presence of turtles prior to maintenance dredging. NMFS Fisheries Biologist Ben Higgins arrived Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning--after sewing up the TED (excluding the excluder)--RIV LONGHORN was out trawling for turtles; · Senior Captain Gibson waited until Wednesday morning to decide whether to use the RIV KATY or the RIV LONGHORN. The RIV KATY is more handy for trawling and would have permitted closer trawling within the confmes ofthejetties. However, Wednesday 
morning the rough weather made the decision easy. The larger RIVLONGHORN with her flopper-stopper stabilizers was clearly indicated. Twelve hours of almost continuous dragging netted no turtles. 
RIVKATY schedule filling up --Anyone who wishes to book time aboard the RIVKATY for the next few months should turn in a request ASAP. The schedule for the RIV KATY already includes, for the period of September 12 through October 30, 38 trips. Reservations are on the schedule for Texas Christian University, Texas A & M, our own HMCU Workshop, Our Lady of the Lake University, UT Austin Zoology Department, Corpus Christi State University, UT Austin Deans' Scholars, Southwest Texas State University, Trinity University, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and many high school classes from through out 
Texas. 
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Cellular phones for LONGHORN and KATY --An additional cellular telephone has been installed on the RIVLONGHORN and the RIVKATY has received her own cellular telephone for the first time. The RIVLONGHORN already was carrying a cellular telephone with Petrocom. Petrocom specializes in marirv 
communication for the oil industry. This communication is very useful in some areas, especially off thLouisiana coast. However the addition of Southwestern Bell telephone service provides good service rightoff Port Aransas and in the surrounding coastal areas. The new cellular phone number for the RIV LONGHORN is 512-850-3038 and the RIVKATY is 512-813-9751. 
Improved satellitecommunication for LONGHORN--The Q-tracs communication system via computerand satellite continues to be the primary means of contact with the RIVLONGHORN. Formerly our base station shared a computer. When the computer was in use for other purposes (working on the Lazarette Gazette for example) messages from the ship would be waiting in California. Now--with a dedicated 
computer and printer--messages from the RIVLONGHORN will be automatically printed out in the MSI office almost immediately after being sent. 
Mexican food is a specialty at the Marine Science Institute cafeteria. Anyone who appreciates old fashioned Tex-Mex cooking will enjoy Toni Martinez' tacos, chalupas, and enchiladas. Ifyou haven't tried them, I recommend you order Toni's soft com tacos. Another favorite is Toni's enchiladas (I like mine with 
a heaping of rabbit food--chopped lettuce, tomato, and onions--on top). Breakfast taquitos at coffee break are perhaps her most famous achievement. For many years before coming to MSI Toni was a cook with the Aransas Pass Independent School District. But before that, Toni cooked for Little Bob's Restaurant in Aransas Pass. Little Bob's was the kind of restaurant which is like a com_munity institution. As I recall, Little Bob's served good food and plenty of it! Toni is a native South Texan and her special talent is th, 
great cuisine of her heritage. 
I Last issue it was our Director on the masthead who magically parted the waters--Linda says she would have had him walking on the water,but didn't want to go too far (she wants to keep these drawings believable). We changed the masthead drawing this issue at the last minute. 
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We had planned on one showing Ken Dunton and some Polar Bears. And then we received Tony Amos' great Antarctic story and wanted to put it on the cover sheet We were afraid if we put the Polar Bears on the masthead over the story on the Antarctic you might think we didn't lcnow where the Polar Bears lived. Thanks for help with this issue go to Tony Amos, Peter Thomas, Lynn Amos, Ruth Grundy,Linda Yates, JoAnn Page, Patty Baker, Kathy Quade. 
--John Thompson
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Weather --August 24 -September 6 
Tides --September 14 -27 Predictions are for tidal heights at the Tide Tower on the South Jetty of the Aransas Pass. Heights are given in feet above or below Mean Sea Level (MSL). The shaded area is nighttime. Remember, this is tidal height, not tidal current. Slack water is when the wiggly line crosses the MSL line, not at the peaks and valleys, where the tidal current will be a full flood or ebb. 
CJI  Cll  OI  OI  Ill  Cll  Cll  CJI  OI  GI  Ill  GI  CJI  
I rn 1-4 G') I .....  0  2 0  I rn 1-4 Gl I .....  
:; rt -1  -1  ..... tT  
-2  x ~  OI  GI  (JI  OI  Ill  (JI  GI  Cll  OI  GI  i5  
I rn 1-4  2  2  ::x: rn  
G') I .....  0  - 0  H G') ::x: .....  
.....  
rt -1  .....  
-2  -2  ~  

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