Yesterday I had to be on the clock in Port Saint Joe.
LOL!The trip was for the purpose of collecting sea urchins for our developmental biology lab. Our task for today was to extract gametes from the animals and make fertilization and first developmental stages happen before our eyes on the microscope. I just wanted to share the trip and why I love Port St Joe so much..... I have been going over there since I was a kid and my family would go scalloping, and it remains a place near and dear to me now that I do some work over there.
My co-pilot for the day was Katie, an undergrad student who has worked at my side on many projects. She'd never been to PSJ before, and this was a perfect time to make a proper introduction. The ladies are ready to get in the water:
The grass flats behind us would hopefully hold the animals we were seeking, plus other treasures to be discovered. Close to shore we'd find thin wiry eel grass, full of small mullet and pinfish, and out deeper were the patches of turtle grass. The turtle grass was tall and lush, though the water was a little chilly. Katie had brought her underwater camera- here's the Nerd at work:
Sssshhhhh... we're hunting urchins........ lol
We found a few small ones, but these would not produce what we wanted. The small ones were awfully cute, though...
The pinfish were numerous and followed us everywhere we went. I think they saw us as a free meal since to look for the urchins we had to sweep the turtle grass to the side, and the pinfish were examining every particle we set into motion. Pinfish have absolutely no fear, and Katie got several shots of them feeding out of my hands...
She also took a picture of me in my natural state- face down looking for whatever I could find:
We found one spider crab hanging out in the eel grass. It seemed unaffected by our presence- I think he knew his claws were bigger than ours....lol....
Other fish that we saw in the grass were pigfish and one rather large oyster toadfish. There were plenty of mullet jumping all around us as well. One of the treasures of the day was an old pen shell. I picked it up to see if a blenny was at home inside, but instead what seemed like hundreds of wriggling tendrils poked their way out- I recognized them immediately as brittle starfish. I'd never seen so many in one place before! We have one professor at UWF who is an expert on brittle stars, so the pen shell and its precious cargo were carefully wrapped and transported back for his aquarium. We found a handful of large scallops, and picked them up to take photos.
Once Katie and I had collected a couple dozen urchins each, we hauled them back to shore, where they had to be handled and packed specially for the ride home. Here are the goody bags full...
Hand-picking the largest specimens (Hmmmm... wonder if THIS one will spawn????):
Each urchin had to be rinsed and individually packed in its own ziplock baggie, then placed in the cooler of water. I have to do this because if they're nice and ripe (which we needed for best results in class), they'll spawn at any jolt/temperature change/funny look. When one spawns, it cues all the others in its near vicinity to spawn. Separating them in individual baggies keeps them from "stimulating" each other, so to speak..... 
The first time I ever collected them, I didn't separate them and got back to Pensacola with a cooler full of what can only be described as "urchin soup"- lesson learned.
Here is a photo of the scallops we picked up- after the photos (and a video Katie had to have of the animal "clapping" its shell), we released them.
Another photo- I love their rows of blue eyes:
It was late in the afternoon at that point, so we needed to head back but not before making a quick walk to the other side of the street to see the Gulf. The butterflies were everywhere, and we tried to concentrate on them instead of the mosquitos...lol...
I think Dale told me these are frittillaries (this one's not a monarch):
Here's some of why I love Port St Joe so much.....
NO CONDOS!!!!!!!
Primary dunes are still intact and healthy:
As we left the park, we saw 2 deer- one doe well off the road, and a buck standing as if he were the king of his domain- I haven't got a clue on estimating weight but he stood there long enough for me to see that he was at least 7-8 points. Two long, high bounds, and they had melted into the palmetto forest before we could get photos.
Coming off the cape, we couldn't keep our eyes off the sunset, so what better thing to do than to pull off the road to watch the sun go down. St Joseph's Bay was slick as glass and the sky was shot full of red streaks which my camera could do no justice...
Katie and I made it back to Pensacola after 11pm last night to put the urchins away and wash our gear.... but we'd had a great time tooling around Port St Joe. It will always be one of my favorite places in the world, and I'm so glad to be able to both work and play over there! Thanks for letting me share......