WEBVTT
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Good evening.
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We're pleased to have you join us
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for our annual Seaside Chats Speaker Series
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about ocean topics associated
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with Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary
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and the Gulf of Mexico.
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We're also part
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of the National Marine Sanctuary Webinar Series
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and the NOAA Science Seminar Series.
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During the presentation,
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all attendees will be in listen-only mode.
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You're welcome to type questions for the presenter
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into the question box at the bottom of the control panel
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on the right hand side of your screen.
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You may also let us know about any technical issues
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you may be experiencing
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and we will monitor both for incoming questions
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and technical issues,
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then respond to them as soon as we can.
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We are recording this session
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and we'll post the recording
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to the National Marine Sanctuaries
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and Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary websites
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at a later date
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and we will notify registered participants via email
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when those recordings are available.
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And for those of you who are interested,
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we have a document of links
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to additional resources on today's topic
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in the handout pane of the control panel.
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Simply click on this item to download it.
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My name is Kelly Drinnen
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and I'm the Education Outreach Specialist
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for Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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I'll be facilitating today's webinar from Dickinson, Texas.
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Also with me today is Leslie Whaylen Clift,
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our Constituency Affairs Coordinator,
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and she'll be helping me
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with the backend administration of this webinar.
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In 1972, the United States ushered in a new era
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of ocean conservation
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by creating the National Marine Sanctuary System.
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Since then, we've grown into a nationwide network
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of 15 national marine sanctuaries
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and two marine national monuments
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that conserve more than 620,000 square miles
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of spectacular ocean and Great Lakes waters,
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an area nearly the size of Alaska.
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These marine protected areas
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are kind of like national parks,
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they're just underwater.
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The National Marine Sanctuary Act gives NOAA the authority
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to designate special areas of the marine environment
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as National Marine Sanctuaries.
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It also mandates
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that the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
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conduct research, monitoring,
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resource protection, education, outreach and management
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of America's underwater treasures
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to preserve them for future generations.
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In addition to being places for recreation and research,
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National Marine Sanctuaries are also living classrooms
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where people can see, touch and learn
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about the nation's great lakes and ocean treasures.
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This webinar series is just one of part
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of that national education and outreach effort.
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The Seaside Chat Series is hosted
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by Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary,
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the only national marine sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico.
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This sanctuary consists of 17 banks
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or small underwater mountains that are home
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to some of the healthiest coral reefs in the world,
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amazing algal sponge communities
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and deep reef habitats
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featuring an abundance of black coral and gorgonians.
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We invite you to learn more about us
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by visiting the sanctuary website
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at flowergarden.noaa.gov.
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Today's presentation focuses on the early days
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of Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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The modern history of the Flower Garden Banks
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is a series of transitions,
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the mystery era that lasted for nearly 30 years,
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the discovery era in the 1960s,
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the enlightenment era in the 1970s and early 1980s,
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then the sanctuary era.
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Steve Gittings was fortunate to be part of the last two,
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working on the bank starting in 1980,
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then being selected as the first sanctuary manager in 1992.
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His mentor, Tom Bright, called it a plum job.
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According to Steve, it was even better.
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This evening, we'll let Steve take us back to that time
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and tell stories about the best job he will ever have.
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Dr. Steve Gittings is Chief Scientist
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for NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary System.
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Before that, he was manager
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of Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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Dr. Gittings has worked his entire career
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in conservation science,
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characterizing and monitoring marine ecosystems,
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assessing damage and recovery
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following ship groundings and oil spills,
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and applying science to management.
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2023 marks his 50th year as a diver.
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He has worked for over 40 years as a scientific diver
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doing saturation missions on the Aquarius habitat,
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operating ROVs
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and working as an observer and pilot on submersibles.
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Recently, he's been developing traps
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designed to catch lionfish in waters beyond scuba depth.
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If successful, the traps could create new opportunities
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for fishermen to make money while doing conservation.
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Welcome, Steve.
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Thanks, Kelly.
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Can you hear and see me okay?
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I can see you just fine.
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Let's make sure we can hand over the presentation here.
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A lot of that bio stuff I haven't done for a while,
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but it stays in the bio, thankfully.
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(laughs) All right.
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So just share your screen
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and we should be good to go.
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How's that?
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Looks good.
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Okay, we're good then?
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Yes, we are.
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Thanks for getting the technical stuff
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worked out for me, Kelly.
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You're welcome.
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Yeah, I thought I'd better start
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with the self-explanatory slide
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and a talk title that really makes it simple for me,
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but I changed it a little bit.
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I think the Flower Gardens was the best job I'll ever have.
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I'm not sure about that,
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but I'll be presumptuous there and say so.
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But this is not really a talk about a lot of science,
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more the story of what I was fortunate enough to experience
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and the history of the protection of the Flower Gardens
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during the time that I spent down there.
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I guess in a sense though,
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it all started a bit before that
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when I was a big "Flipper" fan,
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while everyone else was a Jacques Cousteau in 1960s.
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This came out I think 1964, the "Flipper" Show.
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And I didn't wanna work with dolphins,
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that's not what got me into this field,
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and I didn't really wanna be the two kids,
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Bud and Sandy there.
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But I wanted to be the dad, Porter Ricks.
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I wanted to be the guy who got in his boat every day
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off his dock and went to work in his boat.
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That's what I always wanted.
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Okay, all right.
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Try to advance some slides here,
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there we go.
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Am I advancing now?
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Yeah.
Yeah.
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So my boating career, as it were,
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started in 1970s on Lake Erie.
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I grew up in Dunkirk, New York,
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on the western side of New York state,
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right on Lake Erie.
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My first sailing race, I won the Tin Can Regatta
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in the Dunkirk Harbor Junior Sailing Regatta back then
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and it was a great time.
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These were all my friends at the time
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and all my fellow sailors
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and you can see how excited we were (laughs)
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to win or to be in that regatta.
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And every once in a while,
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I still have that can, I have it right here,
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the Tin Can Regatta that I won back in Dunkirk
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and even as now that I'm looking at it,
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one of my little lifesaving things on it.
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But I still have that can
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and I pull it out every now and then
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and reminisce about the good old days in Dunkirk, New York,
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in the smoke of the Niagara Mohawk Power Plant,
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looking at the pristine waters of 1970s Lake Erie.
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Hmm.
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And I figured if I was gonna be in boats,
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I needed to learn to swim.
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So I couldn't get enough of swimming courses
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and water safety courses and to prove I could swim.
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And I became a swimmer in high school and college
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and in a little town like Dunkirk, New York,
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you could be a big fish in a small town like that.
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So I loved every minute of the swimming that I did there.
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But it prepared me for this career
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that I'm in now to some extent.
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But honestly, the pivotal moment
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was probably getting my YMCA Diving Certification in 1973.
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And like Kelly said, that was 50 years ago this year.
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So I'm celebrating this year.
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In fact, Saturday, I'm heading down to the Cayman Islands
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to do a little about three weeks of celebrating with diving.
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But this is my old YMCA card.
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I found it in a drawer one day
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about a few couple years ago maybe
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and it was all ratty.
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And it must have been I carried around in a wallet
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for years, it looks like,
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but it's falling apart.
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You can't even see Jim Wolfgang's name on it anymore,
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he was the instructor.
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And this card spelled my name wrong on the front
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and you can hardly read the back.
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There's not much left of it on there,
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but presumably I'm a certified diver.
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I'm not a hundred percent sure of that,
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but if they spell your name wrong, who knows?
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But four years after that,
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I was fortunate enough to be off at college,
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Westminster College in Pennsylvania,
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and Dr. Clarence Harms was my first real mentor
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in this field.
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I didn't even realize, well, I said at the time,
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but I signed up for a January course in the tropics.
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He took us to St. Croix, St. Thomas,
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St. John, Puerto Rico
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for a tropical ecology class.
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And Clarence is there in that pink shirt,
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a wonderful, wonderful man.
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I couldn't get enough.
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Five minutes after getting off that plane
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and getting on a ferry to St. John
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and the feeling, that warm water on my face,
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I knew what I wanted to do the rest of my life.
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I really did, that was my moment,
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but he made it just right.
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We learned so much that month.
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When I went back to Westminster,
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I couldn't get enough of any water course that was given
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or invertebrate biology or anything like that
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that involved water.
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So what a great experience that was
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and a real life changer for me.
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And I went off to graduate school
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about three years after that
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to Texas A&M University
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and it was my first trip to Texas as well,
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just like the tropics had been my first trip to the tropics.
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And I remember being surprised
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when I crossed the Texas border
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and saw that there was grass in Texas.
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I thought it was the rocks that I saw on the western shows,
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but wasn't gonna be that at all.
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But I will say at the time,
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I had certainly never heard of Flower Garden Banks.
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And one thing you do when you go to graduate school
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is you try to find the right fit with the right professor.
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And I truly hit a gold mine when I met Tom Bright
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and we hit it off.
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He was a big field guy,
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loved being in the field doing field work.
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And we hit it off immediately
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and he offered me to become a graduate student
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under his leadership
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and I did that instantly.
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And he's been a mentor ever since to me, honestly.
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And he and I published 40 years ago our first paper, 1983,
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and we just published another paper last month.
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So 40 years between publications
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and there were some in between there as well.
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But I'm really proud to be able to say that,
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00:11:07.590 --> 00:11:09.240
that Tom and I have published together
268
00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:11.340
over that period of time.
269
00:11:11.340 --> 00:11:13.620
Tom's loved his motto,
270
00:11:13.620 --> 00:11:15.000
and I used to question him about,
271
00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:16.740
should I go on this cruise or should I not?
272
00:11:16.740 --> 00:11:18.000
Because I've got all these classes
273
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.550
I have to test and whatever.
274
00:11:20.550 --> 00:11:23.370
He said field work first, that was his motto,
275
00:11:23.370 --> 00:11:27.393
and I still use that today with people I mentor.
276
00:11:29.010 --> 00:11:31.650
But my time at the Flower Gardens was only a small portion
277
00:11:31.650 --> 00:11:34.560
of the 100 plus years of history out there.
278
00:11:34.560 --> 00:11:39.540
It was about 18 years during 1980 to '97 or '98.
279
00:11:39.540 --> 00:11:43.470
And so, this talk I'm talking about or I'm giving today
280
00:11:43.470 --> 00:11:48.330
is really a chronology of my time in that longer period.
281
00:11:48.330 --> 00:11:50.370
But it was a critical period for the Flower Gardens
282
00:11:50.370 --> 00:11:52.560
because it spent most of the time
283
00:11:52.560 --> 00:11:56.460
that ran between the nomination
284
00:11:56.460 --> 00:11:58.110
of the Flower Gardens as a marine sanctuary
285
00:11:58.110 --> 00:12:01.020
and ultimately it becoming a marine sanctuary.
286
00:12:01.020 --> 00:12:03.870
So I was fortunate to be there at a pretty critical time
287
00:12:03.870 --> 00:12:05.010
in the life of the sanctuary.
288
00:12:05.010 --> 00:12:06.810
And as Kelly pointed out,
289
00:12:06.810 --> 00:12:08.790
the history of the banks went from this period
290
00:12:08.790 --> 00:12:12.090
of no real recorded memory,
291
00:12:12.090 --> 00:12:14.430
but fishing back in the early 1900s
292
00:12:14.430 --> 00:12:19.430
to an era of geological research in the '30s, '40s, '50s,
293
00:12:21.060 --> 00:12:24.270
as oil was going farther and farther offshore.
294
00:12:24.270 --> 00:12:26.190
And then an era of what we call discovery,
295
00:12:26.190 --> 00:12:28.830
when divers first went to the Flower Gardens
296
00:12:28.830 --> 00:12:30.570
and showed that they were coral reefs,
297
00:12:30.570 --> 00:12:32.220
that was the 1960s.
298
00:12:32.220 --> 00:12:35.940
And then through the 1970s into the 1980s,
299
00:12:35.940 --> 00:12:38.950
Tom Bright and his large team of graduate students
300
00:12:40.410 --> 00:12:43.950
were conducting characterization work
301
00:12:43.950 --> 00:12:46.080
all over the Northwestern Gulf on all the banks,
302
00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:47.580
including the Flower Gardens.
303
00:12:47.580 --> 00:12:49.350
So I call that the period of enlightenment
304
00:12:49.350 --> 00:12:52.080
when we learned so much about it back then
305
00:12:52.080 --> 00:12:55.170
and it finally became a sanctuary in 1992.
306
00:12:55.170 --> 00:12:57.990
So I'm gonna talk about the area in yellow
307
00:12:57.990 --> 00:13:00.630
there in the middle that says 18 great years.
308
00:13:00.630 --> 00:13:01.930
That's what it was for me.
309
00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:06.240
But on the first trip I ever made to the Flower Gardens
310
00:13:06.240 --> 00:13:08.550
was with Tom and his team
311
00:13:08.550 --> 00:13:10.500
and it was a submersible cruise
312
00:13:10.500 --> 00:13:12.630
to characterize a place
313
00:13:12.630 --> 00:13:14.790
called East Flower Garden Brine Seep
314
00:13:14.790 --> 00:13:17.520
and I'll talk about that in a minute.
315
00:13:17.520 --> 00:13:20.940
But Tom surprised the heck out of me one morning
316
00:13:20.940 --> 00:13:22.260
when he asked me if I wanted to take
317
00:13:22.260 --> 00:13:24.390
one of his subdives to the bottom
318
00:13:24.390 --> 00:13:27.270
instead of him going down with Billy Green,
319
00:13:27.270 --> 00:13:28.680
who was the pilot.
320
00:13:28.680 --> 00:13:31.650
And before he came to his senses, I said, "Absolutely."
321
00:13:31.650 --> 00:13:34.320
And I jumped up there and said, "Okay, what do I do?"
322
00:13:34.320 --> 00:13:35.640
And he gave me instructions
323
00:13:35.640 --> 00:13:37.440
on how to characterize the brine seep
324
00:13:37.440 --> 00:13:38.790
and what I was looking for.
325
00:13:39.870 --> 00:13:41.160
And so before you know it,
326
00:13:41.160 --> 00:13:43.320
I was on my way to the bottom in the submersible
327
00:13:43.320 --> 00:13:46.037
called the DIAPHUS at Texas A&M.
328
00:13:46.037 --> 00:13:48.810
because of the generosity of Tom.
329
00:13:48.810 --> 00:13:52.440
And my mission was to characterize this place,
330
00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:54.300
which was a brine seep,
331
00:13:54.300 --> 00:13:59.300
a pool of high salinity water, zero oxygen,
332
00:13:59.400 --> 00:14:00.570
full of hydrogen sulfide,
333
00:14:00.570 --> 00:14:03.300
about 10 inches deep or so at its deepest,
334
00:14:03.300 --> 00:14:06.330
that overflowed out of that pool down through a canyon.
335
00:14:06.330 --> 00:14:09.930
And because the water was so noxious and toxic
336
00:14:09.930 --> 00:14:12.780
that nothing lived right inside the water,
337
00:14:12.780 --> 00:14:14.430
but a lot of things lived all around it
338
00:14:14.430 --> 00:14:17.580
because of the organic enrichment by a bunch of bacteria
339
00:14:17.580 --> 00:14:21.240
that swarmed around the brine.
340
00:14:21.240 --> 00:14:24.190
So my job was to characterize the fauna around the bank
341
00:14:25.110 --> 00:14:26.880
and my job on this particular mission
342
00:14:26.880 --> 00:14:28.095
was to collect rocks
343
00:14:28.095 --> 00:14:30.870
that would become part of my master's thesis.
344
00:14:30.870 --> 00:14:33.030
I was gonna look at the invertebrates
345
00:14:33.030 --> 00:14:34.500
living inside the rocks.
346
00:14:34.500 --> 00:14:36.420
So I collected all the samples I needed
347
00:14:36.420 --> 00:14:38.940
for my master's on one dive at the Flower Garden Banks
348
00:14:38.940 --> 00:14:41.100
thanks to Tom's generosity
349
00:14:41.100 --> 00:14:43.263
in letting me have that single dive.
350
00:14:44.520 --> 00:14:48.300
And at the time, I was, of course, in Tom's lab
351
00:14:48.300 --> 00:14:50.250
in Oceanography Building at Texas A&M
352
00:14:50.250 --> 00:14:51.810
and I heard him talk a lot
353
00:14:51.810 --> 00:14:54.390
about this national marine sanctuary status
354
00:14:54.390 --> 00:14:55.470
for the Flower Garden Banks,
355
00:14:55.470 --> 00:14:57.600
which I didn't have a clue what that meant.
356
00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:00.027
But our program started in 1972
357
00:15:00.027 --> 00:15:01.830
and the Flower Gardens was nominated
358
00:15:01.830 --> 00:15:04.920
in about '74 or so for the first time.
359
00:15:04.920 --> 00:15:06.300
I arrived six years later
360
00:15:06.300 --> 00:15:08.160
after it hadn't really moved all that far
361
00:15:08.160 --> 00:15:09.570
through the process.
362
00:15:09.570 --> 00:15:11.070
It was a slow process
363
00:15:11.070 --> 00:15:13.380
and the program was very young at the time.
364
00:15:13.380 --> 00:15:14.820
But in about 1980,
365
00:15:14.820 --> 00:15:16.530
Tom was talking about how the Flower Gardens
366
00:15:16.530 --> 00:15:19.280
was part of what they call a list of recommended areas.
367
00:15:20.190 --> 00:15:22.290
But by the time I was done with my master's
368
00:15:22.290 --> 00:15:24.030
two years later, '82,
369
00:15:24.030 --> 00:15:26.010
it had been removed from that list
370
00:15:26.010 --> 00:15:27.210
because of disagreements
371
00:15:27.210 --> 00:15:29.190
about the amounts of protection that it needed
372
00:15:29.190 --> 00:15:33.660
and some claiming and claiming appropriately
373
00:15:33.660 --> 00:15:36.360
that the Minerals Management Service,
374
00:15:36.360 --> 00:15:38.370
I think it might have been still called BLM,
375
00:15:38.370 --> 00:15:40.770
I mean the Bureau of Land Management back then,
376
00:15:40.770 --> 00:15:42.690
that particular part of it, but who knows?
377
00:15:42.690 --> 00:15:44.310
But they had protections in place
378
00:15:44.310 --> 00:15:46.440
to keep oil and gas activities
379
00:15:46.440 --> 00:15:48.090
from impinging too much on the banks
380
00:15:48.090 --> 00:15:52.440
and causing corals to be killed in any way.
381
00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:55.290
So there were adequate protections through MMS.
382
00:15:55.290 --> 00:15:59.490
And there was also a draft coral fishery management plan
383
00:15:59.490 --> 00:16:01.380
for the Gulf of Mexico that was being developed
384
00:16:01.380 --> 00:16:05.550
that was supposed to prohibit anchoring
385
00:16:05.550 --> 00:16:06.690
at the Flower Gardens.
386
00:16:06.690 --> 00:16:08.100
And that would've protected the place
387
00:16:08.100 --> 00:16:11.100
from probably the biggest threat that it had at the time,
388
00:16:11.100 --> 00:16:12.927
anchoring by large vessels on these banks
389
00:16:12.927 --> 00:16:15.360
and that tore up the corals.
390
00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:17.670
So they were removed in 1982
391
00:16:17.670 --> 00:16:19.890
from that list of recommended areas
392
00:16:19.890 --> 00:16:23.400
and the idea for sanctuary status was almost dead,
393
00:16:23.400 --> 00:16:26.040
according to people at NOAA in 1982,
394
00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:28.530
which was when I was finishing my masters.
395
00:16:28.530 --> 00:16:32.070
And so by that time, I had become the brine guy,
396
00:16:32.070 --> 00:16:35.280
the guy that knew about brine, salt, salt water.
397
00:16:35.280 --> 00:16:36.710
And there was a project going on
398
00:16:36.710 --> 00:16:38.220
in the Northern Gulf of Mexico
399
00:16:38.220 --> 00:16:41.580
called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Project.
400
00:16:41.580 --> 00:16:44.880
And the essence of that is they pumped water
401
00:16:44.880 --> 00:16:48.240
down into salt domes below land,
402
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:49.800
dissolve out large caverns
403
00:16:49.800 --> 00:16:53.010
and put oil in these caverns as storage tanks
404
00:16:53.010 --> 00:16:54.780
that we could get at whenever we needed it
405
00:16:54.780 --> 00:16:57.510
for strategic purposes in the United States.
406
00:16:57.510 --> 00:17:00.240
And you can still hear about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
407
00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:01.320
on the news fairly often
408
00:17:01.320 --> 00:17:05.640
if you listen close enough to stories about gasoline prices.
409
00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:08.820
But my job was to look at the effects
410
00:17:08.820 --> 00:17:12.060
of the offshore discharge of the brine
411
00:17:12.060 --> 00:17:14.940
that was produced when they dissolved the salt domes away.
412
00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:17.640
And they sent it off through a pipe offshore
413
00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:19.710
and shoot it up through a bunch of diffusers
414
00:17:19.710 --> 00:17:21.990
and it mixes with the overlying seawater
415
00:17:21.990 --> 00:17:24.723
and that's depicted with the red circle on this graph.
416
00:17:25.650 --> 00:17:26.850
My job was to go out there
417
00:17:26.850 --> 00:17:28.380
and look at the effects of that brine
418
00:17:28.380 --> 00:17:31.410
on the hard and soft bottom invertebrates
419
00:17:31.410 --> 00:17:35.823
that were offshore, Louisiana, where they dumped that brine.
420
00:17:37.050 --> 00:17:39.510
And I started that in 1982.
421
00:17:39.510 --> 00:17:40.770
So for about two years,
422
00:17:40.770 --> 00:17:45.330
this is the visibility I got in all my diving off Louisiana
423
00:17:45.330 --> 00:17:47.040
and it was only about 15 feet of water,
424
00:17:47.040 --> 00:17:48.450
but this is exactly what it looked like
425
00:17:48.450 --> 00:17:49.740
in the middle of the day.
426
00:17:49.740 --> 00:17:51.600
So that's not a real picture,
427
00:17:51.600 --> 00:17:54.450
it's just a color I found that reminded me of it
428
00:17:54.450 --> 00:17:56.370
and it's close enough.
429
00:17:56.370 --> 00:17:58.380
But monthly dives we had to make
430
00:17:58.380 --> 00:18:00.660
and constantly going down to Cameron, Louisiana,
431
00:18:00.660 --> 00:18:02.673
getting on boats and diving.
432
00:18:04.140 --> 00:18:08.670
Meanwhile though, Tom was asked to chair a committee
433
00:18:08.670 --> 00:18:12.030
to generate what NOAA was calling a site evaluation list,
434
00:18:12.030 --> 00:18:15.030
was this next generation of candidate sites
435
00:18:15.030 --> 00:18:16.980
for sanctuary status.
436
00:18:16.980 --> 00:18:20.820
And Tom being chairman of the group
437
00:18:20.820 --> 00:18:22.980
made sure the Flower Gardens was back on that list
438
00:18:22.980 --> 00:18:25.130
and I'm sure a lot of other people did too.
439
00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:31.160
But he was doing that work through 1982.
440
00:18:38.070 --> 00:18:40.323
And then a year later,
441
00:18:41.400 --> 00:18:43.500
a tug called the NICK CANDIES,
442
00:18:43.500 --> 00:18:45.300
this shown here,
443
00:18:45.300 --> 00:18:47.970
and it was towing about a 200-foot barge
444
00:18:47.970 --> 00:18:50.523
anchored up at the East Flower Garden Bank.
445
00:18:52.080 --> 00:18:54.150
Continental Shelf Associates was out there
446
00:18:54.150 --> 00:18:55.653
doing monitoring at the time.
447
00:18:56.490 --> 00:18:59.490
I assume it was probably Rusty Putt, Steve Viada,
448
00:18:59.490 --> 00:19:01.560
who had been students of Tom's.
449
00:19:01.560 --> 00:19:03.540
Dave Gettleson perhaps out there
450
00:19:03.540 --> 00:19:06.000
doing monitoring of the coral reef
451
00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:08.910
on behalf of or for an oil company
452
00:19:08.910 --> 00:19:10.530
that was developing in the area
453
00:19:10.530 --> 00:19:12.180
and were required to do so.
454
00:19:12.180 --> 00:19:15.030
So those guys were doing work when this tug anchored up
455
00:19:15.030 --> 00:19:18.420
and they took video of the incident
456
00:19:18.420 --> 00:19:20.400
and the damage it caused.
457
00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:23.400
So a month later, Tom Bright was at a meeting
458
00:19:23.400 --> 00:19:26.310
in New Orleans with the Minerals Management Service
459
00:19:26.310 --> 00:19:27.810
called the Information Transfer Meeting,
460
00:19:27.810 --> 00:19:30.180
it was an annual meeting they had,
461
00:19:30.180 --> 00:19:32.790
and he showed the video of this damage.
462
00:19:32.790 --> 00:19:35.820
And a staffer for Congressman Solomon Ortiz
463
00:19:35.820 --> 00:19:38.130
was in attendance
464
00:19:38.130 --> 00:19:41.160
and was very interested in what had happened
465
00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:43.500
and took that information back to Congress,
466
00:19:43.500 --> 00:19:45.940
which was a very fortuitous happening
467
00:19:47.640 --> 00:19:49.590
because of what it eventually led to.
468
00:19:49.590 --> 00:19:52.470
But it raised the awareness about the threat
469
00:19:52.470 --> 00:19:54.750
of anchoring at the Flower Gardens
470
00:19:54.750 --> 00:19:57.990
because it had failed to be prohibited in the previous year.
471
00:19:57.990 --> 00:19:59.335
But at the same time,
472
00:19:59.335 --> 00:20:01.500
there was a rise in recreational diving
473
00:20:01.500 --> 00:20:04.080
going on in the banks in the mid 1980s,
474
00:20:04.080 --> 00:20:05.193
early to mid '80s.
475
00:20:06.390 --> 00:20:10.170
Prominent among the group was Rinn Boats and Gary Rinn,
476
00:20:10.170 --> 00:20:12.360
who was captain of the FLING at the time.
477
00:20:12.360 --> 00:20:13.770
The boat looked a little different than this.
478
00:20:13.770 --> 00:20:15.210
This is a later version of the FLING
479
00:20:15.210 --> 00:20:17.403
after they added a sun deck to it.
480
00:20:18.510 --> 00:20:20.220
But in the mid '80s,
481
00:20:20.220 --> 00:20:22.590
it was operating regularly at the Flower Gardens.
482
00:20:22.590 --> 00:20:26.130
And he and his parents ran that operation.
483
00:20:26.130 --> 00:20:29.280
And these are his parents, Roland and Alvina Rinn,
484
00:20:29.280 --> 00:20:31.200
and interesting people,
485
00:20:31.200 --> 00:20:33.630
really wonderful salt of the earth folks.
486
00:20:33.630 --> 00:20:38.630
They just passed away in 2021, like two years ago,
487
00:20:39.510 --> 00:20:42.510
a day apart at 100 years old
488
00:20:42.510 --> 00:20:45.360
and after 78 years of marriage.
489
00:20:45.360 --> 00:20:48.120
So just interesting,
490
00:20:48.120 --> 00:20:50.310
really proud to have known them.
491
00:20:50.310 --> 00:20:55.310
But back in that time, 1983 we're talking about,
492
00:20:57.930 --> 00:20:59.040
and around there,
493
00:20:59.040 --> 00:21:01.590
the Fishery Management Plan came out.
494
00:21:01.590 --> 00:21:03.300
I think it was 1984, it came out.
495
00:21:03.300 --> 00:21:04.710
The Fishery Management Plan came out
496
00:21:04.710 --> 00:21:06.400
without the anchoring prohibition
497
00:21:07.470 --> 00:21:12.470
and in response, the Minerals Management Service at least
498
00:21:13.620 --> 00:21:15.630
put out a notice to mariners at the time
499
00:21:15.630 --> 00:21:19.500
to at least ask the oil industry vessels not to anchor up
500
00:21:19.500 --> 00:21:21.300
and not become part of that problem.
501
00:21:21.300 --> 00:21:23.040
So that was very helpful,
502
00:21:23.040 --> 00:21:26.430
but it didn't ban anchoring by other vessels.
503
00:21:26.430 --> 00:21:30.780
And at that time also, Solomon Ortiz and John Breaux
504
00:21:30.780 --> 00:21:32.940
who was a congressman from Louisiana,
505
00:21:32.940 --> 00:21:35.040
supported the nomination of the Flower Garden BankS.
506
00:21:35.040 --> 00:21:38.010
So it had a little bit more momentum coming back to it.
507
00:21:38.010 --> 00:21:41.350
And NOAA approved the addition of the Flower Garden Banks
508
00:21:42.865 --> 00:21:46.680
as an active candidate to its Site Evaluation List.
509
00:21:46.680 --> 00:21:48.690
So you could see it gaining that momentum back
510
00:21:48.690 --> 00:21:50.913
that it had lost in the early '80s.
511
00:21:52.350 --> 00:21:54.340
Well, about the same month
512
00:21:56.880 --> 00:21:58.143
that this was happening,
513
00:21:59.400 --> 00:22:02.490
a ship ran aground in the Florida Keys called WELLWOOD
514
00:22:02.490 --> 00:22:04.350
and it was on Molasses Reef
515
00:22:04.350 --> 00:22:06.120
and it caused extensive damage.
516
00:22:06.120 --> 00:22:09.480
Tom was contracted by the sanctuary's office at NOAA
517
00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:10.920
to do the damage assessment
518
00:22:10.920 --> 00:22:15.920
and the recovery study using quantifiable methods
519
00:22:16.980 --> 00:22:19.200
that NOAA didn't have in place at the time,
520
00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:22.320
photographic methods we had used at the Flower Gardens,
521
00:22:22.320 --> 00:22:24.820
to assess the damage and recovery for three years.
522
00:22:28.140 --> 00:22:29.520
So that work started up,
523
00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:30.990
we started going down there every month
524
00:22:30.990 --> 00:22:34.680
and staying at Sunset Cove Motel for a couple years.
525
00:22:34.680 --> 00:22:37.440
And the next year in 1985,
526
00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:41.130
he became the Sea Grant Director at Texas A&M.
527
00:22:41.130 --> 00:22:44.700
And so, he couldn't continue to do the fieldwork himself
528
00:22:44.700 --> 00:22:49.440
and they eventually asked me to take over the field work.
529
00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:51.120
George Dennis was doing the fish work,
530
00:22:51.120 --> 00:22:53.550
I was doing the benthic characterization,
531
00:22:53.550 --> 00:22:55.890
the corals, et cetera, and algae.
532
00:22:55.890 --> 00:22:58.950
And we also had damage assessment
533
00:22:58.950 --> 00:23:01.050
and a recovery study to do for the NICK CANDIES,
534
00:23:01.050 --> 00:23:04.200
that tug that had anchored at the Flower Gardens.
535
00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:06.330
So we're in the midst of these two big studies
536
00:23:06.330 --> 00:23:09.000
and Tom asked me to take over those things
537
00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:11.577
and I agreed as long as he paid me full-time
538
00:23:11.577 --> 00:23:13.590
and double what a graduate student got.
539
00:23:13.590 --> 00:23:17.940
So I was making $900 a month or something at the time,
540
00:23:17.940 --> 00:23:19.940
double what most graduate students made.
541
00:23:21.150 --> 00:23:22.440
Pretty good money for me.
542
00:23:22.440 --> 00:23:24.840
But in 1986 also,
543
00:23:24.840 --> 00:23:26.490
there was a public scoping meeting
544
00:23:26.490 --> 00:23:28.800
in Galveston about the Flower Gardens
545
00:23:28.800 --> 00:23:32.040
and NOAA committed to preparing
546
00:23:32.040 --> 00:23:34.320
the draft Environmental Impact Statement
547
00:23:34.320 --> 00:23:37.020
to get the Flower Gardens even closer
548
00:23:37.020 --> 00:23:39.390
to sanctuary designation.
549
00:23:39.390 --> 00:23:40.950
So that was a pivotal time for me
550
00:23:40.950 --> 00:23:44.280
because it transitioned me away from all that muddy water
551
00:23:44.280 --> 00:23:45.930
back into the coral reef environment,
552
00:23:45.930 --> 00:23:48.363
which I was very thankful to do.
553
00:23:50.700 --> 00:23:52.050
A couple years went by,
554
00:23:52.050 --> 00:23:54.330
the sanctuary hadn't progressed all that farther
555
00:23:54.330 --> 00:23:57.180
than NOAA was working on the draft EIS
556
00:23:57.180 --> 00:24:00.060
and I was contracted by...
557
00:24:00.060 --> 00:24:01.350
Or, well, Texas A&M was,
558
00:24:01.350 --> 00:24:03.210
I was the Principal Investigator
559
00:24:03.210 --> 00:24:06.000
for the Flower Gardens Long-Term Monitoring Program,
560
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:08.160
which started in 1998.
561
00:24:08.160 --> 00:24:09.810
And Greg Boland was pivotal
562
00:24:09.810 --> 00:24:11.730
in helping get that started
563
00:24:11.730 --> 00:24:13.650
and running it for years with me.
564
00:24:13.650 --> 00:24:16.620
And a lot of folks worked on that project.
565
00:24:16.620 --> 00:24:19.170
You can see a couple of them here, Anne and David Bull,
566
00:24:19.170 --> 00:24:21.510
and I think that might be Jim Kendall in the background
567
00:24:21.510 --> 00:24:23.883
in the black wetsuit.
568
00:24:26.910 --> 00:24:29.040
Anne and Jim worked for MMS at the time
569
00:24:29.040 --> 00:24:33.333
and would come out as helpers and inspectors on the project.
570
00:24:34.443 --> 00:24:36.093
But a lot of other folks did too.
571
00:24:38.820 --> 00:24:43.590
But sanctuary status was pretty well expected in 1989 or so,
572
00:24:43.590 --> 00:24:46.110
although it never did progress quite that fast,
573
00:24:46.110 --> 00:24:48.180
but it was anticipated to happen.
574
00:24:48.180 --> 00:24:51.390
When 1999 finally rolled around and it didn't happen,
575
00:24:51.390 --> 00:24:53.820
some frustration started to creep in
576
00:24:53.820 --> 00:24:55.380
among the dive community
577
00:24:55.380 --> 00:24:58.110
because there was this anchoring activity
578
00:24:58.110 --> 00:24:59.010
going on out there,
579
00:24:59.010 --> 00:25:01.470
there were no places to tie boats up,
580
00:25:01.470 --> 00:25:03.810
so you didn't have to drop anchor.
581
00:25:03.810 --> 00:25:07.050
And Gary Rinn started a group
582
00:25:07.050 --> 00:25:10.830
called the the Gulf Reef Environmental Action Team, GREAT,
583
00:25:10.830 --> 00:25:13.290
along with several of us others.
584
00:25:13.290 --> 00:25:15.000
And we all sat on the board
585
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:17.220
and the idea was to generate money
586
00:25:17.220 --> 00:25:19.710
so we could install our own mooring buoys
587
00:25:19.710 --> 00:25:21.240
before it ever became a sanctuary
588
00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:24.213
so that we could help solve this anchoring problem.
589
00:25:25.260 --> 00:25:27.030
And that's exactly what happened a year later.
590
00:25:27.030 --> 00:25:28.200
We were able to raise money
591
00:25:28.200 --> 00:25:32.400
and NOAA sent Billy Causey and John Halas out to help.
592
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:34.620
They worked for the sanctuary program already,
593
00:25:34.620 --> 00:25:36.420
came and helped us install the mooring buoys.
594
00:25:36.420 --> 00:25:38.250
They had the expertise to do it
595
00:25:38.250 --> 00:25:40.440
and we had a bunch of muscle.
596
00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:42.000
So they came out in 1990.
597
00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:43.203
We put in these buoys,
598
00:25:45.360 --> 00:25:49.020
I mean the anchor bolts and then the buoys.
599
00:25:49.020 --> 00:25:51.480
And you can see how we drilled side-by-side holes
600
00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:54.270
and put the U-bolts in, cemented them in place,
601
00:25:54.270 --> 00:25:56.207
and then tied the buoys to them.
602
00:25:56.207 --> 00:25:59.639
And to this day, we use this same technology.
603
00:25:59.639 --> 00:26:01.560
A lot of the U-bolts have worn out
604
00:26:01.560 --> 00:26:03.210
and have had to been replaced,
605
00:26:03.210 --> 00:26:04.893
but they lasted a good long time.
606
00:26:07.350 --> 00:26:10.890
And that same year, 1990,
607
00:26:10.890 --> 00:26:13.890
the Mega Borg exploded off the Texas coast
608
00:26:13.890 --> 00:26:18.890
and that was an important event in my life
609
00:26:20.409 --> 00:26:21.420
that I wouldn't really understand
610
00:26:21.420 --> 00:26:23.730
until a bit later how important it was.
611
00:26:23.730 --> 00:26:25.050
But I was on a ship
612
00:26:25.050 --> 00:26:28.770
with the Geochemical Environmental Research Group
613
00:26:28.770 --> 00:26:30.330
in the vicinity of this when it happened.
614
00:26:30.330 --> 00:26:31.710
So we stayed out there
615
00:26:31.710 --> 00:26:33.600
and did work on water quality studies
616
00:26:33.600 --> 00:26:36.030
and I was hired by them to do some work
617
00:26:36.030 --> 00:26:38.310
on bioremediation testing
618
00:26:38.310 --> 00:26:40.980
and then was able to at least witness
619
00:26:40.980 --> 00:26:44.520
dispersant use for the first time in my life
620
00:26:44.520 --> 00:26:46.740
and how these spills are dealt with.
621
00:26:46.740 --> 00:26:48.690
So that was a good experience for me
622
00:26:48.690 --> 00:26:52.143
that would come back and help me later on.
623
00:26:54.039 --> 00:26:56.297
And also, that vessel had been lightering (indistinct).
624
00:26:57.150 --> 00:26:58.850
Oops, sorry about that.
625
00:26:58.850 --> 00:27:01.350
It looks like I messed up on...
626
00:27:01.350 --> 00:27:05.280
Anyway, so here's some dispersant addition
627
00:27:05.280 --> 00:27:09.300
occurring right on that spill.
628
00:27:09.300 --> 00:27:11.520
So it was the first time I'd been able to see this happen
629
00:27:11.520 --> 00:27:12.990
and I learned a little bit about dispersants,
630
00:27:12.990 --> 00:27:14.580
a little bit about bioremediation,
631
00:27:14.580 --> 00:27:15.720
a little bit about lightering
632
00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:18.600
because the ship had been offloading oil
633
00:27:18.600 --> 00:27:20.430
to another ship when it exploded.
634
00:27:20.430 --> 00:27:22.703
So I learned a little bit about what lightering was
635
00:27:22.703 --> 00:27:25.230
and how prominent an activity that was
636
00:27:25.230 --> 00:27:26.373
in the Gulf of Mexico.
637
00:27:27.808 --> 00:27:30.030
And that would come back to help me
638
00:27:30.030 --> 00:27:31.140
manage the Flower Gardens,
639
00:27:31.140 --> 00:27:35.070
eventually work on the Deepwater Horizon spill later on,
640
00:27:35.070 --> 00:27:37.890
much later on.
641
00:27:37.890 --> 00:27:40.860
Also happening in that busy time
642
00:27:40.860 --> 00:27:45.630
was Sylvia Earle was the Chief Scientist of NOAA
643
00:27:45.630 --> 00:27:48.690
and she commissioned a new map for the Flower Garden Banks.
644
00:27:48.690 --> 00:27:53.070
We hadn't had a really high quality map made for the banks,
645
00:27:53.070 --> 00:27:54.150
but with the new side,
646
00:27:54.150 --> 00:27:58.980
I mean, multi-beam mapping technology that was available,
647
00:27:58.980 --> 00:28:00.990
Sylvia wanted that done at Flower Gardens
648
00:28:00.990 --> 00:28:05.310
and it was done pretty quickly in that year, 1990.
649
00:28:05.310 --> 00:28:08.340
And then, she brought a ship out, the MOUNT MITCHELL,
650
00:28:08.340 --> 00:28:10.980
and wanted to go diving on these banks
651
00:28:10.980 --> 00:28:12.510
and asked Tom and me to come with her
652
00:28:12.510 --> 00:28:13.980
and show her around the Flower Gardens
653
00:28:13.980 --> 00:28:17.370
since we were among the experts about the site.
654
00:28:17.370 --> 00:28:18.303
So we did that.
655
00:28:19.230 --> 00:28:20.820
I don't think she quite realized at the time
656
00:28:20.820 --> 00:28:22.200
that they weren't gonna let us dive
657
00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:23.790
because we weren't NOAA divers,
658
00:28:23.790 --> 00:28:26.250
we worked for Texas A&M.
659
00:28:26.250 --> 00:28:30.120
But we were allowed to snorkel and free dive.
660
00:28:30.120 --> 00:28:31.980
And I was still Tom's lackey at the time,
661
00:28:31.980 --> 00:28:34.680
so guess who got to show Sylvia and her dive team around
662
00:28:34.680 --> 00:28:38.100
by free diving with them while they were on scuba?
663
00:28:38.100 --> 00:28:39.033
That was a treat.
664
00:28:40.020 --> 00:28:40.997
And I got through it,
665
00:28:40.997 --> 00:28:42.030
it was a lot of fun.
666
00:28:42.030 --> 00:28:43.230
I got to know Sylvia
667
00:28:43.230 --> 00:28:46.260
and I've worked with her quite a few times since then.
668
00:28:46.260 --> 00:28:49.800
Really enjoyed the times I've spent working with her.
669
00:28:49.800 --> 00:28:50.823
Amazing person.
670
00:28:52.620 --> 00:28:55.650
So yeah,
671
00:28:55.650 --> 00:28:57.210
last but not least,
672
00:28:57.210 --> 00:28:59.313
1990 finished with a bit of a bang.
673
00:29:00.360 --> 00:29:03.090
So Jennifer Lang and some other sport divers
674
00:29:03.090 --> 00:29:04.140
who were on the FLING
675
00:29:05.970 --> 00:29:08.310
called one day and said they were out the night
676
00:29:08.310 --> 00:29:10.020
or a couple nights before
677
00:29:10.020 --> 00:29:12.480
and had seen what they called smoking corals.
678
00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:14.580
And they said, "What was that all about?"
679
00:29:14.580 --> 00:29:17.017
So I didn't know for sure, but I said,
680
00:29:17.017 --> 00:29:18.900
"Sounds like maybe they were spawning."
681
00:29:18.900 --> 00:29:20.820
And we had never seen spawning of corals
682
00:29:20.820 --> 00:29:21.920
at the Flower Gardens.
683
00:29:22.860 --> 00:29:25.020
And frankly, it hadn't been seen
684
00:29:25.020 --> 00:29:26.310
in the lab or on the Caribbean,
685
00:29:26.310 --> 00:29:29.070
but in the field, mass spawning of any type
686
00:29:29.070 --> 00:29:31.320
really had never been observed among the corals,
687
00:29:31.320 --> 00:29:35.400
even though it was known from the Western Pacific.
688
00:29:35.400 --> 00:29:36.960
But that might have been what they were seeing.
689
00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:41.820
So a year later, we timed a cruise to go out
690
00:29:41.820 --> 00:29:43.560
at the exact same time they did
691
00:29:43.560 --> 00:29:45.300
relative to the moon phase
692
00:29:45.300 --> 00:29:47.880
because that's what seemed to trigger spawning.
693
00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:50.220
And we went in and on the same day
694
00:29:50.220 --> 00:29:52.200
past the full moon in August
695
00:29:52.200 --> 00:29:54.750
at the same time, nine o'clock at night,
696
00:29:54.750 --> 00:29:58.830
and witnessed exactly the same event that they saw and more
697
00:29:58.830 --> 00:30:00.180
because we had more people looking
698
00:30:00.180 --> 00:30:01.860
for a longer period of time.
699
00:30:01.860 --> 00:30:05.580
And we were blown away by the mass spawning
700
00:30:05.580 --> 00:30:09.480
of multiple species of corals in 1991
701
00:30:09.480 --> 00:30:12.720
for the first time observed in the Atlantic
702
00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:13.590
and published on it.
703
00:30:13.590 --> 00:30:15.600
And for years after that,
704
00:30:15.600 --> 00:30:17.460
well, first of all, the event itself
705
00:30:17.460 --> 00:30:19.980
was just spectacular to watch.
706
00:30:19.980 --> 00:30:22.440
All these bundles, little BB-sized bundles
707
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:24.090
would come out of these corals
708
00:30:24.090 --> 00:30:27.150
in waves across the reef and just fill the water column
709
00:30:27.150 --> 00:30:29.460
sometimes to the point of zero visibility.
710
00:30:29.460 --> 00:30:32.940
And just we started calling an underwater snowstorm,
711
00:30:32.940 --> 00:30:35.310
an upside down underwater snowstorm.
712
00:30:35.310 --> 00:30:37.050
It's exactly what it seemed to be.
713
00:30:37.050 --> 00:30:40.400
And it was a energetic event among it.
714
00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:43.710
We were all screaming underwater and wonderful time.
715
00:30:43.710 --> 00:30:44.700
And for years after that,
716
00:30:44.700 --> 00:30:47.790
we did various kinds of experiments on the corals
717
00:30:47.790 --> 00:30:49.920
to see if we could get them to self-fertilize
718
00:30:49.920 --> 00:30:52.560
or cross-fertilize or settle on plates
719
00:30:52.560 --> 00:30:54.030
or could we raise them in the lab
720
00:30:54.030 --> 00:30:56.640
and then transplant them back out to the field
721
00:30:56.640 --> 00:31:00.960
to use them for transplantation or for restoration?
722
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:03.300
And it turned out we could do most of those things.
723
00:31:03.300 --> 00:31:04.980
It was quite easy to work with these corals
724
00:31:04.980 --> 00:31:08.610
and it's a technology that still could easily be developed,
725
00:31:08.610 --> 00:31:12.240
I think, into a way to promote restoration
726
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:14.280
of reefs in some places
727
00:31:14.280 --> 00:31:16.680
and probably should be looked at pretty closely.
728
00:31:19.590 --> 00:31:23.347
In 1991, the year after this,
729
00:31:23.347 --> 00:31:25.200
well, the same year we went out
730
00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:27.060
and observed the coral spawning
731
00:31:27.060 --> 00:31:30.870
Texaco proposed to put a pipeline that was gonna lay
732
00:31:30.870 --> 00:31:33.600
between the East and West Flower Garden Banks.
733
00:31:33.600 --> 00:31:36.060
The line that goes between the banks on this image
734
00:31:36.060 --> 00:31:38.250
is not the proposed pipeline.
735
00:31:38.250 --> 00:31:40.440
That's just a line pointing to something,
736
00:31:40.440 --> 00:31:44.370
but it's something like the Texaco pipeline would have done.
737
00:31:44.370 --> 00:31:48.840
And it became a PR nightmare when it got into the media
738
00:31:48.840 --> 00:31:50.940
that they were gonna cut through the banks.
739
00:31:50.940 --> 00:31:53.100
That's the quote that was used in the paper,
740
00:31:53.100 --> 00:31:55.560
"cut through the banks" to put this pipeline.
741
00:31:55.560 --> 00:31:57.150
Nightmare for Texaco
742
00:31:57.150 --> 00:31:59.250
and they eventually did the right thing.
743
00:31:59.250 --> 00:32:01.440
They moved the pipeline,
744
00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:04.680
rerouted it around the outside of the banks
745
00:32:04.680 --> 00:32:06.900
to where it posed less of a threat
746
00:32:06.900 --> 00:32:08.673
and it cost them a lot of money.
747
00:32:09.630 --> 00:32:12.272
And it was done with for the time.
748
00:32:12.272 --> 00:32:14.550
They took their licks, paid the money
749
00:32:14.550 --> 00:32:17.040
and then got past it.
750
00:32:17.040 --> 00:32:18.090
But they did the right thing.
751
00:32:18.090 --> 00:32:20.790
Later on, it was determined that between those two banks,
752
00:32:20.790 --> 00:32:22.890
there is enough unstable bottom
753
00:32:22.890 --> 00:32:25.590
that it could actually have been a threat
754
00:32:25.590 --> 00:32:28.050
to the pipeline itself
755
00:32:28.050 --> 00:32:30.414
had it been laid in the original position,
756
00:32:30.414 --> 00:32:33.693
but not quite as much as the press made it sound.
757
00:32:35.610 --> 00:32:38.460
So at the end of 1991,
758
00:32:38.460 --> 00:32:41.610
NOAA finished up the Environmental Impact Statement
759
00:32:41.610 --> 00:32:44.160
for the designation of the sanctuary
760
00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:45.300
and it was imminent.
761
00:32:45.300 --> 00:32:48.600
It was definitely gonna happen right near the...
762
00:32:48.600 --> 00:32:51.690
And so, they interviewed for their Sanctuary Manager job.
763
00:32:51.690 --> 00:32:54.930
I applied, I always wanted to have a job like that
764
00:32:54.930 --> 00:32:57.273
ever since 1964, as you can remember.
765
00:32:58.530 --> 00:33:01.410
And I literally had an envelope
766
00:33:01.410 --> 00:33:03.210
that I wrote down all these little ideas
767
00:33:03.210 --> 00:33:06.510
of things I would do if I was managing that sanctuary.
768
00:33:06.510 --> 00:33:08.601
It was a wide open book.
769
00:33:08.601 --> 00:33:12.150
Like Kelly said, Tom called it, "a plum of a job"
770
00:33:12.150 --> 00:33:15.210
because he knew that I'd be able to do
771
00:33:15.210 --> 00:33:16.260
almost anything I want
772
00:33:16.260 --> 00:33:19.380
to develop the ideas that we had for that sanctuary.
773
00:33:19.380 --> 00:33:22.260
And having him around and a bunch of other advisors
774
00:33:22.260 --> 00:33:23.760
gave me tons of ideas
775
00:33:23.760 --> 00:33:25.523
and I had written those on an envelope,
776
00:33:25.523 --> 00:33:28.110
and interviewed with that envelope in front of me
777
00:33:28.110 --> 00:33:29.133
and got the job.
778
00:33:30.330 --> 00:33:32.430
So that was a wonderful experience.
779
00:33:32.430 --> 00:33:37.080
Of course, my first real permanent job started in 1992,
780
00:33:37.080 --> 00:33:38.910
right at the beginning when it was announced
781
00:33:38.910 --> 00:33:40.770
at a big dive show in Houston
782
00:33:40.770 --> 00:33:44.490
that the sanctuary was designated, done, signed,
783
00:33:44.490 --> 00:33:47.370
and introduced me.
784
00:33:47.370 --> 00:33:51.690
And I was at the dive show with my new big display
785
00:33:51.690 --> 00:33:53.850
that the Sea Grant had helped me build.
786
00:33:53.850 --> 00:33:56.730
Tom was director of Sea Grant, as I said before,
787
00:33:56.730 --> 00:33:58.170
and having him there
788
00:33:58.170 --> 00:34:01.020
got all kinds of things done for the sanctuary.
789
00:34:01.020 --> 00:34:05.100
It was really helpful to have him and his generosity there.
790
00:34:05.100 --> 00:34:08.160
But one of the most interesting things
791
00:34:08.160 --> 00:34:11.970
that happened to me at that show was after all the ceremony,
792
00:34:11.970 --> 00:34:13.560
I was at my little booth
793
00:34:13.560 --> 00:34:15.420
probably in shorts and a t-shirt
794
00:34:15.420 --> 00:34:17.670
and three guys in fancy suits
795
00:34:17.670 --> 00:34:20.070
were walking down the aisle towards me.
796
00:34:20.070 --> 00:34:21.270
And it turned out all three of them
797
00:34:21.270 --> 00:34:23.910
worked for one company or another in the oil industry,
798
00:34:23.910 --> 00:34:26.010
one for Texaco Pipeline,
799
00:34:26.010 --> 00:34:27.837
and they wanted to take me out for dinner.
800
00:34:27.837 --> 00:34:30.720
And I thought, oh, this is getting weird already.
801
00:34:30.720 --> 00:34:33.120
One day, my first day on the job
802
00:34:33.120 --> 00:34:35.130
and I talked to my superiors
803
00:34:35.130 --> 00:34:36.360
and they said, "Go with them.
804
00:34:36.360 --> 00:34:38.430
See what they have to say and get to know them
805
00:34:38.430 --> 00:34:40.170
because you're gonna be working with these kind of people."
806
00:34:40.170 --> 00:34:41.670
And I said, "Okay, thank you."
807
00:34:41.670 --> 00:34:43.530
So I went to dinner with them
808
00:34:43.530 --> 00:34:45.090
and their message to me was,
809
00:34:45.090 --> 00:34:49.620
if anything like this pipeline thing comes up again,
810
00:34:49.620 --> 00:34:52.890
any incident like that that could be construed wrongly
811
00:34:52.890 --> 00:34:54.600
or taken the wrong way,
812
00:34:54.600 --> 00:34:56.430
don't go to the press, call us.
813
00:34:56.430 --> 00:34:57.390
Here's our phone numbers,
814
00:34:57.390 --> 00:34:58.740
here's the president's phone number,
815
00:34:58.740 --> 00:35:00.960
here's the president of the company,
816
00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:03.090
that president and so forth."
817
00:35:03.090 --> 00:35:06.270
And they were honest about that.
818
00:35:06.270 --> 00:35:08.610
Give them a call rather than go to the press
819
00:35:08.610 --> 00:35:12.930
and maybe we can get things worked out and avoid problems.
820
00:35:12.930 --> 00:35:15.120
And that's the way they wanted to operate,
821
00:35:15.120 --> 00:35:16.500
that's the way I like to operate.
822
00:35:16.500 --> 00:35:19.050
So I took it as principle
823
00:35:19.050 --> 00:35:21.180
and that's the way I operated for years with them
824
00:35:21.180 --> 00:35:24.630
and other people that became partners of the sanctuary,
825
00:35:24.630 --> 00:35:29.630
whether they were in NOAA or MMS or oil or the Coast Guard,
826
00:35:30.060 --> 00:35:33.960
academic organizations, dive clubs, everybody.
827
00:35:33.960 --> 00:35:35.460
I put together a working group
828
00:35:35.460 --> 00:35:38.400
that was kind of like a Sanctuary Advisory Council nowadays.
829
00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:39.540
We didn't have those back then,
830
00:35:39.540 --> 00:35:42.330
but I had a advisory group of people
831
00:35:42.330 --> 00:35:44.760
representing different types of organizations
832
00:35:44.760 --> 00:35:47.190
that advised me as sanctuary manager
833
00:35:47.190 --> 00:35:49.080
and gave me advice on things to do.
834
00:35:49.080 --> 00:35:52.360
So, that was a good lesson learned
835
00:35:53.310 --> 00:35:55.410
when those folks invited me out to dinner.
836
00:35:55.410 --> 00:35:57.630
I was glad I did that
837
00:35:57.630 --> 00:35:59.430
and thankful that NOAA let me do it.
838
00:36:00.570 --> 00:36:05.570
Well, I had a small budget, $29,000,
839
00:36:07.320 --> 00:36:11.550
and a lot of leash.
840
00:36:11.550 --> 00:36:13.023
NOAA gave me a lot of leash.
841
00:36:15.150 --> 00:36:17.670
I could be the requesting official
842
00:36:17.670 --> 00:36:19.860
and the authorizing official,
843
00:36:19.860 --> 00:36:23.400
the approving official for all my purchases.
844
00:36:23.400 --> 00:36:26.130
So I could have gotten away with murder.
845
00:36:26.130 --> 00:36:29.310
Well, $29,000 worth of murder, that was my budget.
846
00:36:29.310 --> 00:36:31.653
But I was too dumb, so I played it straight.
847
00:36:33.030 --> 00:36:34.017
But they gave me a lot of leash
848
00:36:34.017 --> 00:36:37.020
and I really appreciated the flexibility and so forth
849
00:36:37.020 --> 00:36:40.563
and my job and how I handled it that NOAA gave me.
850
00:36:42.420 --> 00:36:44.610
The first thing I did was put together
851
00:36:44.610 --> 00:36:46.230
a mooring buoy maintenance contract
852
00:36:46.230 --> 00:36:48.750
so that we would always have mooring buoys in place
853
00:36:48.750 --> 00:36:50.520
for boats to tie up to at the Flower Gardens
854
00:36:50.520 --> 00:36:55.413
since anchoring was still our priority concern out there,
855
00:36:56.670 --> 00:36:57.840
along with a bunch of other things
856
00:36:57.840 --> 00:36:59.310
that didn't cost nearly as much money
857
00:36:59.310 --> 00:37:00.723
as maintaining those buoys.
858
00:37:01.860 --> 00:37:04.050
But that was my priority at the time.
859
00:37:04.050 --> 00:37:09.050
And Tom had interns working for him
860
00:37:09.090 --> 00:37:12.660
that he allowed to serve as research coordinators
861
00:37:12.660 --> 00:37:14.130
for the Flower Gardens.
862
00:37:14.130 --> 00:37:16.110
And Derek Hagman was the first.
863
00:37:16.110 --> 00:37:19.680
Ken Deslarzes came after Derek as research coordinator.
864
00:37:19.680 --> 00:37:23.790
So they were my first, quote unquote, employees
865
00:37:23.790 --> 00:37:25.203
for the sanctuary program.
866
00:37:26.310 --> 00:37:28.980
And then I started contracting for them later,
867
00:37:28.980 --> 00:37:31.110
but at first, it was Tom's, again, generosity
868
00:37:31.110 --> 00:37:32.460
that allowed me to have
869
00:37:32.460 --> 00:37:35.010
any kind of staff support at all here.
870
00:37:35.010 --> 00:37:37.500
And those were my first two folks
871
00:37:37.500 --> 00:37:40.500
that worked for the sanctuary, besides myself.
872
00:37:40.500 --> 00:37:43.000
Quenton Dokken, in the blue jacket here,
873
00:37:44.040 --> 00:37:46.020
worked for the Texas State Aquarium
874
00:37:46.020 --> 00:37:49.517
and then the Gulf of Mexico Foundation later on.
875
00:37:49.517 --> 00:37:52.980
He set up something called the Flower Gardens Fund
876
00:37:52.980 --> 00:37:54.930
inside that nonprofit
877
00:37:54.930 --> 00:37:59.250
so that there would be a place for people to put donations
878
00:37:59.250 --> 00:38:03.030
or for us to put money from sales of products.
879
00:38:03.030 --> 00:38:04.620
It'd give us spending money basically
880
00:38:04.620 --> 00:38:07.110
for things that were too difficult to purchase
881
00:38:07.110 --> 00:38:09.190
through federal acquisitions
882
00:38:10.140 --> 00:38:12.880
and allow him and others to help
883
00:38:14.730 --> 00:38:16.350
get money flowing through the system
884
00:38:16.350 --> 00:38:17.820
to support the sanctuary
885
00:38:17.820 --> 00:38:19.740
without it having to go through the federal system,
886
00:38:19.740 --> 00:38:23.100
which at the time was very cumbersome to do.
887
00:38:23.100 --> 00:38:25.863
So, Quenton was very helpful in that regard.
888
00:38:28.680 --> 00:38:30.990
One of the nice things we did each year
889
00:38:30.990 --> 00:38:33.180
was something called Night On the Flower Gardens
890
00:38:33.180 --> 00:38:36.660
and it was a chance for us to recognize people
891
00:38:36.660 --> 00:38:40.800
for the volunteer support that they gave us
892
00:38:40.800 --> 00:38:43.080
and the effort that they put in
893
00:38:43.080 --> 00:38:44.520
to help manage that sanctuary,
894
00:38:44.520 --> 00:38:46.560
to help support the sanctuary.
895
00:38:46.560 --> 00:38:48.060
You can see Jesse Cancelmo here.
896
00:38:48.060 --> 00:38:50.610
He did a lot of photography for the sanctuary.
897
00:38:50.610 --> 00:38:52.653
Gene Boyer, a ton of field work.
898
00:38:53.730 --> 00:38:56.040
Of course, Gary Rinn donated a lot of boat time
899
00:38:56.040 --> 00:38:57.180
over the years
900
00:38:57.180 --> 00:39:00.000
and allowed us, graduate students,
901
00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:01.650
to come out and do their studies
902
00:39:01.650 --> 00:39:03.060
if he had any space available.
903
00:39:03.060 --> 00:39:05.610
So a lot of that was donated time.
904
00:39:05.610 --> 00:39:08.193
It would've cost a lot of money otherwise.
905
00:39:09.180 --> 00:39:12.330
So we did that every year and we had cocktail parties
906
00:39:12.330 --> 00:39:14.490
and some kind of events of some sort or another.
907
00:39:14.490 --> 00:39:16.367
Usually a special speaker would come in.
908
00:39:16.367 --> 00:39:19.508
It was a great event, I really enjoyed that.
909
00:39:19.508 --> 00:39:23.463
In 1994, about two years after I started,
910
00:39:24.491 --> 00:39:27.330
I was able to finally hire my first federal employee,
911
00:39:27.330 --> 00:39:30.150
Shelley DuPuy, who was the Education Coordinator.
912
00:39:30.150 --> 00:39:33.210
And Shelley stayed there for many years
913
00:39:33.210 --> 00:39:35.100
and retired from the Flower Gardens Sanctuary
914
00:39:35.100 --> 00:39:36.630
just a couple years ago.
915
00:39:36.630 --> 00:39:39.300
And she was a great person to have around,
916
00:39:39.300 --> 00:39:42.570
real level-headed and did so much good hard work for us
917
00:39:42.570 --> 00:39:44.730
on the education front.
918
00:39:44.730 --> 00:39:47.070
She really took it to a new level.
919
00:39:47.070 --> 00:39:50.850
And that same year, Christy Pattengill showed up,
920
00:39:50.850 --> 00:39:52.000
later, Christy Semmens.
921
00:39:53.130 --> 00:39:55.020
Christy Pattengill wanted to do fish work
922
00:39:55.020 --> 00:39:55.860
at the Flower Gardens
923
00:39:55.860 --> 00:39:57.330
and we didn't have anybody
924
00:39:57.330 --> 00:40:00.150
doing active fish survey work at the time.
925
00:40:00.150 --> 00:40:01.710
And she brought a new survey method
926
00:40:01.710 --> 00:40:03.870
from the Reef Environmental Education Foundation
927
00:40:03.870 --> 00:40:07.140
to the banks and actually got me interested in fish.
928
00:40:07.140 --> 00:40:09.720
I had no interest at the time in fish until she was there
929
00:40:09.720 --> 00:40:11.820
and taught me how to identify the fish.
930
00:40:11.820 --> 00:40:13.380
And then I started realizing
931
00:40:13.380 --> 00:40:15.630
just how important they were ecologically.
932
00:40:15.630 --> 00:40:18.630
So Christy did her PhD at A&M.
933
00:40:18.630 --> 00:40:21.060
Bryce Semmens came along with her.
934
00:40:21.060 --> 00:40:22.210
They were later married
935
00:40:23.931 --> 00:40:26.610
and then Bryce went off to graduate school
936
00:40:26.610 --> 00:40:29.700
at Santa Barbara and then the University of Washington
937
00:40:29.700 --> 00:40:31.320
and now he's a full professor at Scripps,
938
00:40:31.320 --> 00:40:34.740
so they've really soared in their careers.
939
00:40:34.740 --> 00:40:36.420
Christy's still the chief scientist
940
00:40:36.420 --> 00:40:39.000
for Reef Environmental Education Foundation,
941
00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:44.000
is also a co-executive director for that organization.
942
00:40:46.080 --> 00:40:48.390
Emma Hickerson comes along as a graduate student
943
00:40:48.390 --> 00:40:51.090
wanting to study turtles
944
00:40:51.090 --> 00:40:53.400
and we started catching and tagging turtles
945
00:40:53.400 --> 00:40:55.680
and looking at how they moved around.
946
00:40:55.680 --> 00:40:57.690
Really great fun field work.
947
00:40:57.690 --> 00:41:00.960
And Emma eventually became Research Coordinator
948
00:41:00.960 --> 00:41:03.150
for the sanctuary as a fed
949
00:41:03.150 --> 00:41:05.670
and lasted many years there as well.
950
00:41:05.670 --> 00:41:07.680
Everybody who started working for the Flower Garden
951
00:41:07.680 --> 00:41:09.230
seemed to stay for a long time,
952
00:41:10.080 --> 00:41:12.300
Emma and Shelley in particular.
953
00:41:12.300 --> 00:41:15.480
And Emma just recently, like a couple years ago,
954
00:41:15.480 --> 00:41:16.960
headed back to Australia
955
00:41:17.820 --> 00:41:19.470
'cause her parents were aging
956
00:41:19.470 --> 00:41:21.633
and is now back in Australia.
957
00:41:22.830 --> 00:41:25.800
And she was a wonderful employee as well,
958
00:41:25.800 --> 00:41:27.420
super hard worker.
959
00:41:27.420 --> 00:41:29.640
She did a lot of work over the more recent years
960
00:41:29.640 --> 00:41:33.210
on characterizing many other banks in the Northwestern Gulf
961
00:41:33.210 --> 00:41:35.250
to the point where they could become
962
00:41:35.250 --> 00:41:36.990
added to the Flower Gardens Sanctuary.
963
00:41:36.990 --> 00:41:39.120
And now the sanctuary is something, I don't know,
964
00:41:39.120 --> 00:41:40.680
three times larger than it was
965
00:41:40.680 --> 00:41:42.693
when I was manager down there.
966
00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:48.633
And we did all kinds of product development at that time.
967
00:41:50.160 --> 00:41:53.190
Newsletters and research reports
968
00:41:53.190 --> 00:41:54.900
and brochures and calendars.
969
00:41:54.900 --> 00:41:57.450
And Joel Hickerson, he was an artist,
970
00:41:57.450 --> 00:42:00.480
he made that nice logo up in the upper right hand corner.
971
00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:03.420
And yeah, full disclosure,
972
00:42:03.420 --> 00:42:04.920
I don't know how that classified document
973
00:42:04.920 --> 00:42:05.970
got left at my house,
974
00:42:05.970 --> 00:42:08.610
but I found it lying around the other day.
975
00:42:08.610 --> 00:42:11.670
I'll turn it in, hopefully it won't be a problem.
976
00:42:11.670 --> 00:42:13.950
But that was the long range plan I did,
977
00:42:13.950 --> 00:42:15.200
wasn't really classified.
978
00:42:17.940 --> 00:42:22.020
So this was 1995
979
00:42:22.020 --> 00:42:25.087
and a lot of divers were recognizing
980
00:42:25.087 --> 00:42:27.090
another bank, Stetson Bank,
981
00:42:27.090 --> 00:42:29.340
that the boats often went to
982
00:42:29.340 --> 00:42:32.220
as being a really wonderful place.
983
00:42:32.220 --> 00:42:34.530
A lot of them liked it better than the Flower Garden Banks
984
00:42:34.530 --> 00:42:37.353
and expressed interest in making it a marine sanctuary.
985
00:42:40.740 --> 00:42:44.520
And there was a guy named Chris Ostrom
986
00:42:44.520 --> 00:42:47.850
who was the liaison for me at the headquarters.
987
00:42:47.850 --> 00:42:49.710
He worked for the sanctuary program
988
00:42:49.710 --> 00:42:51.210
and loved coming to the Flower Gardens
989
00:42:51.210 --> 00:42:53.610
and loved playing Sequence as you can see here.
990
00:42:53.610 --> 00:42:56.700
But Chris also had a lot of congressional experience
991
00:42:56.700 --> 00:43:01.700
and he wanted to help Stetson become a sanctuary
992
00:43:02.480 --> 00:43:05.610
or be added to the sanctuary if that was possible.
993
00:43:05.610 --> 00:43:08.820
He invited a guy named Terry Schaff down
994
00:43:08.820 --> 00:43:11.190
to go out on a trip with us
995
00:43:11.190 --> 00:43:12.120
and Terry worked
996
00:43:12.120 --> 00:43:15.000
for the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee
997
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:17.760
and Solomon Ortiz was the chairman at the time.
998
00:43:17.760 --> 00:43:22.080
And he had all the smarts it would take
999
00:43:22.080 --> 00:43:24.120
to add Stetson to the sanctuary
1000
00:43:24.120 --> 00:43:25.860
if that's what the public wanted.
1001
00:43:25.860 --> 00:43:29.130
So he talked with divers and dive clubs in the area
1002
00:43:29.130 --> 00:43:31.410
and strategized with them
1003
00:43:31.410 --> 00:43:34.260
if they really felt strongly that Stetson should be added
1004
00:43:34.260 --> 00:43:35.940
and what it would take to do it.
1005
00:43:35.940 --> 00:43:38.850
And eventually, Terry ended up writing the legislation
1006
00:43:38.850 --> 00:43:41.070
that it would take to add the sanctuary
1007
00:43:41.070 --> 00:43:43.410
or add that bank to the sanctuary
1008
00:43:43.410 --> 00:43:45.420
and proposed these boundaries.
1009
00:43:45.420 --> 00:43:47.730
And those boundaries were literally
1010
00:43:47.730 --> 00:43:49.320
me and a couple other people
1011
00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:51.990
riding around in a zodiac with a depth finder
1012
00:43:51.990 --> 00:43:53.850
and trying to get a square
1013
00:43:53.850 --> 00:43:56.553
that would encompass the entire bank at the time.
1014
00:43:57.630 --> 00:44:00.990
And so, it wasn't quite as square as it looks on this graph,
1015
00:44:00.990 --> 00:44:02.730
but we got it done.
1016
00:44:02.730 --> 00:44:04.320
And Terry wrote the legislation.
1017
00:44:04.320 --> 00:44:05.520
The next thing you know,
1018
00:44:06.729 --> 00:44:07.920
a year or so later,
1019
00:44:07.920 --> 00:44:09.900
it became part of the Flower Garden Sanctuary.
1020
00:44:09.900 --> 00:44:13.263
So it went from two banks to three banks in 1996.
1021
00:44:14.610 --> 00:44:17.190
And then, perhaps the most interesting thing
1022
00:44:17.190 --> 00:44:18.960
that maybe I've ever done
1023
00:44:18.960 --> 00:44:21.960
was living for a while in what we call Gene's world.
1024
00:44:21.960 --> 00:44:25.210
And Gene Dries is the guy in the upper left hand corner
1025
00:44:27.129 --> 00:44:30.360
of this slide with the long hair
1026
00:44:30.360 --> 00:44:33.120
and standing next to none other than Bob Marley,
1027
00:44:33.120 --> 00:44:34.620
which should tell you a little bit of something
1028
00:44:34.620 --> 00:44:37.170
about Gene's life and what an interesting character
1029
00:44:37.170 --> 00:44:38.853
and interesting life he's led.
1030
00:44:40.470 --> 00:44:42.900
He worked for Warner Brothers Records,
1031
00:44:42.900 --> 00:44:45.038
Warner Records at the time,
1032
00:44:45.038 --> 00:44:49.860
and Lad Akins in the lower left worked for REEF.
1033
00:44:49.860 --> 00:44:52.230
He was the executive director for REEF.
1034
00:44:52.230 --> 00:44:55.440
Laurie Wilson was doing PR for REEF.
1035
00:44:55.440 --> 00:44:57.270
And then this group, Little Texas,
1036
00:44:57.270 --> 00:44:58.260
all these folks thought,
1037
00:44:58.260 --> 00:45:00.870
hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could get Little Texas
1038
00:45:00.870 --> 00:45:02.570
who had a lot of hits at the time,
1039
00:45:04.110 --> 00:45:05.520
wouldn't it be cool if we could get them
1040
00:45:05.520 --> 00:45:06.930
out to the Flower Gardens diving
1041
00:45:06.930 --> 00:45:08.910
because several of them were divers?
1042
00:45:08.910 --> 00:45:12.810
And then just, would it be neat?
1043
00:45:12.810 --> 00:45:14.310
So Gene made the arrangements,
1044
00:45:14.310 --> 00:45:15.930
he knew the guys from Little Texas
1045
00:45:15.930 --> 00:45:17.970
and he was very familiar with them.
1046
00:45:17.970 --> 00:45:22.200
And he and Brian Huff organized a trip out there
1047
00:45:22.200 --> 00:45:24.720
and we all ended up taking Little Texas
1048
00:45:24.720 --> 00:45:25.980
out to the Flower Gardens.
1049
00:45:25.980 --> 00:45:27.867
And here's the three guys that went with us.
1050
00:45:27.867 --> 00:45:32.160
There's Dwayne O'Brien, Del Gray, Duane Propes,
1051
00:45:32.160 --> 00:45:33.090
the guys with the long hair,
1052
00:45:33.090 --> 00:45:35.910
and then Chris Ostrom and me on the FLING
1053
00:45:35.910 --> 00:45:37.620
holding a NOAA flag.
1054
00:45:37.620 --> 00:45:41.550
And we had a heck of a good time out there,
1055
00:45:41.550 --> 00:45:44.220
partly because we also had these two guys,
1056
00:45:44.220 --> 00:45:48.630
Greg Bunch and Tony Sebastian who were from New Orleans
1057
00:45:48.630 --> 00:45:49.680
and nothing but fun,
1058
00:45:49.680 --> 00:45:51.840
they're just life of the party type of people.
1059
00:45:51.840 --> 00:45:54.960
And the whole three-day cruise became a joke fest
1060
00:45:54.960 --> 00:45:57.450
between them and the guys from Little Texas.
1061
00:45:57.450 --> 00:45:59.490
And boy, I don't know if I've ever had
1062
00:45:59.490 --> 00:46:01.200
so much fun on a trip.
1063
00:46:01.200 --> 00:46:04.530
When we got back, Little Texas was offered
1064
00:46:04.530 --> 00:46:07.980
to do a benefit concert for us at Sea Space,
1065
00:46:07.980 --> 00:46:12.120
a big dive show in Houston in 1997.
1066
00:46:12.120 --> 00:46:14.280
And they did that, they pulled off a great show.
1067
00:46:14.280 --> 00:46:19.143
We made something like $80,000 in tickets and other sales,
1068
00:46:21.600 --> 00:46:22.650
whatever you call it,
1069
00:46:22.650 --> 00:46:24.300
by people buying guitars,
1070
00:46:24.300 --> 00:46:26.160
raffles and all that kind of thing.
1071
00:46:26.160 --> 00:46:30.690
So they made a lot of money for the sanctuary and for REEF
1072
00:46:30.690 --> 00:46:33.360
and had a heck of a good time doing it.
1073
00:46:33.360 --> 00:46:35.010
They had guitars made,
1074
00:46:35.010 --> 00:46:39.030
Gene had these commissioned and painted up
1075
00:46:39.030 --> 00:46:41.280
and decorated for the times and sold them.
1076
00:46:41.280 --> 00:46:42.113
I bought one,
1077
00:46:42.113 --> 00:46:44.250
I bought the one that's in the inset here.
1078
00:46:44.250 --> 00:46:46.650
And I noticed just a couple years ago,
1079
00:46:46.650 --> 00:46:49.380
painted on my guitar is this lionfish.
1080
00:46:49.380 --> 00:46:51.660
Well, if you think about the time, this is 1997.
1081
00:46:51.660 --> 00:46:54.000
This was three years before lionfish
1082
00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:56.730
even took off in the Atlantic in their abundance
1083
00:46:56.730 --> 00:46:58.080
and became a problem
1084
00:46:58.080 --> 00:47:00.270
and about 14 years or something
1085
00:47:00.270 --> 00:47:02.490
before they showed up at the Flower Gardens.
1086
00:47:02.490 --> 00:47:04.870
So this prophetic guitar
1087
00:47:06.711 --> 00:47:08.190
was looking into the future
1088
00:47:08.190 --> 00:47:10.770
and telling us to look out for lionfish I guess.
1089
00:47:10.770 --> 00:47:14.820
But I bought that guitar during that auction
1090
00:47:14.820 --> 00:47:17.250
and I still have it down in the basement.
1091
00:47:17.250 --> 00:47:21.180
And it was Gene Dries made it all happen, he is magic.
1092
00:47:21.180 --> 00:47:22.620
And I still stay in touch with Gene
1093
00:47:22.620 --> 00:47:24.750
and try to visit him now and then.
1094
00:47:24.750 --> 00:47:26.730
Wonderful, wonderful guy.
1095
00:47:26.730 --> 00:47:29.850
And all good things must come to an end.
1096
00:47:29.850 --> 00:47:33.060
And people have asked me over the years there
1097
00:47:33.060 --> 00:47:34.590
how long I was gonna stay as manager,
1098
00:47:34.590 --> 00:47:36.210
what was I gonna do next?
1099
00:47:36.210 --> 00:47:37.110
And I always said,
1100
00:47:37.110 --> 00:47:38.580
because I had never seen a whale shark
1101
00:47:38.580 --> 00:47:39.413
at the Flower Gardens,
1102
00:47:39.413 --> 00:47:40.920
even though other people had.
1103
00:47:40.920 --> 00:47:42.330
For 18 years, I never saw one.
1104
00:47:42.330 --> 00:47:43.770
I said, when I first see a whale shark,
1105
00:47:43.770 --> 00:47:45.610
then I'll know it's time
1106
00:47:45.610 --> 00:47:47.610
to start thinking about doing something else.
1107
00:47:47.610 --> 00:47:50.160
In 1997, I saw three of them.
1108
00:47:50.160 --> 00:47:53.700
So it didn't take a two by four to the head
1109
00:47:53.700 --> 00:47:55.800
to realize, hey, maybe I ought to start thinking
1110
00:47:55.800 --> 00:47:56.790
about is there something else
1111
00:47:56.790 --> 00:47:58.350
I should be looking forward to?
1112
00:47:58.350 --> 00:48:00.210
And literally, I had done most of the things
1113
00:48:00.210 --> 00:48:02.666
that I had written on that envelope.
1114
00:48:02.666 --> 00:48:04.860
I had checked off most of those things
1115
00:48:04.860 --> 00:48:06.390
except for a couple.
1116
00:48:06.390 --> 00:48:10.020
I really felt like I had done most of what I could
1117
00:48:10.020 --> 00:48:11.570
for the Flower Gardens Sanctuary
1118
00:48:12.590 --> 00:48:14.820
in its birth and its early days.
1119
00:48:14.820 --> 00:48:18.450
So coincidentally, I was offered a position at headquarters
1120
00:48:18.450 --> 00:48:21.730
as the Chief Scientist for the Sanctuary Program
1121
00:48:23.280 --> 00:48:27.576
and they hadn't had that position before and I accepted it.
1122
00:48:27.576 --> 00:48:30.240
And I started doing that late that year
1123
00:48:30.240 --> 00:48:32.160
and ever since, honestly.
1124
00:48:32.160 --> 00:48:34.230
I've been there now, gosh,
1125
00:48:34.230 --> 00:48:36.780
25 years as Chief Scientist for...
1126
00:48:36.780 --> 00:48:37.613
Is that true?
1127
00:48:37.613 --> 00:48:40.050
Something like that, it's getting close to that.
1128
00:48:40.050 --> 00:48:42.540
So that was the end of my time at the Flower Gardens
1129
00:48:42.540 --> 00:48:44.880
and heading off to headquarters.
1130
00:48:44.880 --> 00:48:47.220
But I still get back to the Flower Gardens pretty often
1131
00:48:47.220 --> 00:48:49.200
or as often as I can.
1132
00:48:49.200 --> 00:48:50.847
I worked a lot with Emma over the years
1133
00:48:50.847 --> 00:48:53.820
and Tom gets back there as often as he can
1134
00:48:53.820 --> 00:48:55.140
to help out with things.
1135
00:48:55.140 --> 00:48:57.720
So you can see the loyalty that happens
1136
00:48:57.720 --> 00:49:00.150
among people that work at the Flower Gardens.
1137
00:49:00.150 --> 00:49:02.010
And honestly, it's been in good hands,
1138
00:49:02.010 --> 00:49:03.060
has been for a long time.
1139
00:49:03.060 --> 00:49:07.020
G.P Schmahl became Manager a year or so after I left
1140
00:49:07.020 --> 00:49:10.050
and has been there over 20 years now,
1141
00:49:10.050 --> 00:49:12.330
well over 20 years I guess.
1142
00:49:12.330 --> 00:49:15.840
And since Emma left,
1143
00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:18.210
there's a new Research Coordinator in town,
1144
00:49:18.210 --> 00:49:19.440
Michelle Johnston.
1145
00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:22.110
She's currently Research Coordinator at the Flower Gardens.
1146
00:49:22.110 --> 00:49:24.300
And their staff has grown substantially.
1147
00:49:24.300 --> 00:49:26.490
This is not exactly the current staff
1148
00:49:26.490 --> 00:49:28.860
and I think this picture might be a couple years old,
1149
00:49:28.860 --> 00:49:31.020
but a lot of these folks are still around on staff
1150
00:49:31.020 --> 00:49:35.610
and much larger than it was when I was there.
1151
00:49:35.610 --> 00:49:38.670
I still go back, but this is what I do when I go back.
1152
00:49:38.670 --> 00:49:40.860
You'll find me looking more like this
1153
00:49:40.860 --> 00:49:42.933
than bossing people around.
1154
00:49:45.300 --> 00:49:47.100
Most of us are very proud of the place
1155
00:49:47.100 --> 00:49:48.963
partly because of this blue line.
1156
00:49:49.980 --> 00:49:52.710
That's the coral cover at the Flower Garden Banks.
1157
00:49:52.710 --> 00:49:54.870
And you can see over the long term,
1158
00:49:54.870 --> 00:49:58.140
the Flower Gardens has been a very, very healthy ecosystem.
1159
00:49:58.140 --> 00:50:00.000
If anything, the coral cover's gotten higher
1160
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:02.370
since the early days of measuring it
1161
00:50:02.370 --> 00:50:04.597
back in the 70s and 80s.
1162
00:50:05.730 --> 00:50:08.250
So we're all a little bit nervous now
1163
00:50:08.250 --> 00:50:09.990
about the arrival of a new disease
1164
00:50:09.990 --> 00:50:12.840
or maybe multiple diseases
1165
00:50:12.840 --> 00:50:15.120
increasing in frequency out there,
1166
00:50:15.120 --> 00:50:17.250
maybe it's gonna be hitting the corals,
1167
00:50:17.250 --> 00:50:20.910
but for now at least, the Flower Gardens are still
1168
00:50:20.910 --> 00:50:23.010
about as healthy as it ever has been
1169
00:50:23.010 --> 00:50:25.800
and we're all very happy about that.
1170
00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:27.330
I thought I'd just finish with a picture
1171
00:50:27.330 --> 00:50:29.610
of a very good friend I made along the way,
1172
00:50:29.610 --> 00:50:31.560
Randy Widaman, who's not with us anymore,
1173
00:50:31.560 --> 00:50:33.630
but he was a Captain,
1174
00:50:33.630 --> 00:50:36.000
one of the captains of the FLING in the SPREE,
1175
00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:39.000
the two boats that operated so much out there that we used.
1176
00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:41.580
And Randy, he was short one leg,
1177
00:50:41.580 --> 00:50:43.830
but he made up for it with a lot of heart.
1178
00:50:43.830 --> 00:50:46.263
A wonderful, wonderful guy, Randy Widaman.
1179
00:50:47.580 --> 00:50:50.910
So thank you, Kelly, for giving me the time
1180
00:50:50.910 --> 00:50:51.990
to do this talk.
1181
00:50:51.990 --> 00:50:52.823
I really appreciate it
1182
00:50:52.823 --> 00:50:56.433
and I'm very happy to answer any questions I can.
1183
00:50:57.450 --> 00:50:58.710
Thank you, Steve.
1184
00:50:58.710 --> 00:51:00.540
Folks, if you do have questions for Steve
1185
00:51:00.540 --> 00:51:02.190
about any aspect of the presentation
1186
00:51:02.190 --> 00:51:04.020
or the Flower Garden Banks,
1187
00:51:04.020 --> 00:51:06.630
please type them into the question box
1188
00:51:06.630 --> 00:51:08.520
in the control panel there
1189
00:51:08.520 --> 00:51:10.260
and we will share them with Steve.
1190
00:51:10.260 --> 00:51:12.990
If you had your hand raised or you had a question mark,
1191
00:51:12.990 --> 00:51:13.890
list it next to your name,
1192
00:51:13.890 --> 00:51:16.470
Please make sure your questions are in the question box
1193
00:51:16.470 --> 00:51:18.360
because we're not gonna unmute people to ask questions.
1194
00:51:18.360 --> 00:51:22.290
We'll just take them from the question box.
1195
00:51:22.290 --> 00:51:24.540
Steve, our first question on the list is,
1196
00:51:24.540 --> 00:51:26.100
how deep did you free dive
1197
00:51:26.100 --> 00:51:27.540
while you were out there with the NOAA folks
1198
00:51:27.540 --> 00:51:30.360
and Sylvia was diving underneath you?
1199
00:51:30.360 --> 00:51:31.920
I went all the way to the bottom
1200
00:51:31.920 --> 00:51:33.540
in the shallowest part of the banks,
1201
00:51:33.540 --> 00:51:36.810
so that was like 60 feet I guess.
1202
00:51:36.810 --> 00:51:37.800
But I didn't stay long.
1203
00:51:37.800 --> 00:51:39.350
I wasn't a very good free diver
1204
00:51:40.320 --> 00:51:41.760
and there were a few times when I wondered
1205
00:51:41.760 --> 00:51:43.470
whether I was gonna make it back to the surface.
1206
00:51:43.470 --> 00:51:47.070
But like I said, it was tough but I made it.
1207
00:51:47.070 --> 00:51:49.720
But I tried to get all the way down just to show off.
1208
00:51:51.030 --> 00:51:52.560
I'm impressed.
1209
00:51:52.560 --> 00:51:55.590
60 feet more than I would do free diving.
1210
00:51:57.570 --> 00:51:58.500
All right, next question.
1211
00:51:58.500 --> 00:52:00.600
Could you please discuss how the Flower Garden Banks
1212
00:52:00.600 --> 00:52:02.973
and the oil industry coexist?
1213
00:52:04.193 --> 00:52:06.750
I didn't catch that exactly what you said.
1214
00:52:06.750 --> 00:52:09.660
Please discuss how the Flower Garden Banks Sanctuary
1215
00:52:09.660 --> 00:52:12.150
and the oil industry coexist.
1216
00:52:12.150 --> 00:52:13.230
Oh, coexist.
1217
00:52:13.230 --> 00:52:15.183
Well, regulations help.
1218
00:52:16.020 --> 00:52:19.530
Having a strong government agency like, at the time,
1219
00:52:19.530 --> 00:52:21.990
Minerals Management Service was
1220
00:52:21.990 --> 00:52:26.970
who would be diligent about doing drills
1221
00:52:26.970 --> 00:52:29.917
to put the oil industry folks on the spot and say,
1222
00:52:29.917 --> 00:52:33.090
"Hey, imagine you just had a spill out there,
1223
00:52:33.090 --> 00:52:33.923
respond to it."
1224
00:52:33.923 --> 00:52:36.690
And we did that on the day before Thanksgiving
1225
00:52:36.690 --> 00:52:38.040
once with one company
1226
00:52:38.040 --> 00:52:39.660
and they had to call in all their troops
1227
00:52:39.660 --> 00:52:42.303
to respond to this imaginary oil spill.
1228
00:52:43.350 --> 00:52:44.340
So that's one example.
1229
00:52:44.340 --> 00:52:48.210
But having strong regulations in place is really helpful.
1230
00:52:48.210 --> 00:52:51.090
And having scientifically-based advice
1231
00:52:51.090 --> 00:52:53.040
being provided to an organization
1232
00:52:53.040 --> 00:52:55.230
like the Minerals Management Service
1233
00:52:55.230 --> 00:52:57.900
allowed them to put restrictions in place
1234
00:52:57.900 --> 00:53:00.720
for operations that were really meaningful,
1235
00:53:00.720 --> 00:53:03.240
things that required them to shunt their cuttings
1236
00:53:03.240 --> 00:53:06.000
and fluids down to certain depths
1237
00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:08.640
so that they wouldn't impinge on the banks.
1238
00:53:08.640 --> 00:53:12.180
So protecting the banks ahead of time
1239
00:53:12.180 --> 00:53:15.810
rather than in a reactionary way.
1240
00:53:15.810 --> 00:53:19.980
Being proactive in those kind of protection measures
1241
00:53:19.980 --> 00:53:21.960
was really helpful.
1242
00:53:21.960 --> 00:53:23.670
And then, the open door policy
1243
00:53:23.670 --> 00:53:25.890
where the oil industry was willing
1244
00:53:25.890 --> 00:53:28.890
to take phone calls and answer questions if I ever had them
1245
00:53:28.890 --> 00:53:33.600
when it came to me evaluating permit requests and so forth.
1246
00:53:33.600 --> 00:53:35.430
It's all relationship building,
1247
00:53:35.430 --> 00:53:37.290
but behind the relationship building
1248
00:53:37.290 --> 00:53:39.930
has to be a strong agency with a commitment
1249
00:53:39.930 --> 00:53:43.740
to establishing and enforcing the rules
1250
00:53:43.740 --> 00:53:45.153
that it puts in place.
1251
00:53:47.160 --> 00:53:49.080
Steve, several of the people
1252
00:53:49.080 --> 00:53:50.790
that you've mentioned in your talk tonight
1253
00:53:50.790 --> 00:53:51.750
are actually online
1254
00:53:51.750 --> 00:53:53.430
and one of those, Ms. Emma,
1255
00:53:53.430 --> 00:53:55.110
would like to know, how many dives have you done
1256
00:53:55.110 --> 00:53:56.493
at the Flower Garden Banks?
1257
00:53:57.477 --> 00:53:58.781
Oh gosh, I don't know.
1258
00:53:58.781 --> 00:54:03.781
It had to be probably I'd say 1500 or something like that.
1259
00:54:04.050 --> 00:54:07.293
I never have added the numbers up, to be honest with you.
1260
00:54:08.130 --> 00:54:09.420
That'd be my guess though.
1261
00:54:09.420 --> 00:54:11.400
Not as many as some others.
1262
00:54:11.400 --> 00:54:13.050
I'll bet Emma's done a bunch more than me.
1263
00:54:13.050 --> 00:54:15.120
I'll bet Greg Boland's done a bunch more.
1264
00:54:15.120 --> 00:54:15.953
I think there's probably a lot of people
1265
00:54:15.953 --> 00:54:17.400
who have done a bunch more.
1266
00:54:17.400 --> 00:54:19.860
The dive masters, my gosh,
1267
00:54:19.860 --> 00:54:21.210
they've probably done tons.
1268
00:54:22.415 --> 00:54:25.740
But I feel good, I feel satisfied, no question about it.
1269
00:54:25.740 --> 00:54:27.390
I got a lot in out there.
1270
00:54:27.390 --> 00:54:29.730
All right, next question.
1271
00:54:29.730 --> 00:54:31.020
You're one of the folks that know best
1272
00:54:31.020 --> 00:54:32.700
the amount of resources, people and effort
1273
00:54:32.700 --> 00:54:35.280
it took to build the sum total of East Flower Garden Bank,
1274
00:54:35.280 --> 00:54:36.210
West Flower Garden Bank
1275
00:54:36.210 --> 00:54:38.670
and Stetson Knowledge that we have today.
1276
00:54:38.670 --> 00:54:40.320
What's your assessment of the likelihood
1277
00:54:40.320 --> 00:54:41.463
we will see that same level of effort
1278
00:54:41.463 --> 00:54:43.053
from the newly-added banks?
1279
00:54:44.130 --> 00:54:46.203
Hmm, wow, good question.
1280
00:54:48.660 --> 00:54:51.240
It's gonna be really hard to come up with the resources
1281
00:54:51.240 --> 00:54:55.440
to mount the number of cruises that are needed
1282
00:54:55.440 --> 00:54:58.110
to do really good work on those other banks.
1283
00:54:58.110 --> 00:55:00.690
And most of them, well, all of them are deeper
1284
00:55:00.690 --> 00:55:02.370
than those three you mentioned.
1285
00:55:02.370 --> 00:55:03.870
So it's not easy diving,
1286
00:55:03.870 --> 00:55:06.090
you can't just send scuba divers down.
1287
00:55:06.090 --> 00:55:07.740
You're gonna have to have technical divers,
1288
00:55:07.740 --> 00:55:11.670
you're gonna have to have ROVs and the like.
1289
00:55:11.670 --> 00:55:16.670
But we do have access to those kinds of platforms.
1290
00:55:16.710 --> 00:55:21.660
There's also emerging market for autonomous vehicles,
1291
00:55:21.660 --> 00:55:24.240
whether they're above water or below.
1292
00:55:24.240 --> 00:55:26.580
So we could do a lot of work with autonomous vehicles
1293
00:55:26.580 --> 00:55:28.260
that we were never able to do before.
1294
00:55:28.260 --> 00:55:31.530
So, I don't know, I guess I'm optimistic in that respect
1295
00:55:31.530 --> 00:55:35.880
that there's potential to do good work on those banks,
1296
00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:37.980
even though there's gonna have to be done differently
1297
00:55:37.980 --> 00:55:41.460
than the banks were done in the past.
1298
00:55:41.460 --> 00:55:43.860
But honestly, having the good records that we had
1299
00:55:43.860 --> 00:55:46.740
from the days of Tom Bright doing his work there
1300
00:55:46.740 --> 00:55:50.100
and all the incredibly good descriptions he provided
1301
00:55:50.100 --> 00:55:51.000
for each of these banks
1302
00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:53.820
is gonna give us the ability to track change
1303
00:55:53.820 --> 00:55:55.680
on each one of them if we want to
1304
00:55:55.680 --> 00:55:58.380
just by going back and reading through his records
1305
00:55:58.380 --> 00:56:00.570
and comparing that to what we're seeing now
1306
00:56:00.570 --> 00:56:03.750
with visual surveys and so forth.
1307
00:56:03.750 --> 00:56:06.360
So we have a really good strong baseline
1308
00:56:06.360 --> 00:56:08.550
of information I think to work from.
1309
00:56:08.550 --> 00:56:10.680
And of course, all the characterization work
1310
00:56:10.680 --> 00:56:15.580
that Emma and G.P. did throughout the 1990s and 2000s
1311
00:56:16.560 --> 00:56:19.230
in preparation for the growth of the sanctuary.
1312
00:56:19.230 --> 00:56:20.670
All that's really reliable
1313
00:56:20.670 --> 00:56:22.050
and it's good, strong information
1314
00:56:22.050 --> 00:56:23.523
to support science out there.
1315
00:56:25.110 --> 00:56:26.160
Thank you.
1316
00:56:26.160 --> 00:56:28.110
So folks, we are coming to a close.
1317
00:56:28.110 --> 00:56:30.390
We haven't been able to hit all of the questions yet.
1318
00:56:30.390 --> 00:56:32.610
I'm gonna do one more question with you, Steve,
1319
00:56:32.610 --> 00:56:35.260
and then we're gonna have to wrap up for the evening.
1320
00:56:36.106 --> 00:56:38.160
We'll continue looking through the list of questions
1321
00:56:38.160 --> 00:56:39.750
and see if there are things that we can answer
1322
00:56:39.750 --> 00:56:41.730
and maybe we'll pick Steve's brain
1323
00:56:41.730 --> 00:56:42.840
for a couple of the other ones.
1324
00:56:42.840 --> 00:56:45.870
I see some that are a little more personal in nature.
1325
00:56:45.870 --> 00:56:47.940
We'll pass those along to Steve.
1326
00:56:47.940 --> 00:56:51.573
Last question, why is it so expensive to maintain buoys?
1327
00:56:55.830 --> 00:56:58.620
I'll say relatively speaking, at the time,
1328
00:56:58.620 --> 00:57:02.640
I think the contract I put out was maybe $20,000.
1329
00:57:02.640 --> 00:57:06.450
That's 20,000 out of $29,000 budget that I had.
1330
00:57:06.450 --> 00:57:08.973
So it's not a horrible number to maintain buoys.
1331
00:57:11.130 --> 00:57:12.570
Maybe I misled you on that.
1332
00:57:12.570 --> 00:57:14.250
It's not all that expensive,
1333
00:57:14.250 --> 00:57:16.590
but it must be done for public safety
1334
00:57:16.590 --> 00:57:19.590
and for ecosystem safety.
1335
00:57:19.590 --> 00:57:22.860
It's a critical element of sanctuary management
1336
00:57:22.860 --> 00:57:25.170
in places like the Flower Gardens, the Florida Keys,
1337
00:57:25.170 --> 00:57:27.390
and other reef-based environments
1338
00:57:27.390 --> 00:57:29.250
where you really don't want anchoring.
1339
00:57:29.250 --> 00:57:31.983
So it's not horrible price to be honest with you.
1340
00:57:34.140 --> 00:57:35.640
Well, thank you, Steve.
1341
00:57:35.640 --> 00:57:38.070
That's gonna wrap up our question and answer session now.
1342
00:57:38.070 --> 00:57:39.540
Like I said, if we have a chance,
1343
00:57:39.540 --> 00:57:42.240
we will continue to answer questions after the fact
1344
00:57:42.240 --> 00:57:44.820
and if that happens, we will email those out to everyone
1345
00:57:44.820 --> 00:57:47.310
who has been online this evening.
1346
00:57:47.310 --> 00:57:52.310
So let me just switch back over to my screen here
1347
00:57:52.350 --> 00:57:55.233
so we can wrap up with a few slides.
1348
00:57:57.900 --> 00:57:59.010
Steve, if you'll hang out with us
1349
00:57:59.010 --> 00:58:00.839
for just a few more minutes.
1350
00:58:00.839 --> 00:58:01.943
Yeah.
1351
00:58:01.943 --> 00:58:04.320
All right, are you all seeing my screen now?
1352
00:58:04.320 --> 00:58:06.450
Looks like you are, okay,
1353
00:58:06.450 --> 00:58:08.100
So everyone, this year Seaside Chats
1354
00:58:08.100 --> 00:58:09.720
focused mostly on our past.
1355
00:58:09.720 --> 00:58:10.650
As you heard from Steve,
1356
00:58:10.650 --> 00:58:11.940
he was part of that building up
1357
00:58:11.940 --> 00:58:13.770
into it becoming a sanctuary.
1358
00:58:13.770 --> 00:58:15.450
So from the early days of exploration
1359
00:58:15.450 --> 00:58:17.160
in the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico
1360
00:58:17.160 --> 00:58:18.930
to the beginnings of the sanctuary
1361
00:58:18.930 --> 00:58:21.990
to fossil reefs found hidden under our modern reefs,
1362
00:58:21.990 --> 00:58:23.640
that's the history part of what you're gonna see
1363
00:58:23.640 --> 00:58:25.080
in Seaside Chats this year.
1364
00:58:25.080 --> 00:58:27.030
But we'll also be looking at current research
1365
00:58:27.030 --> 00:58:28.920
and what it can tell us about organisms
1366
00:58:28.920 --> 00:58:31.560
in the deeper, less explored part of our sanctuary
1367
00:58:31.560 --> 00:58:33.540
we call the Mesophotic Zone.
1368
00:58:33.540 --> 00:58:35.820
So please plan to come back and visit with us
1369
00:58:35.820 --> 00:58:39.090
for our three more Seaside Chats we have coming up
1370
00:58:39.090 --> 00:58:41.130
on February 1st, 8th...
1371
00:58:41.130 --> 00:58:42.780
Tonight was February 1st, excuse me.
1372
00:58:42.780 --> 00:58:45.330
February 8th, 15th and the 22nd
1373
00:58:45.330 --> 00:58:47.820
and you can find all the information you need to register
1374
00:58:47.820 --> 00:58:50.100
for each one of those webinars separately
1375
00:58:50.100 --> 00:58:53.133
on our Seaside Chats page on our website.
1376
00:58:56.100 --> 00:58:58.080
And depending on the number of questions remaining,
1377
00:58:58.080 --> 00:58:59.940
as I said, we will attempt to get them
1378
00:58:59.940 --> 00:59:01.050
answered after the webinar
1379
00:59:01.050 --> 00:59:03.210
and then email them out to everyone.
1380
00:59:03.210 --> 00:59:04.830
Please also remember to check out
1381
00:59:04.830 --> 00:59:05.820
the links we've shared with you
1382
00:59:05.820 --> 00:59:08.550
throughout the presentation and in the handout.
1383
00:59:08.550 --> 00:59:10.530
Now would be a great time to stop down
1384
00:59:10.530 --> 00:59:11.940
in that handout panel,
1385
00:59:11.940 --> 00:59:15.330
the pane of a control panel and download that handout.
1386
00:59:15.330 --> 00:59:18.213
You'll find some more helpful links there.
1387
00:59:19.890 --> 00:59:22.350
Thank you for attending this Seaside Chats presentation
1388
00:59:22.350 --> 00:59:23.910
on The Best Job Ever.
1389
00:59:23.910 --> 00:59:25.730
This is the first in the series of four,
1390
00:59:25.730 --> 00:59:28.110
as I said, so please join us for the rest.
1391
00:59:28.110 --> 00:59:30.930
And as always, we welcome your feedback and questions.
1392
00:59:30.930 --> 00:59:33.090
You can submit input by replying
1393
00:59:33.090 --> 00:59:35.850
to the follow-up email you'll receive after the webinar
1394
00:59:35.850 --> 00:59:39.573
or by emailing us at flowergarden@noaa.gov.
1395
00:59:41.250 --> 00:59:43.050
Today's presentation has also been part
1396
00:59:43.050 --> 00:59:46.200
of the National Marine Sanctuaries Webinar Series
1397
00:59:46.200 --> 00:59:48.780
and while Seaside Chats last just one month,
1398
00:59:48.780 --> 00:59:51.540
our National Webinar Series continues throughout the year
1399
00:59:51.540 --> 00:59:53.400
to provide educators with educational
1400
00:59:53.400 --> 00:59:54.930
and scientific expertise
1401
00:59:54.930 --> 00:59:57.180
and everyone with resources and information
1402
00:59:57.180 --> 00:59:59.700
to support ocean and climate literacy.
1403
00:59:59.700 --> 01:00:01.800
Be sure to check the website for recordings
1404
01:00:01.800 --> 01:00:02.940
of our past webinars
1405
01:00:02.940 --> 01:00:04.800
and the schedule of what's to come.
1406
01:00:04.800 --> 01:00:07.500
And as a reminder, we will share recordings of this
1407
01:00:07.500 --> 01:00:09.000
and our other webinars
1408
01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:11.310
probably about a month after the fact up there
1409
01:00:11.310 --> 01:00:14.220
on that National Main Sanctuaries Webinar Series page
1410
01:00:14.220 --> 01:00:16.470
and we also have links to them from our website,
1411
01:00:16.470 --> 01:00:18.753
our Seaside Chat page as well.
1412
01:00:20.310 --> 01:00:21.240
Following this webinar,
1413
01:00:21.240 --> 01:00:23.400
attendees will receive a PDF copy
1414
01:00:23.400 --> 01:00:24.780
of a certificate of attendance
1415
01:00:24.780 --> 01:00:26.490
that provides documentation
1416
01:00:26.490 --> 01:00:28.290
for one hour of professional development
1417
01:00:28.290 --> 01:00:30.000
for today's presentation.
1418
01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:32.910
This includes our Texas CPE provider number
1419
01:00:32.910 --> 01:00:35.190
for those of you who are Texas educators.
1420
01:00:35.190 --> 01:00:37.320
And if you're an educator outside of Texas,
1421
01:00:37.320 --> 01:00:38.460
please use this certificate
1422
01:00:38.460 --> 01:00:41.130
to help get your hours approved in your district.
1423
01:00:41.130 --> 01:00:43.170
If you require additional information,
1424
01:00:43.170 --> 01:00:44.640
I'm happy to help with that.
1425
01:00:44.640 --> 01:00:47.523
Please contact me at flowergarden@noaa.gov.
1426
01:00:48.480 --> 01:00:49.818
There will also be a short evaluation
1427
01:00:49.818 --> 01:00:52.320
following today's presentation.
1428
01:00:52.320 --> 01:00:53.580
Please complete this survey
1429
01:00:53.580 --> 01:00:55.550
immediately after signing off the webinar.
1430
01:00:55.550 --> 01:00:57.930
It should only take about three minutes to complete
1431
01:00:57.930 --> 01:01:00.330
and we greatly appreciate any feedback
1432
01:01:00.330 --> 01:01:01.580
you are willing to share.
1433
01:01:04.020 --> 01:01:05.520
Thanks again to Steve Gittings
1434
01:01:05.520 --> 01:01:08.610
for a great presentation about The Best Job EVer
1435
01:01:08.610 --> 01:01:11.250
and thanks to all of you for taking the time to join us.
1436
01:01:11.250 --> 01:01:13.023
This concludes today's webinar.
1437
01:01:16.620 --> 01:01:17.820
Thanks, Kelly.