Monthly Archives: June 2022
Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, June 26, 2022
Temperature: 88
Humidity: 68%
Precipitation: Not happening
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Blacktip Island Scientists Plan Cowboy-Style Grouper Roundup
Blacktip Island ichthyologists this week are building a giant corral out of fish nets to hold all the small Caribbean island’s Nassau grouper, which they plan to round up next week for tracking and study. (photo courtesy of W. Carter)
A group of Blacktip Island marine scientists Thursday announced they will stage a Wild West-themed Nassau grouper roundup next week so they can implant location transponders in as many of the fish as possible to track their movements and behaviors.
“We’ve been randomly tagging Nassaus for years, but it doesn’t give us an accurate picture of their habits,” Tiperon University-Blacktip marine science professor Goby Graysby said. “Rather than continuing all higgledy-piggledy, our plan is to round up every grouper on the island in one big pen so we can stick ‘em all.
“It’s a big project, and we’ll need every volunteer diver we can get,” Graysby said. “To encourage participation, we decided to model it after an Old West cattle drive. Without the horses and lassos, of course. But we will have divers, some on underwater scooters, herding the groupers into a big net enclosure just out from the public pier. Then we can tag them all at one time.”
Organizers expect the roundup to be a multi-day affair.
“Blacktip’s a small enough island, it’s likely we can get almost all the Nassaus,” Ginger Bass said. “Thing is, it’s also big enough it’ll likely take us several days to get all the fish corraled and tagged. Weeks, even, depending on the number of herders we get.
“We’ll have our aqua-buckaroos working ‘round the clock, and sleeping on boats,” Bass said. “There’ll be a chuckwagon-style pontoon boat bringing meals to herders so they don’t waste time going home and cooking dinner. If this works out like we think it will, this could be the new standard for fish tagging worldwide.”
Island environmentalists, however, opposed the plan.
“Why do they need every Nassau to have a transponder?” ecologist Harry Pickett said. “They can’t study the grouper without terrorizing them? In a marine park. And what about the other reef creatures they’ll traumatize? And the coral they’ll damage?
“This central net-corral they’ve installed is anchored in living reef and will cause irreparable damage,” Pickett said. “And once they release the grouper, what guarantee is there the fish will go back to the section of reef they came from? They might just stay there, and there’d be no groupers anywhere else on the island.”
Organizers remained optimistic.
“We’ll have contests as we go along, to keep volunteer fis-pokes engaged,” Graysby said. “We’ll have time trials, where individual divers compete to see who can round up and tag a grouper the fastest. Like an underwater rodeo. This could become the Tiperons’ national sport. Maybe even get in the Olympics when we host them.
“We also encourage all participants to dress in Western-themed scuba gear,” Graysby said. “We’ve seen some nice neoprene cowboy hats and vests already. And rumor has it several folks’ll be turning up in leather chaps.”
Participants will receive free meals during the roundup, and ‘Grouper Wrangler’ t-shirts afterwards.
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Happy Dolphin Day from an undisclosed position somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere!
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, June 19, 2022
Temperature: 85
Humidity: 61%
Precipitation: On the way
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Sargassum Festival Kicks Off Blacktip Island’s Summer Season
The continued influx of sargassum choking Blacktip Island’s beaches will be the focus of Sunday’s inaugural Stink Off festival at Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort, celebrating the rotting seaweed. (photo by Wendy Beaufort/BTT staff)
Blacktip Island will mark the beginning of summer this Sunday with its first-ever Stink Off Sargassum Festival, a lemons-to-lemonade approach to the waves of decomposing sea algae flooding the small Caribbean island’s beaches and coastal waters, organizers said Thursday.
“Sargassum’s here to stay, so we’re making the best of it,” Stink Off committee chair Jay Valve said. “Sure, all the rotting seaweed piled on the beaches make it tough to get to the water, and the smell’ll about knock you out if you’re downwind, but rather than cut and run, we’re gonna celebrate it.
“We’ll have a sargassum sculpture contest, a sargassum cook-off, and sargassum fights for the kids,” Valve said. “There’ll also be a swim-in-sargassum race, a name-that-biting-fly contest and a sargassum-themed parade on the beach, where participants will dress as sargassum, or any creature that lives in or around it. It’ll truly be fun for the entire family.”
Many on the island welcomed the event’s positivity.
“It’s great folks are focusing on how to move forward despite this stinky nuisance,” Angela Fisher said. “I’m looking forward to the Most Unusual Use contest—with ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ divisions—the sargassum-based skin care products and the Stank Neutralizer event. It’s also great they’re providing complimentary cortisone showers and oxygen treatment for all participants.”
Others questioned the wisdom of celebrating the decomposing algae.
“Big picture, embracing a nuisance is a great way to raise peoples’ spirits, but there is a downside, health wise, in this case” public health director Dr. Azul Tang said. “Rotting sargassum releases hydrogen sulfide. That’s what gives it that rotten egg smell. But hydrogen sulfide is also highly toxic and can cause severe respiratory distress, or even death.
“The idea of frolicking in miles of this stuff, of physical exertion while breathing large concentrations of toxic gas, is medically irresponsible,” Tang said. “We can’t stop it, though, so we’ll have both our medical staff nearby, with lassoes, to rescue any participants who pass out.”
Community leaders, meanwhile, are poised to make the most of the event.
“You’ve got to seize opportunities like this,” de facto island mayor Jack Cobia said. “We’re losing tourism dollars now because of the sargassum. This idea of Jay’s’ll turn that around. We’re gonna market Blacktip as the sargassum capitol of the Caribbean.
“We aim to get folks coming to Blacktip because of the sargassum,” Cobia said. “We’ll have a sargassum museum, interactive sargassum tours and an underwater viewing chamber. We’re also doing t-shirts, caps and hoodies made from 100 percent repurposed Blacktip Island sargassum. And they won’t be exported, so folks’ll have to come here to get them. Couple of us are also working on ways to bottle the gas to export for riot control.”
Stink Off activities are scheduled to start at noon Sunday at Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort. The parade will start at 4 p.m. Respirators are recommended for all events.
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, June 12, 2022
Temperature: 89
Humidity: 63%
Precipitation: Tomorrow, maybe
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Blacktip Artist Translates ‘The Odyssey’ Into Emoji
The opening lines of Blacktip Island artist and writer Rosie Blenny’s emoji translation of Homer’s Ancient Greek epic ‘The Odyssey.’ (image courtesy of Rosie Blenny)
In an effort to revive interest in Classical literature, a Blacktip Island artist and writer is translating Homer’s Ancient Greek epic poem ‘The Odyssey’ into an all-emoji format, she announced Thursday.
“I wanted to update an old chestnut, make it culturally relevant again,” Rosie Blenny said. “The goal’s to get younger generations interested in literature. Sure, using only emojis limits the number of characters I can use, but a picture’s worth a thousand words, so I reckon I’m in good shape.
“I was going to do the obvious and start with ‘The Iliad,’ but it’s pretty dry, and bogged down with all the names and speeches,” Blenny said. “The Odyssey’s got lots of whizz-bang action and is way more of a page turner. Or screen scroller. I’m releasing it in short, daily installments to keep up folks’ interest.”
Local artists praised the idea.
“It’s a brilliant cross-textual take that truly speaks to what it’s like to be alive in this time and place. And that one,” local artist Jerrod Ephesians said. “The Odyssey’s about a sea voyage, after all, and Blacktip’s surrounded by the sea. That naturally lends itself to speak to the in-common experiences of Blacktippers and the Ancient Greeks. I think people underestimate how expressive you can be in emoji.”
Others in the island’s literary community weren’t so sure.
“It’s an interesting concept, certainly, but I’m not sure emojis will deliver the desired level of nuance to the story,” Tome Time book club president Helen Maples said. “There are aspects of Ancient Greek society emojis simply can’t convey. The worry is that could easily lead to misinterpretation.
“What Rosie is doing is essentially creating a new text that’s a hollow echo of the original,” Maples said. “Any meaning or has import it has will spring from the call-and-response between the old and the new. If there is any. Personally, I don’t see the point, but if it gets kids reading, I suppose I’m all for it.”
Others on the small Caribbean island were looking forward to the work.
“It’s literature, so it’ll be better for the kids than Aquaman or manga or whatever comic books they’re reading now,” George Graysby said. “Hell, I loved the Classic Comix version of Moby Dick when I was in high school. That puppy got me a ‘C’ in 10th-grade English without having to slog through that boring great brick of a book.”
Blenny said she has other translations planned.
“If this proves popular, I’ll do Shakespeare’s sonnets next,” she said. “I can publish one a day, and emojis naturally lend themselves to iambic pentameter.”
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The Blacktip Times 