30-09-2005 First lakes in Rio Grande do Norte
The first set of lakes we are sampling are very oligotrofic. They are situated just south of Natal around Nisia Floresta. We measured a record Secchi depth of 4.5 m; the water is super transparent. Again we caught few fish and that's a pity because Michelle and Rosemberg are especially interested in the fish population of these lakes. They will look into the impact of the introduction the Tucunare (for those of you who have never hear of Tucunare 8-), this is also a fish).
We got a great start: in the first lagoon we lost Nestors pride 'THE GRAPNEL' I am very sorry Nestor. It was such a beautiful piece of equipment, with love designed. We have been so often on the verve of loosing it. First Tiago jumped over board to rescue it. Later Felipe lost his glasses while diving for the grapnel and now it simply disappeared into the lake at its deepest point (6 m). Bye bye.
In the second lake the engine broke down
The primary production bottles, just 300 m away
In the second lake the engine broke down. We were just making the macrophyte- transects when Coca tore the start rope off. We were just about 300m away from the primary production bottles and of course it would be a pity to leave them behind. Coca came with the bright idea to pick them up swimming… so off I went. 300m one way and xx m back with the floater and 12 bottles tied to my leg :- ). The wind was strong and even with our incredibly heavy anchor (you will not believe it but we arrived at the first lake and we found out we did not have an anchor, so we are using a metal wheel with a weight of 12 kilos with a sentimental weight of about 25 kilo's (especially when it is stuck in the mud) but I am getting on a side track now…) the boat did not stay in place. Coca and Rosemberg were rowing full speed just trying to keep on the same spot.
We drove back to Natal and happily the engine was quickly fixed.
The anchor
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