Sharks and moneychangers
On Ninety Mile Beach I found a satellite tag and emailed the US company on the tiny label. Tags like this are attached to pelagic fishes to record dive locations and depths, and long distance movements. When the wire attaching the tag to a fin rusts through, the tag goes to the surface and transmits the archived data to a satellite.
The company sent a reply to say they would forward my email to the researchers who had purchased it. Then I had another email, asking was I the same person as the scientist they'd worked with years ago when they'd been at Sirtrack? Yes. Small world.
A day or two later I heard from NIWA. The tag came from a mako shark that was caught on a tuna longline at New Caledonia. The shark carried the tag to NZ during the following two months, so it survived being hooked. Here is Clare's mako, being tagged from a vessel.
What I didn't expect was, a reward. Today, being only my second zero day, I took the tag to NIWAs Viaduct Basin office in Auckland, and received $200 for my trouble from the receptionist, Juliet.
Better still, I laid down the reward money for a superlite air pad, leaving my beloved but oh so bulky foam mat back at Charlie's house. He wasn't keen on rain either.
