CLICK HERE to find out more about the scienctific goals and methods of the research teams in Brazil. In the above photos by Tim Calver, volunteer researcher Marah Hardt (left) places a tagged baby lemon shark into pen during research in Bimini. Dr.Gruber (right) examines a juvenile Lemon shark. This shark is about to be fitted for a speed sensing transmitter and will be tracked by research volunteers.

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DISPATCH 08: Trouble at the Corral
@Sea correspondent/photographer, Mark Carroll

1:15pm, March 18, offshore Atol das Rocas -- A crew of ten researchers left for the atoll this afternoon, rain storms brewing once again (actually, I don't think they've really stopped since yesterday). Gear for a long afternoon and night of juvenile shark wrangling weighted the boats to their limits. Within minutes of parting with the ship, the trouble-plagued skiffs vanished behind high swells on their way to a small inlet within the atoll where the baby sharks school.

Over the next several days, the researchers plan to draw repeatedly from this rich pool of genetic code. However, the plan is flexible. Given our current situation, it has to be ...

The passages into the lagoon have become an issue of increasing concern for the expedition, especially after today's rough seas that rocked the Research Vessel SEWARD JOHNSON (RVSJ) and threw large breakers onto the atoll's shore. Earlier in the day, several crew members tried to chart a course through a second, equally hazardous channel. However, they -- and the entire team, for that matter -- met with resistance that went beyond swells and currents. The island's lone resident and guardian, Azalea, continues to impose strict limits on the expedition's access to the atoll. For more on Azalea, check out our DAY THREE coverage.

8:37pm, 5 miles off Atol das Rocas -- Led by Chief Oceanographer Tarcisio Alves, the remainder of the ship's crew headed for deeper seas to continue the subsidiary studies started on Sunday.

Alves, a researcher from the Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz in Brazil, studies the bottom of the ocean food chain like Gruber studies the top. The countless microscopic creatures of the sea are his subjects -- diatoms and copepods -- the fundamental units of life that provide the living energy for everything else in the ocean. Only by studying the local ocean environment at its most basic level can the researchers hope to understand the lemon shark's role as an apex predator.

The rough night seas sent waves washing over the main deck of the R/V SEWARD JOHNSON as Alves directed the massive CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth) instrument into the ocean (ironic that a device so large is used to capture organisms so small). After the CTD's return from 350 feet below the surface, preliminary analysis and preservation of captured samples began in the ship's wet lab.

9:14pm, returning to Atol das Rocas -- The landing party radioed the RVSJ as it headed back to its anchored position west of the atoll. They had successfully captured and sampled 10 juvenile lemon sharks, but team member Dan Cartamil had been bitten on the hand. Although his injury did not warrant a risky nighttime rescue, the extent of the bite's damage will not be known until tomorrow at first light, when the shore party can safely leave the island.