THE BACK PAGE 



"The Back Page" is an update 

 on Sea Grant activities — on 

 research, marine education and 

 advisory services. It's also a good 

 place to find out about meetings, 

 workshops and new publications. 

 For more information on any of 

 the projects described , contact the 

 Sea Grant office in Raleigh 

 (919/737-2454). 



Rip currents along 

 the Outer Banks killed 

 five people in August. 

 Rescuers battled the 

 heavy surf to save many 

 others. The deadly 

 currents were blamed on 

 a combination of things: several days 

 of northeast winds, which mounded 

 nearshore waters especially high; a full 

 moon, which further raised the tide, 

 and Hurricane Charlie, making waves 

 from off the coast of Virginia. 



The pull was intense, but not un- 

 usual. Rip currents are common in 

 North Carolina. They can form when 

 water, shoved against the shoreline un- 

 der pressure, breaks through a sand bar 

 and rushes to sea at a rate of several 

 feet per second. Rip currents can also 

 form when longshore currents moving 

 in opposite directions meet, often in a 

 bay, or when a longshore current is 

 diverted by a jetty or some other struc- 

 ture. 



How can you avoid them? Watch 

 the signs: especially green or murky 

 water, a gap in advancing breakers 

 where the current pushes seaward, or a 

 floating object that moves steadily 

 seaward. 



If you're caught in a current, don't 

 panic. Don't try to swim against the 

 flow. Instead, swim diagonally toward 

 shore until you break the current. If 

 you can't break it, float calmly out 

 with the current until it dissipates, 

 usually just beyond the breaker zone. 



For more about rip currents, write 

 for Sea Grant's free poster, "Rip 

 Currents." The address is UNC Sea 

 Grant, P.O. Box 5001, Raleigh, N.C. 

 27650. 



When it comes to 

 seafood, North Carolina 

 and Japan have a lot to 

 talk about. That's why 

 Frank Thomas, project 

 director of seafood 

 science and technology 

 for UNC Sea Grant's marine advisory 

 services, is studying Japanese. 



Thomas, along with 18 other North 

 Carolina State University faculty 

 members, have been invited to spend 

 the fall semester of 1981 in Japan. The 

 trip is part of a university program es- 

 tablished to link North Carolina and 

 Japan more closely in a range of fields, 

 from food science to textiles manage- 

 ment. 



Thomas will share with the Japanese 

 the latest in American seafood 

 technology, and will in exchange, bring 

 home Japanese innovations. He will 

 visit fishing vessels, processing plants 

 and laboratories. He will also bring 

 home a deeper understanding of 

 Japanese culture — an understanding 

 that he believes will help professionals 

 develop new markets for North 

 Carolina seafood and keep information 

 flowing between the two peoples. 



For Thomas, the trip will tie in 

 nicely with a liaison he established 

 with Japan in 1968. Through that ef- 

 fort. North Carolina and Japan have 

 already traded ideas and technology 

 related to minced fish, seafood process- 

 ing techniques and market develop- 

 ment for underused species of fish. 



It read like a movie 

 script. Loudspeakers 

 blasted warnings to 

 swimmers to stay out of 

 the surf as schools of 

 sharks roamed the 

 waters close to the North 

 Carolina shoreline. But the situation 

 was real and danger was present. 



The North Carolina Division of 

 Marine Fisheries called the shark alert, 

 the first one ever, August 9, after Dr. 

 Frank Schwartz of the University of 

 North Carolina Institute of Marine 

 Sciences reported finding an unusual 



number of sharks near the shore. 

 Schwartz said the high temperatures in 

 July and August had driven up water 

 temperatures and driven away the 

 shark's normal food supply. The search 

 for food coupled with an onshore 

 current brought the sharks toward 

 shore. 



Carteret County officials banned 

 swimmers from the water August 9 and 

 10 along 26 miles of coastline from 

 Atlantic Beach to Emerald Isle. The 

 county became the center of state and 

 national attention as reporters called 

 county officials and fisheries experts to 

 get the scoop on the patrolling sharks. 



No one was attacked along Carteret 

 beaches, but a 10-year-old Greensboro 

 girl was bitten in the leg while wading 

 in the surf at Ocean Isle Beach in 

 Brunswick County. There have been 

 only two other victims of confirmed 

 shark attacks in North Carolina. Con- 

 nell Purvis, director of the Division of 

 Marine Fisheries, told reporters that 

 the attack was an isolated incident and 

 unrelated to the sharks sighted near 

 Carteret County. 



The alert was lifted August 10 as the 

 sharks moved back out to sea. 



No longer will it be 

 just fishes, sea mammals 

 and trawlers plying the 

 watery depths of the 

 mid-Atlantic continental 

 shelf. Scientists will be 

 too. The National 

 Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra- 

 tion (NOAA) has awarded funds for an 

 underwater research, training and 

 education program, the Southeastern 

 Consortium for Undersea Research Ef- 

 forts (SECURE). It will serve 

 Virginia, North Carolina, South 

 Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The 

 Southeastern Undersea Research 

 Facility (SURF) will be on the campus 

 of UNC-Wilmington. 



According to Harold Dubach, 

 SURF's administrative officer, SURF 

 is gearing up for operations by out- 

 Con tinned on next page 



