Two tiny specks of land off Brazil's coast are the scene for our shark-wrangling adventures. The Research Vessel SEWARD JOHNSON soon will set sail from Atol das Rocas to Fernando de Noronha. Unlike Atol das Rocas, FN boasts some degree of human settlement. Once there, the science crew plans to enlist the help of local fishermen in the quest for adult lemon sharks.

After two years of planning, preparation, and negotiations -- after battling my way through grant proposals, research permits, purchases, strategy sessions, and meetings -- after hundreds of e-mails, faxes, and phone calls, I finally found myself standing in a tiny tidal creek they call Lama Lagoon. What a lot of work to get to such an unassuming place! My plan was simple: let 60 or so sharks come in on the rising tide then close the mouth of the creek with a long seine net trapping the sharks inside. Next, sweep them with another net back towards the entrance, herding them into an ever-decreasing area. Then, one by one, dip net them out, work them up, and release them back into the main lagoon. It looked great on paper. I've tagged a couple of thousand lemon sharks over 25 years, so I was pretty sure we could pull this off. But there was a lot that I hadn't reckoned on!

For five days, small landing parties watched the behavior patterns of the sharks as they entered the creek. My Brazilian colleague "Caju" Barbosa had studied relationships between the tides and the movements of the sharks. His calculations indicated that high tide on March 22nd would be lemon shark "prime time." Several days before that, young lemon sharks began arriving in ever increasing numbers, exactly as predicted. So with high expectations, we scheduled our first shark "roundup" in Lama Lagoon at high tide on the 17th of March.

In order to handle all of the nets, gear, and sharks, we determined that we'd need 12 people on our team. But then we met the Park Warden of Atol das Rocas, Zelia Brito. Zelia's pronouncement was that only 10 people were allowed on the island at any one time. And there was a Brazilian television crew already filling the quota. We couldn't understand how a TV crew could take precedence over the very SCIENTISTS they were supposed to film! But Zelia is the reigning Queen of Rocas and holds sway over all who would enter her realm. We clenched our teeth, swallowed our pride, and waited another day.

March 18th dawned cloudy and gray with a brisk 18 knot breeze and dark, threatening squalls visible from the deck of the Research Vessel SEWARD JOHNSON. A long-lining team returned to the Seward Johnson at 0700 after an all-night vigil on the shark lines. The team reported the capture, tag, and release of two adult lemon sharks. They had also hooked a large unidentifiable shark. Incredibly, as our permit specified lemon sharks only, we were not able to study or even measure the mystery shark. Our team released the big stranger, possibly a new species, back into the nighttime seas.

After lunch, our roundup team finally departed for Lama Lagoon amid rising seas and rain. The reefs and ocean swells were so treacherous that we knew a return at night would be impossibly dangerous. We all agreed it would be safer to sleep on the beach with the scorpions, rats, and birds after finishing our shark work. It would be a difficult night, especially considering that the beautiful, comfortable R/V SEWARD JOHNSON would be anchored just on the other side of the hazardous breakers. Hot showers...cozy bunks...a great chef. But safety first! We would make due with our makeshift assortment of provisions.

Packed into three small skiffs, we ran the breakers into the lagoon in a driving rain and 20 knot winds. Our band of intrepid shark netters had white knuckles until we had passed the threatening rocks and reef and entered the calm waters of the lagoon. Ten minutes later, we made landfall on the tiny lighthouse island (Ilha do Farol) and began to carting our gear over the dunes to Lama Lagoon, where the little lemon sharks take refuge at high tide.

Shark observation became very difficult, very quickly as the wind and weather got worse. Darkness fell, then rain followed. In the downpour, we set our 75-meter seine net at the mouth of the creek to trap the little sharks. The plan called for us to set another seine across the creek behind the shark school and then slowly bring the nets together. By the time we were underway with this choreographed disaster, it was pitch black and the rain was coming down in sheets. I had failed to account for the massive tidal surge and current. All of our attempts to anchor the big seine net across the creek were going haywire. We resorted to using dive weights, anchor chains, and most of our tagging crew just to hang on to the net against the forces of wind and water. Had I labored 30 years, gotten a PhD and come 5,000 miles just to be a freezing human net pole? In almost total darkness, after more than two hours fighting the cold and current in water up to our necks, a hard-fought victory seemd close at hand. We had at least 25 sharks trapped between nets which we had somehow managed to wrestle to within a few meters of each other.

It was the moment of truth. We brought in a third net and drove the sharks towards the east shore of the creek for final capture. A waterlogged crew of shivering students and biologists stood above the small, netted enclosure, shone our lights into the water, and could not believe our eyes. There were but two sharks left in the net! All the others had managed to escape in the chaos.

We had no time to be discouraged. We quickly worked up the two sharks, placing tiny electronic transponder identity tags under their skin, taking genetic samples and marking them by punching small holes in their fins. We weighed them, measured them, and released them. No time to waste, we put our heads together and formulated a workable "Plan B" -- we would keep the mouth of the creek closed with the seine net so that none of our escapee sharks could leave the lagoon, then we would quickly deploy a gill net across the creek to trap the sharks as the falling tide drove them out into the larger lagoon.

It worked! Immediately, sharks started entangling themselves in the gill net. Expert shark handler Dan Cartamil ran to the net and began to disengage one of the sharks from its snares as he had done hundreds of times before. But standing in the cold, rushing water for two hours had taken its toll -- Dan was tired and shivering. As the shark struggled to get free, it's open jaws slashed from side to side, and its razor sharp teeth lacerated Dan's numb hand.

In the end, under horrendous conditions and using an untried plan in a habitat unlike any we had worked in before, screaming in Portuguese and English over the howling wind and rain, we managed to tag over a dozen sharks while only one shark tagged us. Score: humans 14, sharks 1!

After the adrenaline rush of the tagging, the reality of having to stay overnight on the island quickly hit us. As we huddled together on our little spit of sand a nest of green sea turtles began to hatch and the hatchlings scurried towards us, attracted by our lights. Hundreds of nocturnal seabirds flew overhead filling the night with their cries. It was 2230 (10:30 pm)...dinner time!

The rain let up a little. We sang Brazilian and American songs and told stories, and we all felt a comraderie beginning to grow. By midnight, finding whatever comfort we could, we dozed off amid the raucous bird calls and a steady wind. At about 0200 it began to rain again. I donned my foul weather gear, wrapped my shoulders and head in a beach towel and slipped back into a surprisingly warm sleep.

At first light, we rose, stretched our stiff limbs, and slowly, like the living dead, began to repack and reload the gear into our skiffs. By 0730 we were back on the SEWARD JOHNSON, our Heavenly Ark, eating a hot breakfast and taking even hotter showers. We all collapsed in our bunks knowing that a small school of sharks with 15 gram brains, aided by the weather, had outsmarted 14 huge brained primates...at least for a while. We were on a very steep learning curve and we would not make the same mistakes twice...

CLICK HERE to read Part 2 of this dispatch.