Kure Atoll- Day 1

We are currently off the northwestern most island in the chain- Kure. What started out as a potentially rough day, turned into a sunny (and shorter) day! Again, conditions were better once in the water, but the visibility was good and there was good coral cover!

We are in the middle of an algal bloom- we saw Boodlea everywhere at site KUR-18. It looks and feels like a big loofah!

This is one of the first documentations of a bloom like this at Kure, so our phycologists were excited to get some samples!

This octopus thought he was hiding from me, but I found it!

Jason rocks out underwater......

Midway- Day 4

Well, the weather outside is.........

Yucky!

We had pretty rough seas, lots of rain and quite a bit of wind and I was happy to get into the water where the conditions were much more favorable! Here are Yumi and Amanda braving the elements!

We got to enjoy the company of dolphins at our second site- they like to hang out on the surface and play with the boat while we work underwater!





I saw quite a few of these cute little damselfish (Dascyllus albisella)......

who grow up to look like this- I call them the velociraptor fish because when they are disturbed, they make a purring noise much like the sound of the dinosaur in the movie!

We wrapped up our surveys a little early today so that we could make our way to Kure atoll......hopefully, the weather will improve (people tell me these conditions are more typical for the NWHI- I know I've been lucky!!)

Day Off!

The extremely slow and frustrating internet connection is making it really hard for me to post photos and I have so many from today! I'll try to get them in as soon as possible!

We had our "day of rest" today and I think I am more tired from all of the exploring than I have been from diving! I started the day with waffles and then Kerry and I borrowed some bikes to tour the island.

There are some bike and walking trails that take you along the beach (which most are closed as monk seal and turtle habitat) and through the forests along the airport runway. At the airport, there is a small museum explaining the history of Midway Island.

Next, we started the walking trail along the beach

We had the constant companionship of little fairy terns who will hover directly over your head making you extremely nervous that they might take aim (and you all know my tendency to be hit!).

I have to admit that the babies are so cute and fuzzy!

We also saw a pair of the endangered Laysan ducks which were reintroduced to the island a couple of years ago (for more photos- check out the HI blog!).

There are constant reminders that this island was once used for military purposes, but I think that it adds to the charisma of the island- like this pill box on the beach,

and this bunker.

After lunch, we did a little shopping at the Midway Mall (they opened the gift shop for an hour today for us to buy Midway T-shirts!)

We hung out at the All Hands Club where we had a little arts and craft time- people that visit the island will take down a ceiling tile to decorate and then there is a semi-permanent record of your visit!

There are also some unique photo opportunities here!

We went to North Beach, which is so serene and beautiful! Again I am reminded how awesome my life is and how many fantastic opportunities I have had (and am having!). I would have never believed that I would be sitting on a beach in the middle of the Pacific and working on some of the most pristine reefs in the world!

For the first time in about 4 years, we were invited for a little party at the All Hands Club after dinner!

Usually, we are required to be back on the dock by sunset so that we do not disturb or injure any of the sea birds that call the island home (they will just sit in the middle of the road since they build their nests inside burrows). The island staff invited us for a little shin-dig where the Hi'ialakai band joined forces with the Midway Island Band for our musical entertainment! There is also a game room connected to play pool, foosball, shuffleboard, and ping pong! It was nice to get to know some of the people that call this isolated island home and they were very courteous and friendly!

Midway- Day 2

Our second day at Midway Island started off dull, gray and drizzly, but after the benthic team performed the "moose dance", the skies cleared and we had a sunny, but slightly breezy day. We explored the reefs inside the lagoon and we got to see fields of the blue coral, Montipora flabellata. It was amazing to see periwinkle blue everywhere!


The last site of the day, H-11, had some pretty cool algae, lots of slate pencil urchins (look at the size of those things!), and schools of goat fish!



After a long day of work (and a warm shower), we set off to explore the island and walk on land for the first time in 13 days (but quickly since we have to be back on the dock by sunset)! It's a pretty small place, but we are having a good time!

Midway- Day 1

We had our first day of diving at Midway and it was NOT disappointing! I woke up to see land-and it's really pretty here! WARNING- historical information follows:

Mostly known for the site of the Battle of Midway in June 1942 where the US defeated the Japanese navy which began the end of the Japanese rule over the Pacific ocean, Midway atoll lies in the middle of the Pacific ocean between California and Japan and almost exactly halfway around the earth from Greenwich, England. The Navy facility has been operationally closed since 1993 and the atoll was named a National Wildlife Refuge in 1988. The atoll is 2.4 square miles and is home to hundreds of thousands of seabirds. During the winter, over a million albatross nest here. It is also habitat to endangered monk seals and green sea turtles. There is about 60 people living here right now and there is an emergency airstrip for commercial flights that fly over the Pacific. We are docked on the northeast side of the island and I have to admit that I feel more seasick now that we have stopped rocking that I did the entire time we were underway!

As we started our first dive, I kept hearing clicks and squeaks, but I didn't get to see what was making the sounds until they had already passed me- it was a pod of about 15 spinner dolphins! They swam right over our transect and then played in our wake while we transited to the next site- there was even a baby! They were leaping and spinning and darting across our wake- so beautiful!

The excitement came on our third dive- we entered the water with a few Galapagos sharks swimming near our transects. By the end of the dive, we had at least 30 small sharks circling us! They are attracted to the noise our team makes when deploying various instruments and they definitely came to check us out! It was a very surreal feeling to be able to turn around 360 degrees and always have multiple sharks in view! I'm glad they were small though and would have been a little nervous had they been bigger than me!

Unfortunately, there was not much coral cover here, but the other wildlife definitely made up for it! We have another day of diving (much to my disappointment- I thought we had tomorrow off) and then we have Saturday to explore the atoll! The Fish and Wildlife Service is letting us borrow some bikes and there are quite a few trails to explore! We are all in need of some rest!

She's Adorable!

I had to share this photo of my beautiful niece, Jessica Marie Stephanie Clark- Chris and Rich tell me that she already has such personality!

Pearl and Hermes- Day 3

The weather has been phenomenal- the water was like glass today and it is so clear! Pictures don't do it justice and there are so many colors of blue!

We worked on the south east corner of the atoll today in the more protected lagoonal areas.

We passed this guy sunning on the beach...........


Our second site was a huge wall of nothing but Porites compressa (finger coral) for as far as the eye could see...


Found some new friends at our third site........

This little eel was not too happy that I was counting around his home!

Cute little damsel fish!

Jason found this guy buried in the sand.

We are off to Midway..........one more day of diving before one day off!

Pearl and Hermes- Day 2

We worked on the northwestern side of Pearl and Hermes atoll today- had some good dives with low coral cover, but lots to see otherwise!
When we arrived at our first site, R-44, the infamous tiger shark siting spot from two years ago, we had a big school of ulua swarming the boat.



We saw quite a few whitetip reef sharks (much safer than a tiger),



And even a turtle (I'm a sucker for a cute sea turtle!)

Pearl and Hermes- Day 1

Pearl and Hermes is an atoll with very little emergent land- you can see a few little sand spits with low lying vegetation. I enjoyed diving today- the weather conditions have been beautiful, but I can tell that the water is getting a little cooler the more north we travel. I broke out the 5mm wetsuit today and stayed pretty toasty!

Two of our three sites were dominated by macroalgae while one site had numerous Porites ligulata colonies. I did see a small moray eel, an eagle ray and quite a few colonies of a really pretty blue coral called Monitpora flabellata.

Our boat, HI 2, received a new mascot today (because that's what keeps moral high!):

Laysan Island

Although there can't be anything more exciting than the arrival of my niece, Jessica Marie Stephanie Clark, yesterday, I thought I could post a few photos from Laysan Island.

Laysan is actually an island- some of the places we are studying may not have emergent land, but it was nice to see some sand and buildings. The island is usually inhabited by a field camp maintained by the Fish and Wildlife Service. You could see monk seals laying on the beach and our oceanography team actually had a juvenile come and pass them in there boat!

Photo courtesy of Ellen Smith

Our three sites were vastly different from the other places we have already visited on this cruise. There were huge boulders, crevices, and caves covered mostly with algae. There was significantly less coral cover (which made my work a lot easier), but there was still a lot to see! There were lots of boring urchins and other cool invertebrates:

A Sea Hare

And large schools of convict tangs and surgeon fish-

It's a girl!

She's Here!

I just got the call on the iridium phone that Jessica Marie Stephanie Clark made her long awaited debut at 5:39 am on Sept. 21st to her proud parents, Richard and Christine! She weighed 7 lbs 14 oz, was 20.5 inches long, has beautiful blue eyes and a head full of black hair! Mom and baby are doing great!!!!!

Congratulations Richard and Christine!

Maro Reef- Day 2

Capt. Brown Pants- my dive buddy and fearless benthic team leader!

After another long, but beautiful day of diving- I'm tired! But at the end of our third dive, we saw a huge manta ray! The water was pretty murky, so it was hard to tell what it was until is was right on us, but it was so big and graceful! I also saw a pair of the largest lobster I have ever seen in my life!

The weather has been making our lives so much easier! I will have to graduate to a thicker wetsuit tomorrow though- got a little chilly!

A sea anemone

Maro Reef- Day 1

We had great diving today! We conducted three surveys and only one of the sites had strong current! The visibility was a little low though which is unfortunate since some of the sites were beautiful and it would have been nice to see all of the pinnacles clearly! There was so much coral cover too- the surveys were packed full of counting, measuring, and trying to figure out what everything was! I saw my first Fungia scutaria colonies today- I've always thought these were really cool and was excited to finally see one!

Fungia scutaria

I had low expectations for today- in the past, these sites have been known to have really bad current, low visibility, and are termed "sharky". We did see quite a few sharks today- little reef sharks that were between 4-5 feet. Because I'm conducting coral surveys, my head is always down and I'm concentrating on the bottom. Apparently, on our last dive, we had quite the audience of sharks hanging around our transect. Our fish team told us that there were about 12 sharks keeping an eye on us! I'm a little glad that I found this out after the fact- I had only been seeing them one at a time and couldn't tell if it was the same shark or if there were multiples!! We also had some big ulua (one getting a little too close for comfort) on our second dive! There were reports of a monk seal- again, I was focused on the bottom and missed seeing it!