C Time: Uracus and the Steves

Our dive sites today were at Farallon de Pajaros (Birds Rock) or Uracus; the northern-most island in the Marianas Archipelago that covers less than a square mile and is slightly south of Iwo Jima, Japan. Like the other islands that we've visited since leaving Saipan, Uracus is an active volcano being caused by the Philippine Sea tectonic plate moving onto the Pacific plate. It's most recent eruption was in 1943 but the island is still mostly devoid of plants, so there is nothing to prevent runoff of soil and rocks into the water. We noticed the effects of this immediately upon starting our dives. Visibility was very limited, especially within the top 20' feet of the surface. We would descend through a murky cloud of green that would open up to slightly clearer water at 40-50 feet depth. One of the sites was so murky that a team who was working within feet of a transect line - watching the line - looked up to check on the other divers and were not able to find the line when they looked back down. They finally had to surface, swim back to the float marking the start of the line and try again. The underwater sites left a bit to be desired, probably because of the large amount of sedimentation from the land. All of the dive sites were covered in black sand and large boulders without much coral or algae.

However there were highlights to this island. On our second dive we were visited by a large school of Spade Fish. This is probably the best fish that I've seen so far on this trip. They were between 1 and 1.5 feet in diameter, taller than they were long, and extremely curious. After I returned to the ship, I was informed that they are named Steve - all of them. So the school of Steves checked us out for a little bit while we were working and one stayed with us for the rest of the dive. It was great and more than a bit distracting while trying to work. I kept wanting to watch what Steve was doing instead of collecting data.

Meet Steve...