Heading Home (soon)

Well, this will be my last post for a few days. I am backing up the computer and packing the last of my things before heading out to an umu dinner tonight (see earlier post). Tomorrow morning I'll leave bright and early from the ship via kayak to go find a bus to the airport. I'll be spending the next few days in Western Samoa in the general vicinity of Virgin Cove on the south side of the island of Upolu. It looks like it will be a great place to relax for a few days and sightsee. If you want to check it out, go to: www.virgin-cove.ws/

At the beginning of next week, I'll make my way back to American Samoa and then on to Honolulu.

Have a wonderful weekend and I'll talk with you soon.

Take care,

CR

When the fish leave quickly, pay attention!

On one of our dives at Swains Island, we dropped into a school of a couple of hundred Rainbow Runners, which are about 18" long fish. They were incredibly curious about the boat, the divers and in particular, our bubbles. So as Molly and I dropped in, it took us a good 10 minutes before we drew ourselves away from taking pictures of these guys and tied off our float. The only thing that drew our attention back to work was the other divers coming into the water after us.

So we dutifully laid out the transect tape and started our surveys, however I kept watching the school as they darted in and around our cluster of 6 divers. At one point I looked up to see the entire school suddenly turn away and start swimming determinedly in the opposite direction. At that point I realized that I should be looking for what they were escaping from and sure enough, within a few seconds a dark shape moved overhead and into the school. My first thought was a sailfish and I immediately started into a full-fledged conniption fit, trying to get Molly's attention so that she could see it also. Unfortunately, Molly was completely unaware that I was yelling for her and that one of the coolest sights I've ever seen in the water was zooming overhead.

It only lasted a few seconds but I was able to snap off some pictures before the fish had left the area for deeper waters. We figured out later that it was a Short-Billed Spearfish that was about 5 feet long. Quite amazing. I've only seen this hanging outside of the fishing day-trip boats in Kewahlo Harbor. Swains Island is now secure in my top places to go for a dive.

I hope you're having a wonderful evening. Sleep well.

Love,

CR

Being more sociable now :)

Molly and I after swimming into Swains. We
were greeted with fresh coconuts! What an awesome island!

This is all sand - we had sand EVERYWHERE after this dive!

Fish, fish everywhere!

Sunrise at Ta'u

Silly towboarders - yeah Ben, this is their data collection
when you're gone ;)

Hi Guys,

Well, I'm in a more sociable mood now.  If you read the post earlier, sorry about that.  I've had a good dinner, time to sleep and I'm almost done with work.  So things are much improved.  I hope you are having a good evening and enjoy the picts.

Love,

CR

Swains Atoll

We arrived at Swains Atoll this morning after a 21 hour transit. From the surface Swains looks like many of the other small islands that we visit. It's a beautiful, idyllic South Pacific island that that is only a few feet above sea level and covered with a dense swath of coconut palms. My understanding is that there is a brackish lagoon in the center of the island that I will hopefully get to see tomorrow. So, beautiful - yes - but I must admit that we are getting a bit spoiled and it takes something extra to make an island memorable. By the time I reached 45 feet deep on our first dive of the day, Swains had set itself apart from almost all of the other islands and secured for itself a place on my top ten list.

We descended onto a steep wall covered in what looked like frilly shelves of coral as far as the eye could see. Visibility

was 200+ feet and the areas that weren't covered in coral either had the beautiful pink castles of coralline algae that we saw at Rose or a soft, green macroalgae. Amongst all of this were schools of small, jewel-colored fish darting about. This was one of those dive sites that it is hard to get work done because you are too busy checking out the scenery. I was only with the small boat for one dive today before having to return to the ship (it was my turn to sit out) but I am excited to be returning tomorrow for a full 3 dives. We will only be here for another 2 days and I plan on being on every dive until we leave!

I hope you are doing well and that spring is making its way to the Midwest.

Good night,

Cristi

Veggies!!!

Ofu (left) and Olosega (right) Islands

It may seem strange to get so excited about food but there was a visible change in morale when the Chief Steward pulled up to the dock with a passenger van full of fresh fruit and vegetables. After 3 weeks without fruit and 2 without fresh vegetables, many of us had resorted to powdered 'Miracle Greens' in place of the real thing. So the excitement was palpable as we carried in boxes of broccoli, nectarines, bell peppers and the like. Yesterday we feasted on chef salad and today for breakfast it was cantaloupe and pineapple. Although I know this probably won't last much longer, it will help me make it through the last few weeks of the cruise. I'm already craving what we'll have for dinner on March 29th!

As for other news, we are now at Ofu and Olosega, more islands that are part of American Samoa. We will be working between here and Tau for the next few days, depending on the winds. Yesterday the winds were howling and all the boats sheltered in the lee, including the Hi'ialakai. We are all hoping for calmer seas for the last 12 dive days for this leg of the cruise.

I hope you are doing well. Take care,

Cristi

And the verdict on South Bank is...

Rare blue coral at South Bank

I'm sitting on a small, orange jet boat while writing this. Gentle rolling swells are rocking us as we drift without power. There is no reason to turn the engine on. We are 40 some odd miles from the nearest point of land, the seas are calm and there is nothing remotely close for us to hit. We are waiting out our 3 hour surface interval until we can dive again. We normally don't have to worry about how long we have been on the surface, but our last dive was much deeper than normal and your body takes on extra nitrogen with depth. The excess nitrogen has to have time to leave your body before you begin another dive.

Our first dive was exciting for the novelty of location, but unremarkable for what was there. We dropped into a flat area covered mostly with rubble, a few larger rocks and several species of well-scoured algae. I'm not sure what has drawn fishermen to this area as the largest fish I saw was less than 6". There was moderate surge - surprising for a 90' dive - and thankfully no current.

Looking like a Teletubby at South Bank
(And the diver in the background without the wetsuit
doesn't have to worry about rolling into coral while working,
thus no wetsuit :)  

Now we are passing our time with snacks, lunch, naps, swim time, more naps and trying to teach Erin to dive off the side of the small boat. I am hoping for a little more intriguing bottom on this next dive.

- - After our second dive, we returned to the ship with no real remarkable stories about South Bank. The adventure of the day was seeing a place that no one else has, even if there wasn't much to see! Check out the official blog for another South Bank post that I wrote.

Take care and I'm looking forward to talking with you in 3 weeks!

Cristi

Unexplored South Bank!

Today we will have the opportunity to explore a submerged atoll (ring of coral around a central lagoon) that until last week, we didn't know existed. Local fisherman have been visiting South Bank for a long time but no one realized that it was anything more than a slightly shallower spot in the ocean, 70 miles from Tutuila. We mapped this area while we were here last to see if there were any points that were within diving range. We found that there is a narrow band, about 5 miles long, on one side of the atoll, with a minimum depth of 80 feet. So we will be sending teams of divers down to do preliminary surveys. It should be exciting as there is no clear idea of what actually exists there.

Due to the unknown conditions, we are taking every precaution to be safe. There will be 5 divers from our small boat and two surface buoys marking our positions at all times. We will carry the buoys with us so if for some reason we have to leave the reef, the boat will be able to follow us. Also, within our buddy teams, we will be staying within a few feet of each other at all times.

I am excited to explore an area that no one has been to before. Hopefully I will be able to get some good photos to post. Wish us luck for good visibility and good habitat.

Take care,

Cristi

Rose Atoll

Rose Atoll is home to some of the most unusual benthic cover that I have seen while diving. Our sites have been beautiful with 150 - 200 feet of visibility and most of the bottom covered by a hard slick of pink coralline algae. This algae is similar to corals in that it creates a hard skeleton for itself but it is still a plant. This same algae also forms columns the size of bread loaves with various pillars merging into one form and remind me of pink castles. When you look at the columns from the top, they form the shape of a rose bloom. Also, most of the atoll is surrounded by a steep wall making for even more spectacular sites with the deep blue of ocean depths behind you while you're working on a slope of roughly 45 deg.

The conditions while diving, on the other hand, have been less than gentle with surge creating more interesting dives. If we didn't have to stay in one spot on the reef, it wouldn't be a problem. But it takes us at least 5 minutes to install a calcification plate while trying to hold still. My dive buddy and I have found ways of dealing with the surge including wedging ourselves into rubble channels in the reef to try and provide some stability while installing these plates. I've been very glad that most of the reef is covered in coralline algae instead of coral, so that I have more things to hold on to without killing coral. Being that close to the reef has been amusing as I watch small fish doing the same thing that I am - being blown about by surge, trying to hide in holes for stability and occasionally bouncing into things. So I guess I'm in good company :)

One of my most memorable moments at Rose has been when we were in a strong surge moving us sideways along a wall (instead of vertically up and down it). The site was beautiful but I wasn't having much time to enjoy it. A large swell came in and rolled me off of where I was getting frustrated, trying to tighten bolts on one of the plates. I was plopped down on my rear in a nearby rubble channel with columns of pink rising all around me with accents of a gorgeous green algae and a deep blue ocean in the distance. It was beautiful and calm as I sat in my little rubble spot. I stayed there for a few moments considering how wonderful it would be to spend the rest of the dive there until I remembered that my buddy would be upset if she had to pound in all of the stakes by herself. I reluctantly pulled myself back into the fray but that has still been the best view I've had at this atoll.

I hope you are doing well and keeping warm. Our boat is getting ready to launch so I better go.

Take care and write soon,

Cristi

Beautiful Sunset

We had a late start yesterday as we waited in the small boats for the ok to start diving. Thankfully, Samoa only received a small wave from the earthquake in Chile with no major secondary waves. After we had confirmation of this, we began our dive day with nothing appearing out of the ordinary underwater. Our second dive was beautiful and a bit deeper than what we normally survey with a max depth of 70 feet. Even at this depth we were finding bits of cloth and debris from the tsunami last fall. But the corals appeared healthy with colonies larger than a diver and a wide variety of species present. The evening was capped off with a sunset better than what we've received in at least a week. It was gorgeous.

Molly in a fashionable tsunami bikini

To finish off the island of Tutuila, we had one site to visit today near the village of Leone. This was a bit of a treat because we did two dives on the one site. The coral team had more work to do, so we dropped in for a 2nd time and the rest of us did a 'reconnaissance' (aka a fun dive). What was only meant to be a 30 minute swim turned into an hour of poking around the coral heads, exploring swim throughs and picking up/modeling debris from the tsunami. It was an excellent and relaxing way to finish up our time at Tutuila.

Next stop is Rose Atoll where the work and madness (more work than there are available dives) really begins. But not to worry, after a 2 or 3 days of over-working the Chief Sci, I'm guessing that he will be more amenable to reconsidering the amount of tasks that we have to do! Plus, I've heard nothing but good things about the dive sites at Rose and I'm really looking forward to seeing what is out there!

That's about it for now. I hope you are having a wonderful day and keeping warm.

Take care,

Cristi

Coral off of Leone Village, Tutuila