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.
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| 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
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| Coral off of Leone Village, Tutuila |
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