The day continued to improve

Breakfast was great (as usual):

breakfast is the most important meal of the day

I returned to my cabin to gather my things:

the porch stairs are on the left as you exit so you don't fall into the ocean leaving your cabin at night

Then we headed out from the lagoon through the channel going past Sand Island:

Sand Island on the left as you exit the lagoon via the channel

The FR3 site was still a bit rough for doing our work, so we headed out to FR9 on the north shore and found good conditions. On our first dive we put flagging on all the settlement tiles. On our second dive we retrieved all but one pair of tiles at the end of the deep transect before running low on air. Then it was back to the lab to photograph, count, measure, and map any coral polyps. Here is an example of a coral polyp fluorescing under blue light as seen through an amber filter.

fluorescing coral polyp found on settlement tile

Then it was time for a delicious dinner:

another delicious meal including purple potatoes

Now that most people have gone to bed, I can finally get enough band width to blog. Once I post this I am closing down and going to take a shower before bed. We already have the boat loaded up with all our gear for an early start to go diving on Sunday morning.