Underwater photos at last

Long, but successful day. The underwater drill is now working. This makes things go a lot faster. We completed one transect line installing 10 settlement tiles with cages and another set of 10 without cages. We also got a second transect line ready to install another 20 plates. The holes are drilled and the screw anchors epoxied into the dead coral. We go out again tomorrow for 4 more dives. The first dive we will install 20 plates on the second transect. We will then move to a new area and will spend the next three dives drilling holes and installing anchors for the screws that hold the plates.

I think I caught Doug by surprise when I whipped out my camera on the last dive of the day. I had brought it along hoping to take a few photos while we were doing our mandatory safety stop. For you non-divers, we have to come up to between 10 to 20 feet below the surface and hang out for three to five minutes to rid our bodies of some of the nitrogen our tissues absorbed under pressure. This is to prevent "the bends".

This is a new camera and it was late in the day so the sun was not great for wide angle photography. Normally I wouldn't post two of these, but I wanted to finally show some marine life. Hopefully I will have better photos so share soon.

This first shot was taken looking down at the bottom which is probably 40 to 45 feet deep. I was probably 30 feet above the bottom when I took the picture. The colors are terrible, but you can get a sense of how much coral covers the bottom. Gareth, a Scripps graduate student, has a phenomenal photo of the bottom covering a huge area. Hundreds of photos were taken with custom designed dual SLR camera rig with lasers to measure distance.  A computer is then used to stitch the photos together.  I am hoping to get a copy of the image.

The second shot is of Doug holding the extra SCUBA tank and underwater pneumatic drill while hanging out for his safety stop.

Finally, here is a photo of a blacktip reef shark. I had some come very close, but naturally not when I had my camera out and ready. I am not sure if that is Francesco's or Doug's fin in the picture messing up my shot. Be sure to click on the image to enlarge. I should have plenty more opportunities to photograph sharks on this trip.

blacktip reef shark

Carcharhinus melanopterus

The other cool thing we saw today were manta rays. They were cruising around the boat dock as the sun was going down.  Unfortunately I didn't get any decent photos.

Sunday the staff has the day off including the shippers who take us out to our study sites.  I am not sure what this means as far as meals, but I will find out soon enough.  This means we will have another day of terrestrial work. This time I plan to make sure I have my own booties.