Librarian on Palmyra Atoll: Another six dive day

First the science.

Doug, who usually doesn't eat breakfast showed up. Not a good sign. He and Francesco had decided last night that it was more important to deploy the video camera underwater to check for shark activity than to use it to see what was eating the urchins. I wolfed down my breakfast and we headed out to Penguin Spit to retrieve what we put out late yesterday afternoon. The two urchins we put out were still there. The question is why are there so few echinoderms around. I have seen one sea urchin, one small sea star (less than 2 inches), and no sea cucumbers outside the lagoon. Doug allowed me a minute to take a few photographs of the set up before we brought it up to the boat. It was a 3 minute dive. We then zoomed back to the station to help everyone rake leaves from the paths. We are trying to get the place in shape for the Coast Guard visit tomorrow. The visit was originally scheduled for Monday, then Wednesday, and now Thursday.

Here is what the urchin set up looked like. The camera is in a weighted milk crate at the top of the frame. The urchins are tethered to the lead dive weight at the bottom of the frame. You can just make them out at the top of the weight and below the infrared camera that is attached to an old stand that we used to use in chemistry labs.

tethered sea urchins

Echinometra mathaei

Next we dove at one of the fish survey sites (PALF4). After we did our fish survey we re-deployed the camera to check for shark activity. We had a camera problem, so we brought it back to the boat and got the setting corrected. We then did a quick 11 minute dive to return the camera to the milk crate.

Unlike the urchins, we won't get any useable footage after dark since we can't light up the whole area with infrared. Here is Doug making sure the camera is securely attached.

After that, we went back to the third and final site for settlement tile installation. We had planned to do this before the fish surveys, but when Doug tested the drill before entering the water, it would not work. I felt guilty, because I am responsible for lubricating it at the end of the day when we use it. Fortunately Doug was able to get it to work without having to return to shore. We then did two dives at FR3 and completed the tile installation project. Fio, if you are reading this, you should be pleased.

For our sixth and last dive we did another fish survey.

Now for a couple fun photos.

I finally got a photograph of a green sea turtle. Not the best, but I never seem to be ready with my camera when one swims by. I see them a lot. I even had one poke his head out of the water a few yards off shore as I was on Skype talking to Barb Butler before breakfast.