Making progress

We have completed the FR3 site and are about two thirds done with the FR9 site. If all goes well, we will finish up with FR9 with two dives tomorrow morning. That only leaves FR7 which is the furthest away on the north shore of Palmyra. It is also where we expect to find a high number of tiles missing due to the storms Palmyra experienced in 2015. This is based on my comparing the photomosaics that Scripps made of part of our study site before and after the storm. I can not find a single unique coral head that I can use to sync the two images. I see some of our plates in the post-storm photomosaic, but in almost all cases one of the two paired plates can not be found in the image.

For the most part, there is a lot more filamentous red algae on plates with caging. This is because the larger fish can't get in there and eat it. The uncaged tiles usually have very little algae except crustose coralline algae. That said, we had at least one plate that was in a cage that was more barren than most of the uncaged plates.

caged tile showing lots of filamentous red algae compared to uncaged tile

We added a twist to our dives today

In addition to pulling more settlement tiles today, we starting filming fish interacting with the caged and uncaged tiles. To do this we set up a "GoPro on a stick" to record for about an hour while we went off to collect tiles. You never know what is going to come by while you are filming. Below is a screen capture of a sea turtle that swam by. You can see the caged and uncaged tiles below it.

sea turtle caught on camera while filming our plates for fish interactions

Busy day

Today we made two dives in the morning to pull 35 settlement tiles. We then processed them in the afternoon and evening. Below is an example of a photograph taken back in the lab of a tile with a small coral growing in what was originally a large pseudo parrotfish divot. The coral is the white blob in the right upper quadrant.

uncaged tile 174 from the middle FR3 transect after being in the water for 3 years

Some of the tiles were so overgrown they were hard to get off the reef.

I omitted one photo to cap off yesterday's perfect day

I meant to include this photo at the end of yesterday's blog entry. It was a great end to a successful day on Palmyra.

sunset on Palmyra Atoll

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.

Today starting out better

The good news is I was finally able to get the dead battery out of my camera and replace it with a new one. Whew. I will be even happier if we are able to dive today to retrieve more tiles, but we won't know that until after breakfast.

Here are some quick photos I took before heading off to eat.

freezer with tiles and space heater

scraps from our collecting, acrylic base plates, two with caging

Blown out today

The day did not start well as I am unable to get the dead battery out of my Olympus camera. This is the camera I use most of the time since I don't have to worry about it getting wet. I am going to be bummed if I am not able to include lots of photos with my blog entries. I also use the camera to document things which later become very useful.

Last night it rained pretty hard. The previous group had enjoyed great weather their entire time, but I guess they took the good weather with them. It stopped raining by morning, and it didn't look too bad in the lagoon. Once we got outside the lagoon it was clear that the water was too rough to return to FR3 and collect more settlement tiles. The skipper offered to peek around the point heading toward the north shore to see if things were better on the lee side of the island. No such luck. Our return to dock was rough going as it was like being in a dish washer getting thrown around by waves.

After lunch Tim, Ana, and I did hour long searches for coconut crabs on Sand Island and Kaula Island. No camera, so no photos. The clothes we wore all had to be brand new and frozen for 48 hours before we could set foot on these islands. This is to prevent accidentally bringing seeds, ants, or other invasive species to the islands.

I hate to post without any photos, so here are some of the laundry/shower building. This building is one I forgot to photograph during my first year on Palmyra. My attempt at an exterior shot during my second year did not come out well, so here are some better photos.

laundry & shower building exterior

laundry & shower building interior
note the folded laundry in bottom left - your laundry is done for you daily except on Sundays

one of several several shower stalls