French Frigate Shoals round 2!

Hi Guys,
We pulled back into French Frigate Shoals yesterday morning for our second visit. We have a total of 3.5 more days here. We started our second visit back over at sharks island yesterday morning. It was beautiful. There was practically no swell and barely any wind. We spent our first dive looking for a data logger that Derek had put out so that we could take some pictures; making it easier to find next year. Simultaneously, Anne and I were swimming around trying to find some new artifacts for the team. The archeology team really wants to find the ships bell. After one dive, we spent the rest of the day snorkeling in the shallows looking for artifacts. It was a pretty light day for us. Today I got traded to the invasive species team again. One of the divers wasn't feeling well and there are only two divers on that team so I stood in for him. I had a lot of fun. We spent the entire day searching for lobsters for one of the other grad students in my department. I was really excited because I spent an entire summer in the keys helping out a lobster biologist. Finally, I was asked to do something I am good at! lol. Anyways, these guys are really hard to find up here. My advisor and I found 5, but we only caught 3. I felt like I was mini cavern diving because the lobsters like small cracks in the rocks. So, in order to catch them you had to wiggle yourself into little swim through's and cracks in the coral structure and then reach your real far and hope for an antenna! I wish I could have taken a picture (I left my camera on the boat for this) because we looked really funny with our feet dangling out in the air..err...water. Anyways, 2 more days here and them off to Nihoa!

Cheers,
Nyssa

Midway day 2 and 3

Yesterday I had the day off! Woohoo! And I was on land which was awesome. My friends and I went and toured around Midway for the day. Let me give you a little information about Midway atoll. First and foremost it is a wildlife refuge mostly for birds and monk seals. There are a ridiculous amount of birds here. I am not exaggerating when I tell you there are thousands and thousands of Laysan Albatross (at least one per square meter). This time of year there are young chicks and subadults on the island. The chicks are big, brown, and really fluffy and they can't fly yet. Their parents are off at sea collecting food for about another month or so and these birds literally sit in the spot they hatched and just wait. They don't move in inch. You could run up to them and they will just sit their and stare at you. It is totally bizzare! The subadults are really funny. They are constantly practicing their mating dances with each other so that when the time is right they have it down perfect. Their dance starts out with them clapping their beaks together several times, then they shake their head no, then shake their head yes, then stick their head up in the air and howl. They practice either with just one other bird or in groups.
We started the morning off with a 2 hour bike ride on a beach cruiser. It was awesome to be out on a bike riding around and move more than 100 feet. Bike riding was pretty comical though because like I said there are birds EVERYWHERE so you have to weave all over the place not to hit them. Then we went and laid out on the most gorgeous beach I have ever been to in my life (I was trying to get rid of this wetsuit tan, but one day just wont cut it). At the end of the day we went over to the "All hands club", which is a totally empty bar that has pool tables, shuffle board, and ping pong and then walked to North Beach and watched the sunset. It was a great day off.
Today was a little rough. The seas were up and it was really stormy. We ended up calling our first two dives of the day because none of us wanted to get in the water the way that it was. Luckily, on the opposite side of the island the waves were not that bad so we jumped in there. Under the water was amazing. No swell or current. Just total calm. Once was I down I did not want to come back up to the stormy surface. It is pretty amazing how calm the conditions can be if you just drop down a few feet under water. Anyways, we are all stuck on the ship for the next three days because we are transiting back the French Frigate Shoals again on our way back to Honolulu.

Midway day 1

So yesterday was incredible! We arrived at Midway atoll early in the morning and started the day off like usual. Get up at 6am. Get our gear ready, eat, get on the boat, and go diving. Midway atoll is a special place for those of us on this ship because it is the only place that we can touch land. Our first dive of the morning was on a wreck called the "Carolton." This ship was carrying coal from Australia to California and wrecked here in 1906. This was a really pretty dive. It was really shallow and in only 10 feet of water (and therefore SUPER surgey), but there were thousands of beautiful fish and awesome looking rock formations. The great thing about this dive is that I just got to go along for the ride! The archeology team was just checking it out to see if the pieces have moved around at all in the surf. Next we went and snorkeled around near shore looking for a landing vessel that crashed during WWII. We were looking around for over an hour and couldn't find it which was really weird because we were in clear, shallow water looking for a 35 foot plank. The chief scientist called in and asked for GPS points and found out that the park service over here actually removed it from the water... whoopsies! Finally, we motored over to a spot called the "Corsair" which as of now was the most amazing dive I have EVER been on. This is a plane the crashed here at Midway during WWII (remember the battle of Midway?). This plane crashed in 120 feet of water and therefore this was a very deep dive. When you dive to this depth you need to be very careful because you breath your air 4x faster than you would at the surface and you are at much higher risk for getting bent if you are not careful. Lucky for me, I was diving with 2 dive instructors and 2 other amazingly competent divers and I have a lot of experience working at deeper depths. We dropped down to this plane wreck which was gorgeous. It was in a sand patch with nothing around it, but it was filled with hundreds and hundreds of fish. My job was to write down everything that I saw again. I saw a lot of new species because all our other sites were really shallow. Anyways, at the end of the dive we had to come up very very slowly because of the depth. As we start coming up the first thing we saw was a school of about 20 Galapagos sharks. They were so beautiful. They were pretty small (only 3-4 feet) and just peacefully swimming around in the water column (the galapagos shark is the first picture). We were all enjoying our ride up, taking pictures of all the sharks and hanging out in the middle of the water column. After about 5 minutes or so we got up to about 40 feet. I kept my eye on my dive computer because I wanted to make sure that I was not coming up too fast. As I look up from my computer, I looked over at all my buddies (there were 5 of us) and they were all staring at me with huge eyes. I thought that was kind of weird because none of them were signally anything to me, but they were just stunned. So I turned around and saw this MASSIVE female tiger shark inches from me (literally) just checking me out. Totally calm and non-aggressive, but ridiculously close! I think I said some expletives through my regulator and then realized that I had a camera and had to take a picture (picture number two). It was so cool. People spend their entire life diving and don't get experiences like this. After our safety stop we all came to the surface and were in total shock just laughing about what had just happened. Now don't get me wrong I never want to see one of those guys while I am floating around on the surface of the water, but while diving it was a totally amazing experience. After the dive we pulled into the dock and touched land for the first time in 13 days . And since we were on land we were allowed to have a beer (woohoo!)! Needless to say I definitely toasted with my dive team to that crazy experience. Today I have a day off and I am going to tour around the island. Will post pictures later!

Until tomorrow,
Nyssa

Kure Day 2

Today we did a whole lot of running around. We started out back at the Dunnattor Castle again to run a few transects. The winds died down which was nice, but it was still cloudy and really cold. After a dive on the D. Castle, we went over to a new wreck that the side scan sonar guys found. Only the archeology team got in the water here though. Next, we went for another dive on the Parker. Derek found some new parts to this wreck so we ended up staying there for a while. We then went to a sailboat that wrecked in the lagoon called the Grendel. This is kind of a sad story. It was captained by a 79 year old man that solo sailed across the Pacific. Apparently, he was lost at sea and his sailboat just showed up here with all his stuff still in it. The family signed the boat over to the state so that they can remove it from the monument and return all his personal belongings back to the family. Finally, at the end of the day we went to a reef near the D. Castle to take some control transects. Sorry that this post is kind of short and sweet. I'm pretty beat after 8 days of straight diving and we are doing a very deep dive tomorrow morning so I need to get to bed early! Tomorrow we arrive at Midway atoll!

Cheers,
Nyssa

Kure day 1

Today we arrived in Kure, the most northern coral reef atoll in the world. The day started out a little rough. It was storming in the morning so our launch got delayed a little bit. We started out at a wreck called the "Dunnottar Castle." This is another huge wreck. It was collier carrying coal to California from Australia and crashed up here in the NWHI in 1886. It was trying to make a speed record and clearly did not make it. Unfortunately, because it was so rough in the morning, I could not really see much of the wreck because it was all turned up. We are going back tomorrow though so hopefully I can get a better look. We did two dives on the D. Castle and then went into the lagoon of the atoll and went to another wreck called the "Parker". By this time the storm had died and it actually turned into a gorgeous day. It was raining when we jumped into the water, but when we came out it was like we were in a totally different place! The water was like a lake it was so calm and clear! You could see huge schools of manini (see video above) and lots of other really cool fish. The Parker was another Whaling vessel heading to the Japanese fishing grounds (do you see a trend here???). And they allllmost made it because the Japanese fishing grounds are only a few miles from here. But, they crashed during a big storm and the ship broke up into a million pieces and went everywhere. We are going to a few more wrecks in Kure tomorrow so until then!
Nyssa

Pearl and Hermes day 2

We started off our morning by visiting "The Pearl". The Pearl is the oldest known shipwreck in Hawaiian waters. We didn't conduct any research at this site but the archeologists thought it would be fun for us to go snorkel on it for a few minutes since it is an important historical site. After snorkeling around for about 20 minutes we made our way back to the "Quartet." The morning started out kind of rough. The swells picked up a little bit today so we were getting tossed around quite a bit during our first dive. I tried to take some video so that I could show you guys what we look like (Derek is on the photoquardrat and Anne is doing rugostisy). I waited for the surge to calm down when I took the video so that my camera would not get beat up. So when you are watching this realize that this is our crew working during the "calm" part of the dive... The next two dives were much better because we were in deeper water. Still a little surgey, but we were not getting tossed around like we were on our first dive. All in all it was another fun and successful day out on the water. We arrive at Kure atoll bright and early tomorrow morning (the northernmost coral reef on an atoll)!

Pearl and Hermes day 1

Early this morning we arrived at Pearl and Hermes atoll. This atoll was named after two shipwrecks called the Pearl and the Hermes. Both of these whaling vessels were traveling together and crashed in the 1850's during a big storm. The wreck that we went and looked at today is called the Quartet. The Quartet is a more contemporary shipwreck. The Quartet was a liberty vessel, heading towards Korea, that carried corn and other grains. It crashed onto the reef in the 1950's during the Korean War. The Quartet is a beautiful wreck. It was 462 feet long (which is twice the length of the ship that I am on now). Half of the ship made it over the reef crest into the lagoon while the other half stayed on the fore reef. We only dove around the stern end so that our boat would not turn into a shipwreck on this reef as well. There was a huge propeller, a massive steam engine, and lots and lots of other metal parts laying on the reef. There were more fish on this wreck than I have ever seen in my entire life. And some crazy looking ones that I have never seen. Before I looked them up, I couldn't even tell you what family they were in let alone the species name. For example, one of the fish looked like a zebra with a mow-hawk... I kid you not! One of the other neat things about this dive is that it was in about 30 feet of water, so we were not getting beat-up on the surface by the waves and surge. Needless to say, today was an awesome day. I think the Quartet is the prettiest wreck that I have seen on this trip so far. Tomorrow we are going to do a quick dive on the Pearl and the Hermes and then we are going to go back to the Quartet.

Until tomorrow!
Nyssa

Lisianski day 2.5

Ok, today was by far the coolest day yet. I went out with the alien species team again. Scott took us to this BEAUTIFUL reef on the east side of Neva shoals. There was probably 95% coral cover and all sorts of other wild life. The water was flat, the sun was out, and there was absolutely no surge. I saw my first Acanthaster! For those who don't know it is a crown of thorns seastar. This seastar eats coral and has recently become a major problem in the indo-pacific . It is not a problem in Hawaii though. During our safety stop I felt like the ocean was putting on a show for us. Out of no where a huge school of barracuda came by and started circling us. Massive ulua joined in of course and a monk seal came by to say hello. The monk seal also followed us up to the boat and checked us out on the surface for a while (I promise I never moved even an inch in its direction. It came straight to me!). For our second dive, Scott took us to a rubble field so that I could look for bioeroding organisms for my project. We found more species of worms than I could ever imagine, some bivalves, and of course lots of boring sponges (that's boring as in a bore hole, not yawn boring). Scott let me bring some back to the lab and look at them under the microscope which was really cool. It also made me very aware of the crazy work I am about to get myself into because identifying these critters is really really difficult. After I got a good look at them we returned then back to where they belonged. We only got two dives in today because we had to get back to the boat as early as we could. We stayed at Lisianski an extra day because of all the wrecks that the monument team found, but we needed to start driving to our next spot so that we could have the two full days there that we had planned. Tomorrow morning I will be at Pearl and Hermes Reef!

See you at the next atoll!
Nyssa

Lisianski day two

Today I got to dive with the alien species team again (Megan Donahue and Scott Godwin). It was a GORGEOUS day out on the water. It was super calm and beautiful. We went out to some patch reefs and actually got to do some "real" diving all the way down to 55 whole feet! lol Anyone that tells you that diving in shallow water is easier or safer is lying. It was sooooo nice not to have to deal with the wave orbitals or the surge and to have all this space. This team is in charge of looking for alien species in the atolls. There is one type of hydriod on this atoll that is alien, but lucky it is not invasive (picture top left). We only saw maybe a handful of them on the three 45 minute dives that we did today.

Today was probably the nicest field day that I have ever had. I dove with 2 really fun, super smart people, and we literally just swam around looking for inverts and taking pictures. And, we had real surface intervals where we just relaxed instead of rushing to get gear together and jump in again as soon as our computer says we can. It was so nice to know that two amazing scientists can have a really fun time in the field and also get everything done. During our surface interval we decided to motor around and pick up some trash that we found in the water. We pulled up a couple laundry detergent bottles and other various pieces of plastic. Every piece we pulled up though has a little crab living on it. We couldn't just throw them overboard because we knew that they would get eaten almost immediately. Instead, we looked around for some "biodegradable" habitat to set the out to sea with such as a peanut butter sandwich and a slim jim.... It was pretty funny and we at least gave the crabs a few more hours to live (I am pretty sure that the slim jim will never degrade because lets face it no one knows what its made out of so the crab on top of that should be fine forever). We also found a really cool looking nudibranch on one of the bottles. He was only a few millimeters long. We took him back and put him under the microscope. He was clear with purple spots and orange circles around the spots and you could see his heart beating! I made the dolphin people on the ship come look at it so that they knew how cool inverts were :). Don't worry though we are freeing him back to the ocean tomorrow morning. On another interesting note, the shipwreck crew found 2 more new ship wrecks today! They were really excited (that is 5 in only two days!). So, now we are going to stay here for an extra half day. I will be diving with the alien species group again tomorrow morning and then we are off to Pearl and Hermes reef.

Cheers!
Nyssa

Lisianski a day early!

Today we got to Lisianski a half a day early! We have been making excellent time with everything. Because we got in early the crew let us take the boats out and go snorkeling. The archeology team went tow-boarding to try to find some new wrecks and apparently they found two! I ended up going out with the invasive species team (the team that my advisor is on). It was really fun. We went out to the island and snorkeled around flipping over rocks looking for inverts. We did not find too much, which was a very good sign. Or, it could have been because the water was so murky that it was impossible to see anything. :) This site was swarming with monk seals and they were very curious as to what we were doing. We are not allowed withing 200 yards of any monk seal and even look at them the wrong way. But, if they swim up to us I guess there is not much we can do about it. One of them came right up to my advisor, bumped her in the back, and yelled. It was starling at first, but it don't think I have ever laughed so hard. They are harmless, but like I said very very curious. It was also nice to be snorkeling in some calm water where ships would not normally crash....lol Tomorrow I am going to dive with the invasive team again at some P. compressa patch reefs which could possible one of my future sites.

:)

Transit day

So today I am not going to be doing anything really cool so I figured I would
post some pretty pictures. Enjoy!

This is a picture of a cleaning station. Look close and you can see the little cleaner wrasse (he is purple and yellow) cleaning the Ta'ape (that's snapper for you mom).




Honu (turtle)!









Me surf-snorkeling

French Frigate Shoals day three

Today we started out at a new wreck called the "Churchill". This ship was on its way to California from Tonga carrying some sort of cargo. It crashed on a reef during the first world war in 1917. Now the ship was said to have accidentally crashed into the reef up here in French Frigate Shoals, but there is an interesting controversy about it. The ship had a German National as its captain so there were a lot of people that thought he crashed it on purpose. There was not enough evidence to actually show that he crashed it purposely so he was exonerated. When we first got there, Derek said that he had to collect coral samples so I could just swim around and enjoy the dive. But! as soon as he saw the ridiculous amount of fish on this wreck he gave me a slate and said "write down everything you see." Look at the picture above and you can get a small idea of the scene that I had. It was a little overwhelming, but again, I am learning. There were fish that not only did I now know what species they were, but i had NO IDEA what type of fish they were (i.e. tang, butterfly, damsel), or really if they were a fish at all (ok not really)!!! Here is an example of one of my descriptions, "chub-like fish with black spots, white center, and gray outside", or my favorite the "WTF damselfish." It is a good thing I brought the guide book on the boat with me. The dive was super cool though. There was so much life and all different parts of the bow of the boat scattered everywhere. We even found a toilet. Apparently, the team is still looking for the stern of the boat. After 1 dive on the Churchill we went back to Shark's Island to do one more set of transects. While we were conducting some very important ecology, the maritime archeology team found 3 more harpoon tips and a dagger! This was an amazing find because they were lucky to even find one. The team was really excited all day. While they were off finding once in a lifetime artifacts, I was being stalked by 3 very big ulua... Those guys are sooooo curious. Anne was working the rugosity chain and ended up dropping it a few times because they really seem to like shiny things. In any event, it was a great day! We have two travel days coming up because we are now heading over to Lisianski Atoll.

cheers!
Nyssa

French Frigate Shoals day two

Today we went back to "Shark's Island" to do some ecological surveys and look for some more undiscovered wrecks. There are a few side scan sonar guys that are driving around looking for anomalies in the coral and traces of metal. They found three places where there could possibly wrecks so we all jumped in the water in our snorkel gear eagerly looking for artifacts. Unfortunately, we did not find anything at any of the three sites. So, back to the original unknown wreck we went. Today I was in change of fish surveys. And, yes I study invertebrates so therefore don't really know anything about fish. But its OK, I memorized the entire Hoover book in one evening (or so my dive partner thinks...lol)! Really though, I am learning a lot. I never really knew how to ID fish and now I know a bunch of them. The surge was totally crazy again today. Trying to stay in one spot to count fish was not an option, so that was a little bit of a challenge. Derek was trying to take pictures of the benthos so he had an even harder time staying still. We got everything we came for though! At the end of 3 snorkels and 2 dives the monument team recovered a once in a lifetime artifact and I was on the boat! They recovered a harpoon tip from the wreck site that may be the defining artifact. Apparently, in the early 1800's Whalers used to put a makers mark and the name of the ship at the end of their harpoons. Also, this is the only time (that they know of at least) that a harpoon tip has been recovered from a wreck. At the end of the cruise, the monument crew will be shipping the harpoon tip to a conservation place in California that will x-ray it and try to find the marks. Needless to say today was a very busy day, but lots of fun. Soo...
until tomorrow!

Nyssa

First day at French Frigate Shoals

Today we got to French Frigate shoals a half a day earlier than planed. The crew let us get a head start on our work and snorkel our sites. Getting into the water off of this ship is really interesting. They have 5 work boats that take the different crews to their sites. They lift the boats off the deck and over the side (which is where we walk on and throw on our gear) and then we are lowered into the water while the ship is still moving. The site that I went to today is called Shark's Island (yes it has that name for a reason, but our crew only saw very small reef sharks). It is the location of a currently unknown shipwreck. The maritime archeology team believes that it is a ship called the "Twin Brothers", but they have yet to find an artifact with a makers mark (like the ships bell). They do know that it was a whaling ship. There are lots of boiling pots around the area. These pots were used to boil the blubber of whales and turn it into oil. There are also two anchors, whale hooks, and a spearhead. If this ship is truly the "Twin Brothers" then is came all the way out to Hawaii from Great Brittan. The whalers in the Atlantic practically hunted whales to extinction in the 1800's and began to work their way around they world. This ship was heading for the Japanese fishing grounds when all the sudden out of no where they hit a reef. Most of the crew ended up getting rescued except for a few that I think died of starvation or dehydration. The monument crew is hoping that the arrowhead will have some sort of defining feature that will allow them to confidently say that it is the "Twin Brothers".
Diving was really interesting here. The surge was crazy and according to the veterans on the boat it was a calm day. I felt like I was "surf snorkeling"... It was a lot of fun though and I for sure got a workout. There were some very big Ulua (which is a Jack for those of you who do not know Hawaiian names). They were definitely curious, but they were gorgeous. There were also huge plates of Montiporid corals and giant mounds of Porites lobata. There was not that much diversity at this particular site though.
Tomorrow we are heading for the "Churchill" wreck in the morning.
so, until then...
good night.

A day filled with drills

Hi all,
So yesterday was a day filled with drills. Because it takes us close to three days to get to French Frigate Shoals (our first destination) the crew filled our day up with all sorts of emergency situations. We had a fire drill, an abandon ship drill (I wish I was allowed to take a picture of my in my survival suit because I looked totally ridiculous), diver emergency (I played the victim and was strapped down to a body board with the strongest Velcro in the world and my crew practiced carrying me around), and a man-over board drill. The man-over board drill was actually quite exciting (as crazy as that sounds) because one of the crew members grabbed a life vest and literally jumped off the ship to see how quickly we would respond. Imagine sitting down next to your dive locker and seeing a man grab a jacket and jump off a giant ship... After partaking in the drill, you could see how easy it is to really get lost at sea. The crew member drifted away from the boat very very quickly and even with a bright orange jacket on and practically no waves it was hard to see him. Needless to say I won't be leaning over this ship anytime soon unless I purposefully want to get into the water. But, the coolest part of yesterday for me was at night. There is a very small gym on board for people to work out if they feel that diving and carrying tanks all day is not enough exercise. There are also 2 stationary bikes outside on the main deck of the ship. I decided that I wanted to go for a "ride". Imagine biking at night with the cool trade winds blowing all around you, not a cloud in the sky, millions of bright stars everywhere, and in every direction you look, you are surrounded by dark blue water.... Probably the best workout I have ever had in my life....
Today we were suppose to have a travel day as well, but because the weather has been so good we are making excellent time. We are arrive at French Frigate shoals this afternoon! It looks like I am going to get to snorkel around the atoll for the afternoon and look for "buried treasures", well maybe not treasure, but artifacts from ship wrecks. I am going to bring my camera so maybe I can show you some pictures this evening!
Until then,
Nyssa

And the adventure begins....

Aloha friends and family! Today I begin my adventure up to the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. This huge monument (~1200 mi long) is one of the most pristine coral reef systems in the world. It is also the second largest marine protected are in the world. For more information about where I am going see http://papahanaumokuakea.gov/. The NWHI atolls are far away, so it will take us 3 days to get to our first stop: French Frigate Shoals. For the next 3 days I will catch up on grading, reading, and of course watching movies :). As soon as we do something cool I will be sure to keep you posted!
I will miss you all!