June 21st Day 1 Gump Research Station, Moorea, French Polynesia

What a day! Started off the day at the Gran Marche in Papeete to get croissants and watch the sun rise from one of Keith's go to places for coffee. Looking across at Moorea, I was in awe. Then we went back to the Gran Marche and got our fish for dinner tonight. After coming back from that I definitely felt ready to leave and shove off for Moorea. Took a tone of pictures on the ferry over trying to get a picture of Moorea without the boat railing in the picture. When we arrived I was amazed but not surprised by the tropical beauty of the island. The palm trees and coconut trees were swaying ever so gently in the wind as we were driving on our way to Gump. We had a short, unexpected tourist stop (it was actually Russ's car that stopped) to look out over the half moon bay. The view was breathtaking. You could see the bungalows on the water with a crescent moon shaped fore reef shaping the teal lagoon with the island of Tahiti in the background. I can honestly say that it was probably better than any picture I have ever seen before of any place tropical. Unfortunately it was such a short stop, I wasn't able to bust out my camera to take a picture. I'll definitely have to make sure that I get back to that spot to take a picture at some point. We then proceeded to the station and got all settled in. I met a couple of graduate students from CSUN today named Jesse and Jenny. They seem like awesome people and I was excited by the fact that Jesse, a former undergraduate worker for Andy, told me I basically have the best job here. We then got our gear all ready for a check-out dive around the Gump Reef just to get our weighting right and make sure our equipment worked. First tropical dive and I was appalled by how warm the water was. It was like slipping into a bathtub that was cooled off. It was by all other accounts the worst diving conditions that we would see for the entire trip and to be honest, it wasn't that bad. I was surprised at how much sediment there was caked on everything but there was still colorful things to be found that weren't coral. Keith pulled a less than 1 week old damselfish out of an anemone and showed it to all of us. It was about as short if not shorter than his fingernail. Also saw a bunch of giant clams, some butterfly fish, and a bunch of coral mounds. I was also very amused by how Keith took pincushion sea stars and flung them all around in the water. After we got out he proceeded to try to skip them which was interestingly funny (apparently they are very very durable creatures). After work was done on land, I got a chance to take a few pictures before we ate some dinner. Tonight we had some yummy lasagna with chicken and baguette garlic bread yum yum. After getting my talk on with Erica for the first time since I left, I feel really happy. It was good to hear her voice. Now it's time for me to go to bed. Got to get up especially early tomorrow to go grocery shopping. Until later.