July 27th Day 37

Today I got the chance to go back over to the west side of the island to do instruments work with Keith and Jessica. We did the two sites LTER 5 and 6 and the visibility was incredible. It was hard to pay attention to switching instruments with such beautiful underwater scenery. I really like the west side of the island because it has probably the most live coral compared to anywhere around the island. Also there are just more fish it seems swimming all around. When we were done, we had enough time to stop at the corner of the island where the north shore meets the west side. Right at that point there is a mooring for boats to attach to and this is where shark feedings have been done in the past. We jumped in with snorkel to check it out and saw a couple of grey reef sharks right away. These guys were in the 6-8 foot long range and their build makes you think of them more as a real shark as opposed to little black tip reef sharks. These guys weren't shy to come up in the water column a bit and check us out which at first was a bit disconcerting. Seeing these sharks was cool for me because they were the first "real sharks" I have seen here in French Polynesia. Now I know what those guys look like. On our way back to the station the boat we were on broke down so we had to wait for a tow back to Cook's Bay. It took a while for the tow to arrive so we had to anchor for a short time to prevent the boat from drifting onto the reef crest. After we got back, I had a late lunch and then did the Gump Reef damselfish survey again with Stephanie. Saw a nice size octopus on Gump too which was pretty cool. By the time we finished the day was over so we packed in our stuff for the night. For dinner we had a chinese chicken salad which was good and then we had our first divemaster class session. It's interesting because these class sessions aren't really lectures but more of open discussions about topics we need to know. It's a different style of teaching but I actually enjoy it for the most part. It took a little too long last night though because Brie was making a few too many comments about non-related things during class which slowed things down. After we finished with class, it was getting later so I checked in for bed. Until later.