September 5th Day 73

Today I got out of bed knowing that this was my last official day of work. I turned on my computer and found a commented draft in my inbox from my advisor in Germany which was a good start to the day. When I went downstairs however things got a little interesting. Turns out someone came into the dorms last night and raided the fridges of juice, a hamburger, and some alcohol along with mine and Brett's sandals and a pair of shoes belonging to one of the other people on station. I started to laugh just because of the ridiculous luck I have been having with sandals here. I ended up taking a pair of Tahiti sandals that have been sitting by the front door of the dorms now for months and I was surprised by how comfortable they are. I managed my way over to the dock to get assigned to do my last Gump dive. I tagged along with Steph as she did the damselfish anemones and it was a nice last dive. When we finished with that, I did some random clean-up tasks and then got off for lunch. After lunch we led Keith for our beach dive for dive master and had a good time diving the wall at the public beach. Ended up seeing the biggest yellow trumpet fish I had ever seen there but too bad I didn't have my camera on me. When we came back we did some of our talks and dive briefings for our dive master class and then called it a day. Keith had me go snorkel out to BOB, a buoy they deployed today, and take some cool pictures of it. On the way back I snorkeled for a little while chasing around some fish and then went in to take a shower. Got a chance to talk to my parents and Erica one last time while I have internet and then away I went off to the crepe cart for dinner. It was delicious to eat and man would I go back in a heartbeat. Got a dinner and dessert crepe which definitely filled me up. While I was there, I talked with Susan who had broken her finger climbing up the swim ladder of the 609 for a bit while we were there about my Fulbright application. Turns out the guy who I will technically be working under was her grad student. What a small world. She said he was a really great guy and that made me feel even more reassured than I already was. When we got back to Gump, I gathered up my stuff and headed across the street to the morph lab to work on all my Fulbright stuff. Now it's 3:30 in the morning and I just finished up with everything except my blog. Since I am leaving Gump and my computer behind tomorrow, this will be my last blog post for this trip. I plan to keep a written journal during my travels and adding it to this blog after I get back to the states. But alas this is my goodbye to this blog and Moorea. I have had the time of my life here getting to know some great people and be involved with some great research in a beautiful place. I hope that sometime soon I get to come back here and experience some of what I have again but if not, it was a great ride that I will never forget. Good morning and good night Moorea hope to see you around the bend. Until later.

September 4th Day 72

Today was another day for clean-up. We first got the Gump survey out of the way and then got into putting away all the things we brought out at the beginning of the summer. Foosball tables and picnic tables alike were carried across the street to be put back into the containers for next year. While we were doing that, it certainly seemed a bit nostalgic putting away everything that I had brought out two and a half months ago. It really made it hit home for me that my time at Gump is almost over. Steph, Brett, and I powered through all the cleaning tasks today and we were let off early since there wasn't anything else left to do. It was nice for me to be able to work on my proposal during the day when I am fresh and in the mood to really get work done. I had a productive three and a half hours writing. Got a good draft done that I gave to Andy to look over as well as my advisor in Germany. It felt good to have that out of the way because I know that with those edits, I can make a reasonable proposal that is clear and understandable tomorrow. For dinner Brett and I made burgers and fried potatoes which went great with a few Hinano's. After dinner we went out onto the dock to look at the stars but unfortunately it was pretty cloudy and it kept sprinkling on us to the point that we decided to go back inside. He went to sleep straight away but I decided to stay up and do some laundry and get some packing done. I feel like I did about half of the packing I need to do so it won't be too big of a deal for me to get the rest of my stuff together tomorrow and on Tuesday. Now I am pretty tired so I think I'm going to hit the sack. Until later.

September 3rd Day 71

Today was my last day out at the fore reef on my trip here to Moorea. First thing this morning Andy, Brett, Susan, and I headed out to the Rapid plots one last time. Susan is a collaborator here with the MCR-LTER and she had never seen the fore reef on Moorea before. Brett and Susan followed Andy and I around as we went to each plot with coral tiles for photographs. We ended up taking pictures of one plot twice and were certainly pushing the envelope toward the end to get everything done in one dive. Considering that my Air 2/Inflator was leaking the entire dive, I am surprised I lasted. I think because we took pictures of 11 plots instead of 10 I had to push my tank below 500. When I surfaced without a safety stop, I noticed Susan was on the floor of the boat near the swim step and I knew when I saw this coming up the swim ladder that something wasn't right. Apparently she broke off her nail grabbing on to the swim ladder in the wavey conditions that awaited us when we came up. She also broke a bone in the same finger. When we were all back on the boat we cut the mooring and secured it to the bottom and then headed back to Gump. She seemed fine and we were really impressed by her nonchalant attitude. When we got back I got to working on the last of the boat trailers for maintenance. Took me a while but I got them all done. After that the day was pretty much over so we packed it in for the day. For dinner we cooked some swordfish that we bought at the grocery store before going to a native dance performance in Maharepa. The food was great and the show after was even better. The costumes and choreography were incredible to see. I have seen a number of Tahitian and Polynesian dances at school but never anything close to what I saw tonight. After we got back, I got to working on my proposal a little more before I got into bed. Until later.

September 2nd Day 70

Today was a dry day for me. Didn't end up getting in the water at all and instead worked on cleaning up the station in preparation for our departure. Worked on taking apart the shed for all the boat boxes and did some more trailer maintenance. The day flew by pretty quickly all things considered. We made a dent in all the trailer work we need to do so that made the day very productive. Right after work, Brett, Steph, and I the only people left in our cooking group, threw together a lasagna to eat for dinner. Funny that we didn't buy enough sauce and we ended up only being able to make a single layered lasagna. It sure didn't take any time at all to cook. Once we finished with dinner I worked on my project proposal for Fulbright until I went to bed. Got to get up early to go to the store tomorrow so I'm off to bed. Until later.

September 1st Day 69

Started the day with a quick Gump dive with Stephanie. It was pretty normal except that there are a ton more fish on each anemone now since a large settlement wave came through so I decided for the sake of time to let Steph do all the counting while I swam around and took pictures. We were in a bit of a hurry to get done so that we could go ASAP to the west side with Keith to do fish transect maintenance. We got off Gump and put our stuff onto the boat with new tanks and took off. We ended up coming right back because the SAFE boat couldn't get up above 3000 rpm so we went straight back to the dock at Gump to get the 609 to take to LTER 6. There was a large swell once we turned the corner which wasn't fun in the smaller 609 but we made it to the site. We did our maintenance and then hopped back in the boat to go back to Gump. Surprisingly Keith pulled into the pass that is right by the ray feeding site which caught us all off guard. He took Steph and I to the feeding site which was cool. Jumped in the water and it was completely different than the last time I came. This time there were tons of black tip reef sharks swimming around which was totally new for me. The sharks were swarming around a tourist boat that was dropping fish into the water to feed the rays and sharks. We came over to watch and was it a site. The rays were on the bottom in a scrum trying to get to the food that fell through the sharks that were swimming right above all the rays. It was really cool to see and got a ton of video and photos of all the sharks. Once we got our fill, we got back on the boat and headed home. When we got back, we had lunch and started to do clean-up and maintenance. The last part of the day we worked on the boat trailers sanding off rust and then we called it a day. When we got off for work, we made some breaded chicken and veggies for dinner. After we finished, I went up to my room to do work and then got into bed. I'm super tired. Until later.

August 31st Day 68

Today was a day of data and clean-up. Entered and fixed data to be entered up until the late afternoon where I got the chance to go on another Gump dive for Brie and Katrina's beach dive. When we got to diving it was pretty similar to what I always see. I did see some cool life though along the way that made the dive pretty cool. Most notably I saw a big puffer fish that I was able to get up real close to and take a bunch of pictures of. It was pretty big for a puffer but this was the first time I had ever seen one. Other than that it was pretty ordinary and when we got done, we headed in to take a shower and get ready for Sammy and Katrina's goodbye party. Started off by going to a Allo's Pizza on the other side of the bay for dinner. I had a margarita pizza with a coke and some chocolate moose ice cream.It was a bit pricey but I had my own bit of pizza left over for lunch. The servings are one size, plate pizzas. After we got back everyone gathered out around the fare pote and enjoyed each others company until late at around 12 when people started to peel off. I was so tired so I came in to get some rest so that tomorrow I can really get working on my proposal. Going to bed. Until later.

August 30th Day 67

I woke up this morning feeling much better than I did the day before. I felt perfectly fine to go do the last dive for the Porites rus measurements. It was long but it went well. Most of the time the coral bommies were within a half meter of the surface so we were even shallower than we were our first day doing these measurements. Once we finished up, we came back to the station and I started doing clean-up related things like laying out lines to dry and rinsing transect tapes. After lunch I did data entry until we got everyone together to do our boat dives for our dive master class. Steph and Brie led their dive to the left of Cook's Bay. Katrina and I were playing a married couple of 30 years who were very different in dive skill level. I got to be a tourist on that dive but then immediately after we went back in and got a few more people to go on our boat dive. Our dive went quite differently than the previous one. First off there were more people to keep track of. I took care of Andy who was actually 2 people Betty and Sue. Of course he made sure to get into the water without a weight belt on so that he couldn't go down. I had to get back up and get onto the boat to get it for him so that we could go down and meet up with everyone else. Once we got down to everybody, Andy was swimming around like he was riding a bicycle and was trying to suck down as much air as possible. He finally turned to me and signaled he was out of air so I had to share air with him to the surface and get him back to the boat. I felt like I was in my rescue AAUS course all over again. We eventually got everyone back on the boat and back to the dock at Gump where Keith gave both groups of dive masters a debriefing at the same time. He put a lot of different situations on us today which was good because it gave us all real experience in dealing with these issues. After that Brie and I made steak and cuscus for dinner. We ate quickly so that we could do some more dive master lectures and get them done. We all were zoning out toward the end and we called it a night after two short lectures. I ended up going out to the dock right after to lay down and look at the stars. It is incredible how brightly you can see them here. After I worked a little on my application before I headed to bed. Now I'm super tired so I am calling it a day. Until later.

August 29th Day 66

Today started off for me on a bit of a sour note. I rolled out of bed at 7:20 to got to the grocery store and wasn't really feeling at my best. When we came back and I got my dive stuff altogether, I still wasn't feeling good. I had a stomach ache and slight bout of dizziness. I went out to dive and felt better once I was underwater but I got to feeling a bit dizzy when I would ascend to the surface to measure the water depth. After we came back I took a nap to see if I could sleep it off for our afternoon dive but rolling out of bed was not easy. I told Keith I couldn't dive and it was good that I did because I ended up getting sick right after they left. Right after I felt better but was still generally exhausted. I did data for the rest of the day which was really about the only thing I could do. After work was over, I talked to Erica for a while before dinner. We had delicious crepes for dinner which was good but almost a bit much for me since I hadn't really eaten anything today. I pretty much went to bed straight away after dinner because we decided that we were going to do a dive master lecture in the morning. I'm about to pass out from exhaustion. Until later.

August 28th Day 65

Today started with us going straight out to do Porites rus measurements in the lagoon like we did yesterday. We went out to a site right next to where Steph and I led our night dive so I was immediately familiar with the area. We did our measurements in some deeper water compared to yesterday. There were a few bommies that were in 20 ft of water as opposed to the day before where most were in about 6 ft. During our measurements I saw this really funny looking fish that came up to Brie and I to curiously check us out. It had big eyes for its size and moved so slowly through the water it was cute. I took a bunch of pictures of it and was amazed at how it wasn't shy at all. Once we were done, we got back on the boat and headed back in to Gump. After that I got my stuff ready to go out and retrieve all of my corals. Today was the 10th day so this was as long as I wanted it to run. I took pictures of them all one last time and then went back and picked them all up. Brett and I carried all of the tiles to a water table I had filled earlier so that I could take photos and evaluate their status one last time before throwing them away. I did this after dinner and dive master class. I was surprised at the number of coral that were still alive despite being bleached. After this I went up to my room to organize some of my photos and then started to get tired. I think I am going to go to sleep right now. Until later.

August 27th Day 65

Today started like most days recently with me entering data. I did that for about an hour and then got called to go diving to do measurements on the Porites rus coral bommies that the LTER monitors annually in the lagoon. We went to a site near Ava Iti and Taemai today and did the measurements. I had never dove in the lagoon before so it was a bit of an experience to be diving in water that is 6 feet deep. Keith and Andy just threw their gear, slates, and tape measurers over the side of the boat which was different to see. I followed suit by throwing my stuff overboard and putting all my SCUBA gear on underwater. When I got down I was amazed at the vast emptiness. There is so much sand between some of the bommies that you can't even see the next one so it was cool to see these areas with mostly sand and then islands of coral. Our first dive was almost exactly two hours long which is pretty typical for lagoon dives. Because you are so shallow, your air consumption is much better than what it would be at depth and you often can dive for over two hours in the lagoon. We came back in for lunch and went out again to another site to the right of Cook's Bay where we did the same coral measurements. I saw some crown of thorns for the first time since I saw one on the steps to Gump Reef so I was sure to take a few pictures. I also got a picture of the aftermath of Keith butchering one with his dive knife. After we finished up we headed back to the station and I got my stuff ready to do my Gump coral pictures. Saw another flounder while I was taking pictures and managed to get a few of it before it scurried off. It is amazing how well those fish blend in with the sand. I accidentally put my hand down on another one as I was taking pictures. After the dive it was clean-up time and then time to start cooking dinner. We made basil chicken and lime rice with basil eggplant. It all turned out really good I think especially the eggplant. Brie soaked it in salt water which takes out some of the water and makes for better cooking. Afterwards I got down to work on application related things and then started to fade fast. Since I was up late last night, I got tired early. I'm going to go to sleep now. Until later.

August 26th Day 65

Work today in general was really slow. I did data entry for the majority of the day. Later on in the day, Keith took Brett, Katrina and I out to a underwater wall site where we will be leading a boat dive in the next few days. The site is on the fringing reef against the island the coral drops off from about 6 feet to around 60 feet in about 30 yards distance. I had never been there before so we snorkeled to get familiar with the site before we lead our boat dive. After that we got back and Brett and I started to get our SCUBA gear together to go dive Gump to take photos of the coral. While we were gathering our stuff, Andy swam into site of the dock from Gump Reef and was yelling at us for help. He was saying that he lost his buddy and that he couldn't find him. At first we were not sure if it was a joke but when we looked at Keith, we knew that it was a dive master related drill. Brett, Katrina, and I all asked him questions about what his buddy was wearing and where he last saw him. We got into the water and started searching for this lost buddy. Brett ended up finding a six pack of Hinano with my sandals zip-tied to it fitting the description given by Andy. We all had a good laugh when we brought the "victim" up to the surface. After a quick discussion about what we did with Keith, Brett and I did the Gump dive. Once we finished I came in to do some work before we had sushi for dinner. Keith had bought some blue fin tuna steaks at the store so that we could roll it into sushi. It was super good to eat that fresh of sushi. It was also nice to be reacquainted with wasabi which I haven't had any of since before I arrived in French Polynesia. After dinner we enjoyed each others company by having a few drinks and socializing for a while. I decided to leave at 10 however to go up the hill to watch the New Zealand vs. Australia rugby game with Prinz. I had never watched a rugby game before but I really enjoyed learning about it by watching it. I could definitely understand how football came from rugby. The New Zealand team ended up loosing 25-20 which was a bummer because Prinz's family is from New Zealand and him and his friend were rooting for the New Zealand team. The game lasted two hours and by the time I got back down the hill it was past two in the morning. I have to get up early tomorrow to go grocery shopping so I think I am going to go to bed. Until later.

August 25th Day 64

Today when I woke up the wind was still howling like it had been all night. At points it sounded like there was a freight train outside of the dorms. It had calmed a bit by this morning, but it was still very windy. But because there was no swell today, we decided to go out to the fore reef to take a shot at retaking some plot photos that didn't turn out so well. It took us one dive to do it and despite the current in the upper water column, the diving conditions were just fine. When we got back, I worked on data for the rest of the day until my daily dive on Gump to take pictures of my corals. By the time we had gotten ready to get in the water, it was very windy again but this doesn't matter too much with Gump. What it did do however was kick up a ton of sediment which made the visibility rather bad. The dive took a bit longer than usual because of the limited visibility but we got the job done. Brett had brought down his spear gun to try to get a parrotfish for Russ and Sally's research but the water was far to murky to be doing that. It made me feel better that he wasn't shooting fish while I was working. Otherwise I could have ended up with a spear in my leg. Saw some cool stuff on the reef though which were quite incredible. First, I saw a couple of flounders have a bit of a turf war right in front of me which was much like something out of Planet Earth. Then later in the dive I saw the biggest moray eel that I have ever seen. It is along the transect so I am pretty sure I will be able to find it tomorrow so that I can take a good picture. On my way back to the steps I stayed shallow to look for the helmet gurnard fish that I had seen a few weeks ago but it was nowhere in sight. Once we got back we were done for the day and I headed in to take a nice warm shower. Worked on Fulbright until having burgers for dinner and then got back to work on it after dinner. I now have a good idea of what I am doing for my project but I have to write my proposal in the next week and a half which is a bit of a rush. When I went to go across the street, I realized my sandals were not there. Somehow my sandals are gone but I hope that they turn up. I'm super tired now so I am going to go to bed. Until later.

August 24th Day 63

To follow up on what we did yesterday, Andy and I headed out to the Rapid plots to zip tie the coral cages to the newly cemented eyebolts. We swam the entire Rapid site to do this and I saw a few cool things along the way. For one, I saw this pelagic reef fish that I have only seen a couple times before and managed to get a decent picture of it. It was cruising along the reef with a companion most likely looking for a small fish to eat for an easy meal. Although these guys can swim incredibly fast, they were just cruising along. After I saw these fish, I saw a giant grazing group of parrotfish that were scouring the reef for algae. It was incredible to see a swarm of a couple hundred parrotfish go from spot to spot on the reef in search of food. Seeing as these fish are relatively large compared to most reef fish, it was an impressive site to see. When we finished we headed back in and I took my time to myself after we got back to work on analyzing my pictures from my coral study on Gump Reef. After lunch I did some data entry and then got out to do another trips to Gump reef to take pictures of the corals. When we came out of the water, it was relatively windy and it certainly looked like a storm was coming. After picking up my gear, I headed off to a before dinner dive master class and then made peanut sauce pad thai for dinner. I had never made it before but it turned out pretty well. Right after dinner, I got to work on Fulbright and some more coral picture analysis. It seems like these last few weeks are going to be a bit of a squeeze for me. Plenty of work to worry about aside from my work during the day.

August 23rd Day 62

Today we went out to the fore reef again to go and secure the coral cages by putting in eye-bolts for securing the cages to the bottom. Four of us went out in two teams to do the drilling and cementing. It went really quickly and we got it done a lot faster than we thought. There was a bit of confusion because we hadn't established which group was doing which plots for the second dive. By the time Andy and I got down on the second dive we only had to do one plot which was nice. When I got back to the station, there wasn't a whole lot more to do so I ended up doing data entry for the rest of the day. When the late afternoon rolled around, this rainstorm came in right as we were preparing to do my coral pictures on Gump. They ended up turning out better than most days because the clouds blocked out the excess light that often whites out my pictures since I use a flash. After that was done, we the day was done and we packed it in. I worked on my Fulbright until dinner and after dinner until I went to bed. We had brucetta for dinner with noodles and this tomato based sauce that were all delicious. Now I got to go to bed because I have to get up early to go to the store. Until later.

August 22nd Day 61

Today was our final day of photos out at the Rapid plots. We got to it right away in the morning and it went pretty smoothly out there. Didn't see anything eye popping today but it's hard to see anything while you are on the ground face down taking pictures. We came back in for lunch with only one plot to go so we ended up taking a long lunch. We then went back out for a last, quick dive to finish up. I dove with a smaller tank than I had been while taking pictures since we only were doing one more. After we got back, I strapped on another tank right away and did another set of my coral pictures. I got distracted a few times chasing down fish to get a decent picture of them but my efforts were futile for the most part. After we finished my pictures the day was pretty much over. Got off a little early to work on stuff before dinner. I also got a chance to talk to Erica for a bit before bed which was nice. I'm getting really tired from all this work so I will start fresh tomorrow. Until later.

August 21st Day 60

Today was another day for plot photos. We did the usual routine of going out to the Rapid site and taking the pictures. Unusually while we were taking pictures, I saw a titan triggerfish about 30 feet behind Andy. These guys are big like I have said before and are known to chase away divers from their nests if they are roosting. This guy was picking up entire rocks and moving them to look for food underneath. It was quite impressive and cool to see this giant fish eat for a while when we were doing the pictures. Also I ended up hearing my first whale sounds underwater today which was cool. They sound just like Russ's imitation. When I came up from the dive, I asked Andy, "Is that Russ down there or did I hear whales?" Apparently one of our other boats saw whales a half mile away from where we were and got to snorkel with them. They later explained to us that the whales they saw may have been the ones we heard. I really hope that within the next two weeks I get the chance to see one of those guys underwater. After we were done, we came back in, had lunch, and then did my coral pictures on Gump. Many of my corals are bleaching and it appears that my experiment is turning into more of a sedimentation experiment than an accidental parrot fish bite experiment. The rest of my day after my survey was spent drilling tiles which is thrilling as always. While I was doing that, I saw the big group of computer programmers move into the dorms for their five day bio informatics conference here at Gump. Some certainly looked the part. We all were looking at them saying, "ah the computer geeks have arrived." Seems like they are all nice people so they shouldn't be a problem. It is just a bit overwhelming having 20 people move in when we have been living with 12 inside the dorms all summer. Cooking dinner was funny tonight because at first I think the computer people thought we were the ones making them dinner. Turns out they are being fed breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day they are here so they must have thought we were the cooks. We made stir fry tonight and it turned out pretty good. We threw some pumpkin in there which was a bit different but it tasted just fine. After dinner it was pretty much work time for me. I have been jamming to get applications together for Fulbright and the assistant collector job at UCSB so I have been super busy. Because the internet wasn't working and I was so busy, I didn't even get a chance to talk to Erica on our one year anniversary which was disappointing. Now I am getting tired so going to go to bed. Until later.