Death Snorkel

We took a grand tour of the island today to get ourselves acquainted with the whole place. Our first stop of the day was Death Snorkel, which is a stretch of reef that has quite a strong current when it gets up and running. It wasn't too strong when we went, since it was still fairly early in the morning, but we definitely noticed it.

As meanacing as currents are, though, it's really the urchins you've got to watch for. Case in point:


These spiky little bundles of joy are there waiting if you screw up and don't watch where you're going.


Fire coral too.

Even still, the place was awesome. The water was clear and warm, and fish and other organisms were everywhere.


Corals with a butterfly fish (yellow) and a damselfish (black).

A wrasse (I forget what kind) and the omnipresent urchins.

Butterfly fish amongst the coral.

A coronet fish above some coral.

Christmas tree worms. I saw blue, white, pink, orange, and red versions of these, but this picture came out the best. The "tree" portion is actually feathery feelers that filter water to feed.

You all are in luck, by the way - I've been nominated official picture-taker, as I have volunteered to update the photo database of all of the organisms commonly found here in Moorea. As a result, you'll probably be seeing a lot of the critters. But that's why I'm here in the first place, right?

Anyway, tomorrow is our first scuba dive in the outer reef (so far we've only been snorkeling). Hopefully I'll get some good pictures there too.

We made it!

Greetings from French Polynesia! This is a picture of the Faaa airport on the island of Tahiti, where we landed at approximately 5:45am local time after an 8-hour flight from LAX. At Faaa (PPT airport for the aeronautically inclined... i.e. Dad), the runway is literally 5 feet from the ocean and at an elevation of about 2 feet above sea level. It was built over two old reefs that they filled in to make one long landing strip, so it's pretty picturesque/unnerving when it's time to land.

After we landed and successfully made it through security/passport check, we lugged all our belongings to a bus, which took us to the ferry at the Papeete harbor, where we unloaded and then reloaded onto large luggage carts for the ferry. When we made it to Moorea harbor, it was time once again to unload and reload onto the Gump Station's trucks.


Between the 25-ish people, each of whom can have only 3 bags, we had over three truckloads of luggage and research gear, but we made it!


This is a view from the trucks on one of the first turns out of the harbor area. There is only one road in Moorea, which runs around the perimeter of the island for a total of 37 miles. Everything is small here - tiny cars, tiny road, tiny shops everywhere. It's really laid-back and the people are awesome.


This is a view from my dorm room window. Note the kayaks in the foreground, ocean in the back (it's only about 20 feet away from my window, and I can hear it now). We got the the Gump Station at around 9:30am local time (assume from here on out that all times are local from here on out - we're 3 hours behind Pacific Standard). After an orientation and lunch, a few of us went kayaking and then we all went snorkeling in the reef that runs along the station's beach. I didn't take the camera with me this time, but I plan to tomorrow - we're taking a grand tour of the whole island and looking at all the different types of habitats that it has.

And with that, goodnight to all - I've been up for quite a while now, so it's time for bed. Even if it is only 8:30.

The Blog is Officially Open

Ia orana!

Time to officially kick off the start of the blog with an update (but sadly, no pictures). Classes have been good though rather intensive. The class as a whole is getting an average of about 5 hours of sleep per night, weekends and myself included, with all of the papers we have to read and the all-day classes. Still, it's kind of fun spending the whole day with such a cool group of people - we've even taken one on as a houseguest for these two weeks, so she's been camping out in the living room since last Sunday night.

In Moorea we'll be doing two original research projects in different groups of three people each. So far it looks like the first project will be a study of tourist impacts on coral reefs, particularly in areas around Moorea's coastal hotels. We're hoping to find some sort of connection between the level of education regarding the reefs that is provided at the hotel and the level of damage that is seen in the reefs where the hotel guests tend to go. We recently changed our second project from a study of the effects of mangroves on soil and species composition to a study of sea urchin home ranges and whether the ranges' sizes are affected by their quality (good/plentiful algae, predators, etc). The cool thing about that project is the fact that urchins are nocturnal, so we're going to have to go snorkeling at night to track them. It's been done before, so it won't be too bad. Hopefully everything will go according to plan...


In other news, my post-graduation future looks pretty set. Check the links on the left (under "Post-Moorea") to see what's in store!

And with that, I'm off to do more research and write a project proposal. What fun.