I may have spoken a bit too soon about having stable internet! The heavy work load, coupled with a very congested, slow and often unavailable internet connection has led to slow posting. Two of the major reasons that we are in the Cook Islands are: to work with Guy Trimby of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory […]
I may have spoken a bit too soon about having stable internet! The heavy work load, coupled with a very congested, slow and often unavailable internet connection has led to slow posting. Two of the major reasons that we are in the Cook Islands are: to work with Guy Trimby of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory […]
August 9 was our last field day for the reef team and we set our record for reefs. We finished a total of 11 transects at three separate locations. I think we saw a total of five Crown of Thorns which was the first time I had seen them on the reef. We finished up […]
On August 6 the Reef team surveyed two sites. The second site, the Clam Hatchery, was definitely the highlight of the day. The 30-meter visibility left us in awe as we surveyed the reef. Clams were abundant and there were huge bommies with various types of coral. It was amazing to see cryptic clams living […]
On one of our last days of research on the motus of Aitutaki, the sandy beach crew sampled the motu of Maina. To our surprise, this motu turned out to be a nesting site for red-tailed tropic birds (Phaethon rubricauda) and we were sampling during breeding season. Like other seabird species, tropic birds make very […]
The sandy beach crew sampled beaches at two different motus yesterday and found some interesting results. Because sandy beaches tend to be low in diversity on their beach face, we changed our protocol for the Cooks to take more cores in the sand submerged in water than is our norm. As a consequence, we found […]
Today is our last day on Aitutaki and we are flying home to LAX tonight. It’s been an amazing trip! We have learned so many things and can never be thankful enough to all the people that helped make it happen.
On Aitutaki, Sunday is a day of rest for everyone. Except for 2 places All of the stores are closed and people spend the day with their families after morning religious ceremonies. This morning some of the group accompanied the professors to the local church and the rest of the group stayed to enter our […]
Fungia is a free moving coral, known commonly as the ‘Mushroom coral’ due to its shape. Sometimes they are found to be purplish but mostly brown. This is just one of the many species we were able to see first hand and learn about on Thursdays snorkel survey. Amazing!
Now that we are home let me give you a full account of what happened for the last few days. The day after (08/07/15) we had our little adventure we (the lagoon team) we lost another team member Julie because when she woke up the next day one of her eyes was super puffy and […]
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