Monday, December 22, 2008

french polynesia

happy holidays! pete and i just returned from a five and half week stint in french polynesia. we spent four weeks on the island of moorea helping teach a UCSC marine ecology field course. the students spent five weeks in santa cruz learning about coral reef ecology and then spent four weeks in moorea carrying out independent research projects. our days in moorea consisted of eating breakfast on the veranda of our beach house, diving or snorkeling with students in the morning and afternoon, dinner, planning for the next day, sleep. repeat. we were hosted by the french field station CRIOBE while we were in moorea. they allow us to use their boats and vehicles, provide us with our meals, and the students live at the station. the water in moorea is a welcome change from santa cruz - clear AND warm, which makes the field work a lot easier. unfortunately, the waters around moorea have had an outbreak of the crown-of-thorns seastar. these seastars are bad for a number of reasons - they eat coral so most of the reef is now dead coral, and they are extremely toxic. they have enormous spines (see photo below) that will go through a wetsuit with no problem. unfortunately, i had a little run-in with one of these guys. we were on a night dive with our students at one of our sites and my leg brushed up against one that i had not seen. :( fortunately, the three punctures did not get infected and i managed to avoid a trip to the emergency room!

teaching staff - melissa, tish, alessio, jimmy, my pete, giacomo, advisor pete, joe


opunohu bay - our home

shark tooth mountain - the view from the field station


giant clam


moray eels


crown of thorns seastar - these guys are BAD!

after the class ended, pete and i headed to another group of islands in french polynesia called the tuamotus. the tuamotus are all atolls compared to the high standing islands in the society island chain (moorea, tahiti, etc.). our first island was fakarava - a sleepy little atoll known exclusively for it's amazing diving. the first day we were there we were fortunate to get on a dive trip to the south pass of the atoll. it is a trip that dive shops do rarely because it is 60kms from their base. the first photo below was taken from that pass...the sharks were AMAZING! there are also no crown-t0-thorns on the atolls, so the live coral cover was incredible. the fish were also more numerous and bigger than anything we saw in moorea. almost all of the dives we did were drift dives through the passes of the atolls. these dives are neat because the current creates congregations of fish and as a result their predators. we would start our dives in blue water where we would see lots of pelagic species and then drift in over the reef and see those species. the current was so fast some days that i felt like superman underwater...we were flying and there was no stopping! we would eventually drop down into a bowl while the current continued overhead. this bowl, called ali baba, was filled with thousands of fish doing the same thing we were...escaping the current.
we had six days on fakarava. we would usually dive in the morning and then take our bikes (provided by our pension) and find someplace to snorkel. we spent our evenings playing cards (loser had to do dishes) and pouring over the fish field guide to figure out which new species we had seen during the day.

fakarava sharks!


goat fish in ali baba - hundreds of them!


live coral


mode of transportation

after fakarava, we headed to rangiroa for a day. we were met at the airport by a dive operator that our fakarava dive outfit had arranged. jean-jacques wrote down what gear we needed and picked us up in the boat at our pension 30 minutes later. it worked out brilliantly! we did two dives in rangiroa - similar drift dives to fakarava, but slightly different. the pass is a lot deeper in rangiroa so we were not as close to the bottom there. we did see lots of different species - turtles, eagle rays, and our most prized fish of the tuamotus - the golden hawkfish! the hawkfish is one of mine and pete's favorites and the golden species is only found in the tuamotus. we had both been looking for it since we arrived and had had no luck. i spotted one in the last ten minutes of our first dive in rangiroa...we were so excited! (we know we're nerds)

school of barracudas


golden hawkfish - our prize fish

after our short stay on fakarava, we headed to our final destination of tikehau. tikehau is a tiny little place where we had nothing more planned than relaxing. our pension was on its own little island and we were picked up from the airport in a boat. the snorkeling in the lagoon was not very good, but the waves were small enough that we were able to cross the crest and snorkel on the outside of the atoll. the first day we snorkeled out there we swam out to the edge of the reef so we were in blue water. as soon as we arrived there, a whole mess of gray reef sharks starting coming up from the depths straight at us! it was slightly intimidating even though they were no bigger than i was. they started circling around pete...there were 22 of them! then a big school of barracudas came in and started following us around. the site was also hawkfish central, so we checked off another two species we had not seen before. tikehau definitely fit the bill of relaxation...
tikehau intertidal

while we were in moorea, pete was offered a job with the US Geological Survey in santa cruz. after days of deliberation, he decided to take the job. his last day at the university will be january 2nd. he is excited for the new challenges his new position (marine engineer) will bring but is sad to be leaving the university after ten years.

the next six months will be busy for me as well. i am hoping to finish my phd by june 2009 and am actively writing grants and applying for post-docs in the bay area. keep your fingers crossed!

cassie turned eleven last week and is as spunky as ever. she was really excited when i came home, and i am so happy to have her around me again.

my niece madeline turns ten tomorrow and is giving her leukemia a run for it's money. her perseverance and unwavering attitude have been amazing to watch. all signs point to her treatments working well and her body fighting the cancer cells with avengence. she's been able to keep up with her school work and was able to go to a full week of school before the break started.

we're off to oakland to spend christmas with pete's family. wishing you a lovely holiday and best wishes for 2009!