NOAA's ship, the Hi`ialakai, visits Midway

The Hii`ialakai left Midway this morning about 9 a.m., after having been here a few days.  They had several science projects that they were studying here in the Midway area, as well as other areas in the NW Hawaiian archipelago.  Here are 2 of them:

• Dr. Carl Meyer from the Un. of Hawai`i and the Hawai`i Institute of Marine Biology is interested in the movements of top/apex predators among the Hawaiian islands.  On this expedition, I think he's attaching acoustic (sound) tags to fish known as groupers, probably the endemic Hawaiian grouper, Hapu`upu`u or Epinephelus quernus.  Dr. Meyer and his fellow scientists will be able to track these individual fish by following their tag's sound.

• Dr. Kelly Gleason maritime archaeologist with the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument conducts annual resurveys of known wrecks, as well as surveys in areas suspected to be locations for undiscovered historic wrecks.

The Hi`ialakai, and other research ships, are like floating communities.  Compare a ship to a house with this fun matching activity! 

Snorkel Trip to the Edge of the Atoll

Yesterday a group of us went snorkeling to the edge of the Atoll. Look at the aerial view of Midway Atoll shown on the top of FOAM's webpage; our boat took us to the "top" of the picture, or toward the north edge of the Atoll.

Now look at the picture with this post and you'll see what I saw from the boat, before I went in snorkeling: 2 of my friends are already in the water heading for the "emergent (sticking-out-of-the-water) reef!" We're on the inner, lagoon, shallow-water-side of the reef; you can see the waaaaaaay deep open-ocean swells breaking on the reef. Outside of the Atoll, the sea floor drops away pretty quickly to about 4000 meters (12,000 feet) deep; WOW!!

It was a wonderful snorkel trip! I don't have an underwater camera, but I'll try and get some pictures from friends who do, because we saw an amazing variety of fish and beautiful coral. My 2 favorite kinds of coral seemed to be glowing with neon colors; one was lemon-lime and the other was an incredible shade of lavender-purple.

As we were swimming back to the boat at the end of the snorkel, I saw Uncle Ulua! He was swimming right at me, and looked ferocious; in fact, it took my breath away to see him. He rolled his eye at me, as we swam past each other. I wish I had taken a moment to say "hi," but as I said, I was a little scared; he is a top or apex predator, after all.