Chapter XXXII: One Last Look At Nihoa

We're almost home, just a few more days. But on our way we have Nihoa island to check on one last time.

Fortunately on this visit, we have beautiful weather and we are able to get all of our scientist ashore safely. The weather has been very nice for the past few days, which makes our eastbound transits much nicer. If the normal northeast trade winds are blowing, our eastbound transits are heading directly into the wind which makes the ride on the ship a bit rough. On this day, we arrived to clear skies and calm seas.

Our goal today is to see if the pups that were nursing when we were here on our last visit have weaned. We also want to do a population count and see if the translocated weaners and seals with our satellite tags are around. But first, we need to hike over to the beach with all of our gear.

Arriving at the beach, we find the usual rogues gallery of seals. Since this is the only beach on the island, it can get very crowded. Today is no different and we find a number of seals laying around.

On our patrol of the beach, we find three weaned seal pups without flipper tags. We capture them one at a time to give them their flipper tags and take measurements. After we're done, they go right back to playing and bothering the other seals. Ahh...kids now days.

Then we see them interspersed among the seals on the beach. With our satellite tags still attached to their backs they swim along the shoreline and sleep on the cool wet sand. They seem to be doing what seals do naturally, which hopefully means the satellite tags are collecting a lot of useful data. In a few months the batteries in the tags will run down and the seals will start molting the tags off. But, till then they'll give us a brief insight into the life of the seals at Nihoa.

With our work done, we say goodbye to Nihoa for this year. We also give our thanks for allowing us safe passage and watching over us during our visits.

Photos courtesy of Mark Sullivan.

Chapter XXXI: Mahalo Nui Loa French Frigate Shoals!

Erin, Mark and I spent twelve fantastic days in the lovely FFS with Dave, Jessie and all of the amazing wildlife. We appreciate Dave and Jessie’s hospitality, and their allowing us to assist in the seabird counts and banding.

The birds definitely rule Tern Island!

We accomplished all of our monk seal research goals, and enjoyed the scenery along the way. Here are just a few pix from our underwater explorations that our trusty Montauk took us on:

And of course, we’ll end with some seal pix to hold you over until next time…

ALOHA!

Chapter XXX: The Chad's Crib

Hi everyone, and welcome to my "crib". I thought I'd spend some time to give you a tour of my home away from home. So come on it and take a look around...

Here we start in my living room. I've got bulkhead to bulkhead carpeting. There is plenty of room for one chair. The fluorescent lighting and beige metal lockers and shelves gives the room a very bright office environment feel.

Let's move over to my bedroom. I have a very roomy twin sized bed. The bed is very firm; it's almost like sleeping on a flat mattress laid on a hard metal shelf. I've changed out the gray wool blankets for my own comforter to add some color to the room. Next to the bed is my walk-up-to closet with my various field clothes.

I have a guest room that's next to my bedroom, well, it's actually it's above my bedroom. It's spacious enough if you're less than 5'6" and have a prehensile tail to help you climb up to the bed.

I also have my own head (nautical term for the bathroom), or as my friends like to call it,"The Reading Room", complete with a shower stall and, most importantly, floor drains. The remarkable thing about this room is that emergency drills and pages occur only once I'm committed to using it. Strange...

Here we have my entertainment center. I have a 17" flat screen TV and DVD player to watch episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Lost. One can only guess why we like to watch shows about people lost on spaceships and stuck on islands while we're at sea on ships or working on islands. Anyway, also on my entertainment center is a desk where I do my work and also write blogs, hopefully for your entertainment. Fortunately the desk is directly in line with my door, so to people passing by, it looks like I'm hard at work when I'm really surfing the web (don't tell anyone, lets just keep this between you and me).

Well, that's about it. Hope you enjoyed checking out my crib. I like it, it's been home for over 100 days this year. It's in a good neighborhood, and the commute to work is very short. The best thing is I wake up to the smell of breakfast cooking every morning...PANCAKES!!

Chapter XXIX: Aloha Midway

Once a major naval base, and a prized piece of land in WWII, Midway Atoll now serves as a haven for sea birds, monk seals, green sea turtles, and an abundant marine ecosystem. Under the watchful eye of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the wildlife has taken back the atoll and flourished in the safety of its lagoon and on its islands. Still, we cannot forget the dedication and sacrifice of our armed forces during and after the war. Throughout the island we see memorials and monuments testifying to their bravery in the defense of our nation and fight for our freedoms.

After three days at Midway, it's time to say goodbye. We had a very nice visit and got a lot of work done. During our August trip we saw two untagged weaned pups. We were able to tag one of them, but the other eluded us. Fortunately, on this visit we found the weaner on Eastern Island and got it tagged.

On our boat rides across the lagoon we meet up with the resident spinner dolphins. As they come in close to ride our bow wake and check us out, we can hear them whistling and chirping through the water. Someone once asked,"Why do they jump and spin in the air?". I think the answer is simply, because they can.

We also said goodbye to Jason, Jessie, Tracy, and Marie who caught a chartered flight back to Honolulu. After a few weeks in the field, they seem ready to return to life back in the city. A ride in the Midway "limo" to the airport reminded them of the conveniences of life in the modern world.

So as we depart Midway to continue with our journey, we want to say thank you for the hospitality and, till our next visit, Aloha.

Chapter XXVIII: Marine Debris- Yuck!

In recognition of the International Coastal Cleanup Day, we (all 5 of us) here at Tern Island did our part by removing a couple of large net masses from the beach. Erin and I could have surely done it by ourselves, but we let Mark (AKA "Guns") and Dave (the only one who knows how to operate the forklift safely) contribute.

The sea was angry that day, my friends! Jessie photographed our victorious wrestling match with the first net, which went three rounds: digging it out of the sand, floating it down the beach, then hauling it back up the beach to the forklift. It put up a good fight, but it didn’t stand a chance because those horrible images of entangled seals, turtles and seabirds inspired us to not giving up despite its weight and the crashing waves. Once the second net saw our strength and determination, it threw in the towel making it easy to haul up the beach. We felt all warm-&-fuzzy inside knowing that these nets would no longer threaten the Tern Island marine life.

Besides entanglement dangers, pieces of net and plastic are eaten by sealife. This can be especially harmful if adult seabirds feed their chicks this toxic meal.

Here are a couple plastic bottles that have been munched on by small sharks (notice the jagged edges from the bites). It obviously can’t be good for the sharks’ digestive systems if they are actually consuming this stuff!

I was happy (well, not actually happy, but…) to find these “sharkastics” here, as I collect them during marine debris cleanups on the main Hawaiian Islands. Yes, I invented the word sharkastic. Kinda has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Hopefully it will catch on because sharkastics certainly are great educational tools once folks realize what they are. Consider yourself one of those enlightened folks now, so get out there and find some of your own sharkastics- it’s fun! And it’s not a difficult treasure hunt. I have found that nearly every piece of thin plastic has some evidence of shark bites. They range from simple pointy punctures to quite dramatic rows of teeth marks that will surely “WOW” your friends and family. Extra points for the biggest tooth radius, although the bigger sharks are probably just grinding the bottles whole… Comforting thought, eh? Oh, while you’re at it, if you could please pick up the other rubbish you come across as well that would be great. Mahalo!

Marine debris is an issue throughout the state of Hawai'i, and there's a special NOAA team who has removed tons of debris from the NWHI reefs and beaches. Here in the FFS, Tern and Trig seem relatively debris-free compared to East Island and especially the Gins. That’s probably where their names originated (besides the crystal clear water)- this is where all the alcohol bottles collect! Even on the most remote and picturesque atoll, there’s this constant reminder of the ugliness of society. Bummer.

On a happy note, you just never know what you’ll find during beach cleanups…

Chapter XXVII: The Pearl in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

On a clear calm day, we were heading to Seal Kittery island, the southwestern most island within Pearl and Hermes atoll, when my teammate started yelling,"Stop!! Oh my god...stop the boat!". Fearing I was going to run over a shallow reef, or worse, I immediately pulled back on the throttle. "What is it?!" I asked her. She was staring over the side of the boat into the clear water. "This is it...THIS is where all the blue in the ocean comes from!" she said, still staring through the glassy surface into the deep waters surrounding the boat.

Pearl and Hermes atoll holds a special place in my heart. Even after over 10 field season, I'm still amazed at the sights and sound of the atoll. From my very first visit to today, there is always something that make me stop and say,"Wow...never seen that before!". The colors of the atoll span the entire spectrum, from the deep blue waters to the bright white sand.

The atoll is home to a plethora of wildlife both above and below the water. There is not much land, just five islands large enough for the various sea birds to nest on. Two to four additional sand spits add to the beach area for seals and turtles to rest. With a minimal amount of bickering, the wildlife does manage to share the limited real estate.

The immensity of the atoll can be intimidating, especially when boating between islands. Some trips take you out of the sight of land, giving you the feeling of being alone in the middle of the Pacific on a very small boat. On a calm day, this can be a spiritual experience. When it's rough it's just scary. Fortunately, on most days the spinner dolphins are around to keep us company.

Each northwestern Hawaiian island has it's own unique quality, and everyone working up here has their favorite. You can probably guess which is mine.

Chapter XXVI: Ode to the French Frigate Shoals Honu

Here's where the “and more” part of the ‘Monk Seals and More’ blog comes into play... Those who know me have been expecting me to find a way to write about turtles at some point, and are likely surprised that it took me this long. Well, The FFS Team (Mark, Erin and Cheryl) has been super busy with the seals out here, but we just can’t help but notice all the turtles crawling around. Where do all those Hawaiian green sea turtles that we see in the main Hawaiian Islands come from? It’s been well documented by NOAA/NMFS George Balazs and his turtle team that over 90% of them hatch from right here in the beautiful French Frigate Shoals. Good choice, honu!

East Island is the most popular nesting destination, but all accessible strips of sand and coral rubble beaches on all these islands are totally covered with what resembles bomb blast craters (the nesting turtles’ body pits): Tern, Trig, Gin, and Little Gin. Seals love to lounge in these pits, by the way. We’re at the tail end of nesting season now, but with the typical 2-month incubation period that puts us in peak hatchling season. Lucky us! One night we watched ~80 hatchlings make a break for the ocean in the moonlight- an awesome sight indeed. Their tiny flippers make tracks that kinda look like bicycle tracks, and with this high quantity of emergences there’s not a smooth patch of sand to be found.

Every morning just after sunrise, we take turns checking certain spots around Tern Island for any seabirds, seals or turtles that get themselves trapped amongst the seawall rubble. This dawn patroller also looks for hatchlings that are heading in the wrong direction. The vegetation lining the beach is littered with misoriented hatchling corpses, sadly. Surprisingly, we often find them crawling down the middle of the runway, far far away from where they need to be.

The heat of the day is obviously too much for them to handle, so we scoop them up and take them to the nearest beach and let them go.

We of course fend off the crabs, because they are ferocious predators. Once they reach the water though, they’re on their own to swim the gauntlet of fish, sharks and diving frigates. These tiny turtles have a lot going against them in this big scary world of ours, so it’s the least we can do to give them a little helping hand.

Because hey, we all get a little lost sometimes…

On our seal patrol of Tern yesterday morning, Erin and I stumbled upon a major emergence of ~70 hatchlings. We took a video clip of the whole thing (coming soon to a theater near you). Here are just a few pictures of how it unfolded:

We’ve also been helping out the USFWS volunteer, Jessie, with nest excavations. Digging up a smelly turtle nest doesn’t sound like much fun to most people, but I’m a turtle nerd so regardless of how many hundreds of times I’ve done it, each one usually leads to something interesting. Even if we don’t rescue any live hatchlings, the digging of these ~3 ft deep holes has its rewards for sure. Check out these fine examples of early and late (alien-like) development:

Besides the nesting scene, honu can be found cruising around the reef and basking on the beaches. Ahhh, paradise…