Chapter III: Transit

As I said last time, transit days are pretty mundane. Today we spent our time doing some training on the Big Eyes (giant binoculars) for whale and dolphin spotting while three scientists landed on Nihoa.

We were extremely lucky today and the seas were calm so landing at Nihoa was a breeze. It can be very treacherous when there is a south swell rolling in. Kehau S., Brenda B. and Tenaya N. hiked along the coast to the only sandy beach on the island to have a look at what monk seals were around. We needed to stop at Nihoa to make sure everything was normal with the resident seals before we attempt to move our young seals there from French Frigate Shoals. There were a total of 41 seals spotted with 6 nursing pups and 4 weaned pups. That is a lot of seals.

The remaining scientists spent time doing whale observations from the top of the ship (more below). Research music today was provided by Adele, G. Love, Modest Mouse, Gary Jules, and Bon Iver.

Scientist of the Day: Marie H.
Today's SOD is Marie, our token cetacean (whale and dolphin) biologist on board. Marie is headed up to Pearl and Hermes to help with our monk seal field camp there...along the way we are trying to help her keep an eye out for some whales.

To do this you use Big Eye binoculars and scan from the top of the ship. Add a slightly rolling ocean to the mix and you end up with 6 very ill seal biologists. We will continue to try to help, but apparently we are all a bit soft.


Marie's favorite food is brownies with haupia ice cream.

Her favorite hobby is surfing.

One of Marie's happiest moments in her life was her wedding earlier this year to John H. I was there, it was lovely.

Tomorrow we reach Mokumanana (Necker Island) and will do a similar survey. But before that tonight is BINGO in the main mess! Things could get crazy...stay tuned.