The Pacific Ocean lived up to it's name as the ship made it's way to the small boat deployment waypoint this morning. The water was like glass with winds gusting a whopping 5 knots and barely the hint of a northwest swell wrapping to the lee of the atoll. Yes, we are back at French Frigate Shoals to drop off three of our monk seal scientist (Mark, Erin, and Cheryl) to look after the young seals. Although the sign on Tern Island indicates there is a population of four, there are only two US fish and Wildlife Service residents left on the island. Our three scientist have increased the population 150%, at least for a few weeks.
After our morning safety and operational meeting, the crew launched the boat and transported us to Tern. The ride in was good and our boat operator kept us dry and comfortable.
There wasn't much setting up to do, and we were all anxious to take a look around the atoll. We launched our boat and headed to Trig island, just east of Tern and a short boat ride along the reef.
French Frigate Shoals is a very beautiful place full of wildlife both above and below the water. My marine biologist tendencies mainly keep me looking below the water, and French Frigate Shoals doesn't disappoint. Sharks, green sea turtles, and dolphins are always around.
On this day, however, we were looking for a couple of pups that were recently weaned from their mothers.
The first look around the island proved disappointing. We saw no sign of either weaner or mom. However, around the last bend we finally found not one, but two of the weaners we were looking for.
Unfortunately they were both playing in the water. So, we wait...
And wait...
And wait...
And when it seemed like the seals would thwart us again...our patience was rewarded with both fat and happy weaners coming up on the beach in front of us.
Ten minutes later, we had both weaners in stretcher nets and on our way to Tern island where we would release them on a safe sandy beach, hopefully out of the reach of any hungry sharks.
With a job well done, we left our monk seal team on Tern and headed back to the ship. They'll stay at French Frigate Shoals to look for more weaned seals while we continue with our cruise. We'll be back in a few weeks to pick them up. But for now, we're on to our next destination...Laysan Island.
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