Heron Island day 18

Last full day on Heron!

Two dives, one at a "mystery bommie" not on the charts; very nice.

Stats:
Specimens: 268
Species: 18, 43 including morphs
Beers remaining: 3
Sharks seen while diving: 8 to 10
Deepest dive: 29.3
Shallowest dive: 2.2, plus intertidal walks
Best lunch: Tuna steak with wasabi mayo
Best dinner: Tough to call, but chicken and pasta?
Best dessert: Sticky date

Until next time...

Heron Island day 17

Second to last day of diving, visited Masthead Reef. Some samples, and a school of sweetlips hanging out under a bommie made the dives enjoyable.

Sunset drinks at the resort, and a great dinner (as usual with the chef's great talent!).

Stats:
Samples: 258
Beers left: 5 + some more with Kareen

Off to do laundry. Last post (?) from Heron tomorrow.

Heron Island days 15 and 16

Day 16: Windy and our first real rain here today. The island now smells like guano.

Spearfishing in the morning for fish parasites, followed by a single dive at North Wistari in the afternoon. No new species; two samples.

Dinner: Pork in bacon with rice and apples
Beers: 2
Papers accepted during this trip: 2
Coffees: 3
Chai: 2
Samples total: 247
Species: 17?
Sharks seen today: 1 gray

Two dives tomorrow, weather permitting. In the last four days, Aaron, Rae, Monika and Lynda have left. Gary leaves tomorrow!

Day 15: Great dive, one more zoanthid species! And a looooong nap (5 hours). Must have been tired.

Heron Island day 14

Very exciting dive today.

First dive was the channel, deep and interesting, but pretty mellow. No current, and only few samples. However, during the second and more shallow dive, a school of baitfish swam over me. Then, six gray sharks swam by me, and one hung around. They were eating the baitfish, and were very "alert", twitching as I breathed. Cool, but pretty scary, they were probably 20 feet from me. Needless to say, stuck with my buddy after that.

Stats:
Samples: 238
Species: 16?
Beers consumed: 35
Longest nap: 5 hours 10 minutes (today!).

See you tomorrow.

Heron Island day 13

Great dives today at Sykes, tomorrow looks like the weather is getting worse... First dive was a deep wall, followed by a shallow bommie dive. Lots of nice samples, especially on the shallow dive. Sunset swim and beer, great dinner (roast beef) and dessert.

Facts:
Samples: 223
Species: 16 or 17 - one new Zoanthus today (vietnamensis sensu Uchida)
Beers consumed: 31

Tomorrow is a 7 am start, so up at 6! Zzzz...

Heron Island day 12

Day 12; back on diving. Two dives, one shallow and one deep. Great samples from the deep dive, including the new species and some nice octocorals.

Samples: 204
Species: 15 or 16 (one mysterious sample today)

Dinner: Kangaroo!

Tomorrow is Sykes Reef again, our favourite spot thus far!

Heron Island day 11

Finally a day of rest - no diving! Caught up on laundry and other important things.... And had a nice snorkel on the reef in the afternoon.

Stats
Samples: 192
Species: 15

Dinner was a nice (sirloin?) steak, followed by dessert. Tomorrow is diving again, need to do more intertidal work as well.

Heron Island day 10

A bit late on the post today; we had a beach BBQ and small party last night. Today is a day in the lab, with an afternoon snorkel.

Yesterday; two dives on North Heron Reef at First Point. The current really picked up at the end of the first dive, thankfully the "Jesus Line" was out...

Update:

Samples: 172, still at 15 species.
Dive total: 19, 10 days in a row
Dinner: Steak and salad, beer, whisky

More later today.

Heron Island day 9

9th day of diving - back to Lamont Reef today. Found one more species, now have a total of 14 to 15 species!

Total samples: 164
Dives: 17
Laundry done: Once
Days since proper shoes have been worn: 6
Sleepiness: maximum

Tomorrow are 2 shallow dives, and then a beach party! Saturday is finally a day of rest.

Dinner: Chicken and beans, and the best dessert! Kudos to the chef.

Heron Island day 8; blog

Check out the CReefs blog:
http://www.aims.gov.au/creefs/latest-field-trip-heron-2009.html

Another day of diving.
Totals: 151 samples. 13-14 species.
Today: 5 new specimens of the "mystery" zoanthid!

Lots of great food.

Done for the day, beer and sunset, followed by lots of paperwork.

More tomorrow...

Heron Island day 7

Still diving...

Update: 138 specimens, 1 new species today.

Supposedly a turtle tried to mate with me yesterday, but I didn't even notice it right behind me as I sampled.

More dives tomorrow, but should be easy, second trip to Sykes.

off to bed soon!

Heron Island day 6

Lots of samples todays from two dives and an intertidal reef walk. Combined with 5 hours of sleep; one sleepy zoanthid researcher. Still have all the samples to process...

Update: 124 samples
Total species 11-12 (2 new today; Zoanthus vietnamensis, and "true" Palythoa mutuki.

Hope to make the sunset beer...

Heron Island day 5

Weather is still great. 8 of us went to Broomfield Reef for two dives. Not so many zoanthids, but still some nice samples. Spawn slicks on the way and back from the reef, stretching for kilometers. Mass spawning is massive on the GBR! The slick has a distinct smell as well.

Facts: zoanthid species: still at 9-10 (including 2 new)
total samples: 93

Watched a loggerhead sea turtle give birth today after dinner.

Dinner: Roast lamb.

Will try some intertidal tomorrow.

Heron Island day 4

Great day today! 30 samples. Dove the wall at Sykes Reef, lots of diversity, and rich reef. No wind, waves small - all in all great. Also, very cool morphotypes of Zoanthus, fluorescent orange with fluorescent yellow tentacles.

Facts: zoanthid species: 9-10 (including 2 new)

Tomorrow - up at 6 am; these CReefs trips are intense and fun.

Did I mention dinner? Steak and lobster.

Urp.

JDR

Heron Island day 3

Zoanthid facts from Creefs Heron Island 2009
Species: still 7
Samples: 46

Tomorrow we head to a vertical wall, hoping for some Brachycnemina. Flat weather, no waves for the next four days, so this our big chance to go far afield. Sharks and turtles commonly visible on the flat water surfaces. No sign of my lost camera though.

Pictures will hopefully get uploaded when the net is working well. JDR over and out.

Heron Island day 2

Hard to upload pictures here; the internet link is satellite-based.

Updates from day 2:
1. Two dives for me today, both at North Heron Reef, backreef area. First dive was on a sandy channel bottom, lots of nice animals I had never seen, and lots of one species of zoanthid.
2. Second dive in coral and sand, shallower. Much more diverse, and a huge loggerhead checked us out on the way in.
On the way in we saw a school of baitfish getting eaten by birds and a shark - which was bigger than anything I had seen thus far in Okinawa!

Zoanthid species total: 7 (Palythoa caesia, P. heliodiscus, P. sp. 2 sensu Burnett 1997, P. cf. mutuki, Zoanthus aff. coppingeri sensu Burnett 1997, Z. sp. 1, unknown zoanthid sensu Fujii 2009
Samples: 30

Sunset and beer is a nice daily tradition observed both days thus far.

More tomorrow.

update from Costa Rica

A brief update on things here in Costa Rica.

1. Staying at my host's place, a prof here called Jorge Cortes. He has a nice house with a swimming pool and sauna - needless to say I am relaxing when not working. No internet at his place, so only when I am in the lab here at CIMAR.
2. Went to the Caribbean coast from the 8th to 11th, stayed at a place called Cahuita - check GoogleEarth. Very nice place, great food (great food everywhere here!), but no diving as there were waves. So did some snorkeling, very bad visibility, but got 16 specimens. Not bad considering the conditions.
3. Went to the Volcan Poas today, hiked around at 2700 m. Cool and cloudy, it is a cloud forest. Was very nice for a change.
4. Talk tomorrow at the Universidad de Costa Rica, even announced in the paper! I hope many people come.
5. There are animals everywhere here, I have seen: monkeys, raccoons, sloths, iguanas, frogs, butterflies, and of course zoanthids.

Anyway, some work now, then souvenir shopping. Talk tomorrow, and then museum work Wednesday, and leave Thursday. Hope everyone is genki.

JDR

Lab Meeting 2008.6.18

Summer is here, officially we are done with rainy season. And tomorrow is the beach.

Anyways, this week's announcements:

1. Lagoon - Sato-san at the Ishigaki International Coral Reef Monitoring Center has requested our lab to write an article introducing research done in our lab. This is a great opportunity to get the word out on our work, so we will all write something.
2. Room plan - we discussed space, and the potential addition of new students. Looks like we will be crowded, but we all voted not to move to another older room.
3. Diving tomorrow - Bise! Leave at 08:40. JDR, FS, YI, TF, ES will participate.
4. ES at Sesoko this week, checking Palythoa spawning. We hope something happens...
5. Histology room - the 5th floor room is now ready for use. We must record names with Hidaka-sensei.
6. FS will go to Hedo this weekend. Email him if you are interested.
7. Shopping at Makeman - JDR. Will buy sample trays, and a few odds and ends.
8. Presentation - JDR talked about reticulate evolution and its potential in zoanthids.

Today's picture in from Miyako-jima last week, YI is a sunaginchaku-sensei. Good practice for the 3rd years perhaps!

More Singapore

Hi everyone!

Today we went to Cyrene Reef, a beautiful spot right in the middle of all the Singapore shipping lanes. It is a submerged reef, exposed only at low tide, and is quite big (3 km around?). Anyways, there are many seagrasses, and many many zoanthids. I found lots of Z. vietnamensis, Z. sansibaricus, and P. mutuki, as well as some new "mystery" ones - (TF will be interested). Unfortunately, not many soft corals or crinoids, but I was amazed at how rich the reef was.

Other recent spots visited include Changi Beach, Raffles Lighthouse, and Hantu Island (again). I have now collected 79 samples here.

Here is a picture to give you an idea of just how many zoanthids are on this reef!

from Singapore!

Hello everyone,

Just a couple quick announcements from JDR in Singapore.

1. There is a COE presentation of corals and zooxanthellae on June 13th from 15:00-16:10. It will be given by Dr. Andrew Baird and will be held in "fukugoto" room 212. Please attend if you are interested.

2. YM - there are Briarium here. I will collect some tomorrow. Also, for MO, I have some crinoid pictures too.

JDR who is very very sleepy!