September 27th: Worlds Within an Atoll
Written By Dan Suthers September 28-29, 2004
I am back on my late night writers' schedule, awaking this morning after the early boats have departed. Stephani and Susan are out diving, and have agreed to come pick me up for the afternoon, so there is no rush. (David will not join us today: he has too many specimens to photograph.) In the morning, Mike Crumley tells me that the satellite antenna is fixed! Before we upload updates to this web site, Mike must send critical payroll information to NOAA and send and receive the ship's email. By the time he's ready for me, it's getting too close to my planned departure time to begin. I decide to run the site update this evening.
The Hi'ialakai is now situated on the northern side of Pearl and Hermes atoll. Stephani, Susan, Gaetano and I motor over to a gap that lets us into the interior. As we enter the atoll I am once again impressed with its immensity and beauty: shallow, turquoise waters with patches of green, producing an intense urge to jump in.
We head over to North Island (pictured above) to drop off Stephani and Susan. As we approach, I can see several Monk seals on the beach, and a grass covered top with various seabirds. All of the islands here are quarantined (see explanation in the Laysan journal). Susan has a permit to visit this island for photography. Stephani is her Monk seal protection escort. Both women have brought quarantine clothes with them. We dropped them off on the beach, agree to come pick them up there in an hour, and motor off with our backs turned as they changed clothes.
Coral Habitats
While waiting, Gaetano and I explore three different areas of the atoll and nearby reefs. First, I snorkel in the open waters of the atoll. It is shallow, with small coral patches and a larger rock teeming with life and a veritable rainbow of fish hiding in its cracks. I spend some time at an isolated Pocillopora meandrina (a colonizing species that is often the first in a new area) photographing a small school of Hawaiian Dascyllus or "Domino Damselfish" (Dascyllus albisella) that live within its branches. 
If I approach too quickly, they disappear inside, but on one occasion I am able to get images of them out in the open before they flee to safety (photos in this paragraph). Other small forms also dart into the safety of the branches or peer out at me as I swam by (see sidebar). It is clear that corals such as this Pocillopora provide habitat for species that would otherwise be exposed to predators. The preservation of corals is critical for the preservation of many other species.
We then motor towards the breakers on the horizon, and carefully approach the barrier reef. Purple Montipora corals become abundant, glowing through the shimmering waters. The barrier reef is a dynamic area, with small caves under the coral hosting a variety of residents. Here, at David's suggestion, I experiment with the color adjustment on my camera, alternating between automatic and florescent light settings, the latter to filter out the excess green of underwater light. (Later I decided that the fluorescent filter was too strong for that shallow depth. It has potential for other waters, although the images may be too purple.)
The third environment we explore is an isolated coral outcropping within the quiet atoll near North Island (where we also watch the progress of Susan and Stephani back towards our meeting point). On the rock sat a Brown Booby. I slip into the water and snorkel slowly towards it, photographing fish while Gaetano motors over to the other side to herd the fish towards me. This rock is richly populated with a variety of fish, especially brown chub, yellowfin goatfish, convict tang and unicornfish. I am able to come up right under the bird, popping out of the water to photograph it.
Our time up, we head back to pick up the women. While we wait for them to change, Gaetano works on the engine. It had taken in some sand, and the cooling water is not circulating correctly. I watch nervously as he disassembles our only transportation back to the ship.
The seas had come up during our time in the atoll, and our ride takes us into the 6-8' and occasionally higher swells over two miles of ocean back to the Hi`ialakai, waiting at a cautious distance from the poorly charted reef waters. Our boat recovery goes well; the crew are pleased (see POD 9/28).
I am already out of the shower when HI-1 and HI-2 return. HI-1 returns first, but HI-2 radios and asks for a priority pickup, as they have a diver with an injured hand. She had forgotten her dive gloves that day, and encountered a stinging hydroid. She spends dinner in sick-bay under observation by Albert Exner, our onboard doctor.
Down Again
After dinner, the chief scientists' meeting, and sunset, I call Mike to do the satellite upload. In the electronics lab, he look at the controller and asks whether I am playing a joke on him: the indicator is red again. There being no response from the equipment, he decids to go back up into the antenna, even though it is dusk and we are in rolling seas. He wears a safety harness that clips onto a slider device on a pipe running up the ladder. (A rock climber would recognize this as classic rope ascender technology.) I act as his safety spotter while he climbs the ladder to the platform, removes the entrance hatch to the dome, and climbs partially inside. When he comes down he seemed satisfied: the cable is indeed the problem, as the unit "came alive" when he touched the cable. He had strapped the cable into position. However, when we go back to the dry lab and try it, the signal is lost almost as soon as the connection was made, and will not re-establish. Tomorrow we will take a closer look at what we can do to fix or stabilize the cable. Perhaps I "should have" done the upload instead of going out, but I am satisfied for having taken advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity.
References for Identifications:
[1] Gulko (1998)
[2] Hoover (1993)
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