Recapping a Week of Wonders

It's a beautiful day, the water is the calmest it's been all week, and I'm thinking about the incredible past week I've had! I was humbled by the power of the winds that the storms here bring in, and was amazed at how much it can rain in a ten-minute downpour!

The calm after the storm

Another graduate student here from UCSB and I went out on a boat to collect some corals for her project, and the faulty motor left us stranded in the middle of the channel! Of course this was the boat with no pull start, and no paddle. We were just about ready to jump in the water and swim the boat back, when another boat was in sight, and we took full advantage of the universal distress signal! Although they spoke no English whatsoever, Emily spoke enough French to explain the situation. Thankfully, they knew where we had come from, and towed us back. I guess it always works out somehow!

Tiare Tahiti flower

The P. damicornis adults produced lots of larvae, and kept us busy sampling, and setting up cultures for them to settle and metamorphose into juveniles! It's so cool to see them change completely from tiny free swimming larvae to little corals with polyps, and the beginnings of a solid coral skeleton! All in all, it's been a successful trip, and we are coming back with as much as we could sample! 

Acropora coral bed

A few days ago, Maggie and I went to Temae, which is a protected reef, that fringes the biggest beach I have yet to see here! The water was absolutely beautiful, and the reef itself was mind-blowing! I think it could be considered a climax reef ecosystem... huge coral heads with a large diversity throughout, tons of colorful and active fishes, and the most sea urchins (multiple species) I have ever seen in one place! Above the water, beyond the reef, we could see Tahiti in the distance. I was so happy that we had time to go, and without focusing on collecting corals or fish poop, we were able to fully explore and appreciate the complexity and the beauty of the network of reef life!

Temae reef

I couldn't think of a better way to end our trip than our final adventure.... I had heard a lot about a site where sharks and rays have been fed for many years, and so are abundant! Seeing as rays have always particularly amazed me out of all marine life, I was dying to go!! However, it's a pretty long boat ride, and we aren't exactly allowed to take the station boats so far on our own. Luckily, I am not very good at containing enthusiasm, and so one of the station employees offered to take us! I cannot even explain how insanely excited I was! The boat ride there was beautiful; cameras simply cannot do justice to the color of the water here! We arrived at the site, which is close to the the Motus of Moorea (which are small islands off the coast), and before we could even anchor, I could see a fleet of rays stealthily gliding toward the boat! They were HUGE!!!!! and beautiful and amazing and awesome and.... I was SO EXCITED!!!!

They came right up to the boat, eager to check out any treats that we might have brought. We could feel their uniquely rubbery skin, as they thoroughly searched our hands. It was so surreal, that for a moment, I was speechless! We looked beyond the rays, and could see the outlines of several black tips, lingering in hopes of getting free food too! I could not even wait to get in the water! I jumped in, and was immediately greeted by five or six massive gray sting rays, who scanned me for food. We didn't feel it was right to feed them and had not brought anything. It turned out to be better that way, because the rays weren't so aggressive, and we could observe them more as they act and interact with each other and the other marine life around them naturally. It was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had in the water!

The sharks were large for black tips (3-4 ft), and it was amazing to watch them swim so close to you, and scan you with their white eyes. They really are beautiful, and it was so cool to be there, and to not be afraid. The rays continued to swim around us, hassle each other, and bury themselves in the sand!  can't even explain what a unique and unbelievable experience it was, I could have stayed there for hours, and I will never forget it!

So, we're are pretty much packed, and fly out tonight at 12:30 am. It's been such an incredible trip, and I feel so blessed to have had this opportunity. I have learned so so much, from this place, our research, and from the other people here at the research station! For now, I will enjoy the rest of my last day in this awesome place. Tomorrow, it's back to school, and I look forward to the adventures that lie ahead!

Wrapping Things Up

The spawning craziness is now over for us, and we are wrapping up the project here for our last couple of days. There have

Finally, the corals are gettin' busy!

Well, the past few days have been exhausting, but so very exciting!! The Montipora verrucosa colonies that we have collected have been spawning like crazy around 8:20 pm since Wednesday night! Apparently this is the first time that the spawning of this species has ever been documented here!

Pocillopora damicornis larval traps

 The whole ordeal is definitely a two person job, and can get a bit stressful... As you can see in the short video, individual polyps on the colonies release sperm/egg bundles that float to the surface. We collect them using extremely sophisticated turkey basters, the idea being to sample them before the egg bundles break apart, causing the eggs and sperm to disperse. After sampling egg bundles from each colony that spawns, we mix all of the egg bundles together to allow them to fertilize each other, crossing our fingers that there will be happy, fertilized eggs in the morning! So far, fertilization hasn't been so great, but we have gotten some larvae, which is still a success.

Nets placed over Pocillopora
damicornis colonies to catch
larvae release overnight.

Another species, Pocillopora damicornis has also been spawning for the past few nights, but (thankfully for us), they are brooders, which means that they release fully developed larvae. So, we don't have to do the whole fertilization bit ourselves, and can just leave larval traps and nets out overnight. The larvae are then waiting for us to sample in the morning. It's a busy job, with many hours spent in the lab culturing, sampling, rinsing off fixative, and filtering water. And I am loving every single minute!

If I was a Great White... I'd probably bite you

But of course, the ONE day I decide NOT to bring my camera with me into the water, a shark swims right in front of me! It was really windy this morning, giving the water eerily low visibility. Nevertheless, we were on a mission to collect parrot fish poop (part of Maggie's graduate work that I volunteered to help with since I love to snorkel so much!). A word about collecting poop, in the water, from fish... parrot fish, mind you, who are ten times more aware of your proximity than any other fish on the reef ... let's just say it's slightly frustrating.


Back to my story ... the spot we anchored at was deeper than we usually snorkel in, but there were probably a million parrot fish, so it was perfect! So, I'm following this particularly large and colorful parrot fish, just waiting for him to relieve himself, when I look up just in time to see a black tip reef shark come out from behind a bommie, swim swiftly in front of me, and back into the curtain of suspended sediments. I was speechless, and somehow not nervous the whole time it was swimming by me. It was only when it disappeared that first, I was like "oh my gosh, that was so awesome!!!", and second found it much more difficult to focus on the parrot fish with the shark in mind.


Black tip reef sharks are sleek, relatively small (this one was about four feet), and aren't known to be aggressive. Eventually, I refocused on the parrot fish and was beginning to get both frustrated and cold. Just as I'm considering giving up and heading back to the boat, out of the corner of my eye, I see the black tip swimming at full speed in front of me! The shark was swimming so fast, it wasn't until I had turned a full 360 degrees while watching it that I noticed it was circling.  I was sure that the shark would not attack, but its behavior was enough to send me back to the boat thinking that if it had been a tiger or a great white, I'd have been toast!