Still the Storms Come

The storm approaching...

I have officially done two full runs of my experiment, and it's been exhausting! The weather all week was perfect and calm, but today, just as I was setting things up, a storm rolled in. It was amazing to watch it approach, and know that I would still be out in the water by the time it hit. It turned out to look a lot scarier than it actually was, but did manage to produce enough of a current to make things challenging for me. I lost several of my set ups throughout the course of the morning, and had an exceptionally difficult time finding the ones that I had set out the reduced visibility in such turbid conditions. We left the dock at seven, and when I came back to the boat at about eleven, I had probably swallowed about a liter of seawater. I decided that although things did not go as well as planned, that the day was not over. I had been having a difficult timing finding the algae that I have been using for the herbivory assays, and as I was almost out, was hoping that today would be different. After spending the afternoon searching, with no luck finding algae (although I have been finding Fungia corals that I'll watch for spawning around the new moon next week), I was getting a bit worried that I'd have to expand my search beyond the north shore. Around four, Anya suggested that we check once more on the fringe reef closest to the station, which is the only place that we had found any before. We thought we had found it all, but it was worth another try. Well, despite all of my frustration from this morning, we found it... a ton if it!! Who knew I could get soo excited over algae!? So, it looks like the experiment will continue after all! ... and hopefully the ocean will calm down for the next few days :).

sooo excited we finally found algae!

Acanthophora spicifera up close