Crabbitha

Yesterday, Mike and I went out to Riken again to meet the 3 guys and collect monitoring data from the final site for this set of follow up surveys. This was the same site we went to the first day to attempt to dive, but the current was too strong and instead we had to switch and do the other site on the shallow reef flat, which didn't require diving. That day first was right after a full moon and the tidal difference going into and out of the channel was greater than 5 ft. Yesterday was in the middle of the mood cycle, and the tidal difference was the lowest of the month, around 3 ft.

We went out in the morning, after a misunderstanding about fuel. We were supposed to meet at 9 am to go pick the guys up from the village. I got there around 8:45, but Mike wasn't ready and there was only half tank of gas for reasons unknown. He then had to call the Director of MRMD who had to go get more fuel. We got everything together and left, but the low tide prohibited us from going too fast across the reef, so we ended up picking the guys up around 10:45 am. We went to the site, geared up, then Mike and I laid out four 25 m transect tapes (each laying 2 in opposite directions) following the depth contour around 30 ft. Meanwhile the village guys went out fishing for our lunch and dinner.

This is the same channel I went diving in for fun this past weekend, but on the other side. This side of the channel also has some amazingingly old and diverse coral cover. According to ecological methods, transects are to be laid out randomly. But I noticed a lot of the cool corals growing along the way were missed by my tape. But it's not appropriate to be biased towards putting the cool corals in the transect. I surfaced, waited for Mike, who then surfaced and he went to survey the fish abundance along my transects since I had been out of the area and waiting for him for more than 20 min. After he finished, I went back down and did the coral surveys. On this dive I was pretty alone down there, which wasn't all that bad- I am familiar with that area and aware of my surroundings and where everyone else and the boat were in case I needed them.

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I think I'm finally learning to control my breathing to control my buoyancy. Filling my lungs differentially to control how much I want to go up, and exhaling deeply depending on how much I want to go down. I don't know if this is related, but either I'm getting better at controlling my breathing or I'm losing weight. I think I'm going to try reducing the weights on my belt 9 lbs down to 8 or 7 the next time I go out. The past few times I've gone out I've felt overweighted and tend to inflate my BC too much to stay neutrally buoyant.
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I saw the largest Ctenactis mushroom coral as well as the largest Goniopora colony I'd ever seen. There are large, massive colonies representing several Scleractinian families growing along that wall. And unfortunately, I don't think the transect data do this fact justice. Although, after I finished, surfaced, got Mike's MRMD camera (which I think was either fogged or focused on some condensation on the lense and all the photos are probably out of focus...) to take some photos of what I just described, then surfaced again, had some sashimi (dont' know the name of the fish, funny looking fish with rough skin, tiny lips, and a bumped head...), changed my tank (I had 100 psi after 2 transects and photo taking- yikes!), I then got back in the water to do the 3rd transect. This was a transect Mike had laid, and practically the entire 25 m transect was encircling a ginourmous coral that I'm trying to figure out the name of now (massive laminar and foliose shape, small 1-2 mm corallites interspersed with a large, smooth coenosteum). Basically the coral took up the entire 25 m transect because he wound it that way. Whereas my transects went in an albeit meandering line, they represented the bottom surface and not the coral colonies jutting out from the wall... Hmmm... this seems like an observer to observer sampling error in transect measuring that we shoudl perhaps discuss later... Mike had already collected coral data his way (that's a whole different story) for the 4th transect, had wound it, and was hanging out with the guys on the boat. I surfaced, dismantled my gear, the guys gave me and Mike some fish, and we dropped them and their remaining fish catch off on shore. They gave me the largest fish they caught, which was dark and spotted, called buchol. Don't know the English name. Also one surgeon fish (gal mak duck? that's seriously what I thought John 'Marine' was telling me the name is), and another, dark mottled and triangular-shaped fish.

Got home last night for a birthday party for the grandaughter. Gave the family the fish before going up to take a shower. Gave them all the fish since there would be a bbq for the party. She is 7 yrs old now. It was a joint party for her and one of the taxi drivers, who lived on Guam for most of his life and has just come back to Yap recently. He likes to say that I've been on Yap longer than he has. His birthday is Sat, which is also the one-year anniversary of his grandfather's death. Lots of cake, bbq pork, and taro. So much for laying off the fatty foods and losing weight. There was one slightly embarassing incident where the taxi driver was cutting the cake and asking who should have cake first. The parents of my host family told him to give me a piece first (I hate when I get singled out as like some sort of 'special' guest in a crowd. I live here! I just happen to have white skin), which he did (after first being instructed to give me a fork), then handed it to me, in front of all the other taxi drivers and family who were there. There was teasing laughter. All of this is happening in Yapese, for which my compreshension is embarassingly slow. Confirmation of what I think they are saying doesn't come until after things have happened at which point it's too late to speak up for myself (usually in English since my Yapese is still timid and no one takes me all that seriously, unless I'm talking on the phone- got that down, or at the grocery store with the usual routine at the cash register). It's hard to be myself in a crowd full of people who are eager to tease (which sounds jovial enough, but I'm repeatedly the subject of the teasing, usually confused about what's going on, and had a childhood replete with teasing, so it's not so much in good fun all the time). Which is really too bad, since it's one of the only times this sort of interaction with people my own age is considered appropriate under the watchful eye of the elders of the family. And some of them seem nice and worthy of getting to know better.

I did have the opportunity to meet the Chief of Gilman (?), who owns the Magic Kingdom dive site in the south where a sand barge rammed into last spring. He was apparently active in trying to set up the Gilman Marine Protected Area (Locally Managed Marine Area) for the International Waters Project several years ago, and was interested to hear about what we had been doing in Gagil. People in general are not particularly fond of the IWP, which they feel has not been administered by the government properly; not supporting local efforts. This man, and others with that same opinion, are completely justified in this opinion. The IWP is so screwed up in its local politics with agency Directors and their egos. I'm just glad I got to be involved in the data collection part. This is exactly the role I want to be in. We'll finish analyzing our data, write a report, where I'll get to put my two cents in for the status of this project, and hand it over to the decision makers. Who probably won't read a word of the repot or do a damn productive thing, but at least I've done my part. I want to stay as far away from being involved in the politics of this matter as possible. I just wish there was something more I/we could be doing at the government level to support village level efforts in establishing these locally managed marine areas.