Dolphins at Kure

We are a few days past Kure Atoll right now but our experiences of the last day there are still with us.  After our final dive we were on our way back to the ship when we happened upon a huge pod of spinner dolphins.  We quietly slipped over the side of the boat with mask, snorkel, and fins, hoping they would come by to see what we were all about.  We were not disappointed.  We swam together for about 20 minutes before we decided it was time to head back to the ship to prepare for the next day.  It was a truly magical experience. We are now several hundred miles south at Lisianski island and are looking forward to the final few days of this leg of the expedition. We have one more day here at Lisi, two more at French Frigate Shoals and then two days of transit back to Honolulu. The expedition so far has been amazing. I am sure the days ahead will not disappoint.

Midway Charismatic Megafauna (it's ok Mom)

I thought I would share a dive from Midway that I didn’t have time to write about earlier. It was our first day at Midway and when we dropped in, nothing looked out of the ordinary as we descended on a landscape of flat rock (pavement) with some coral and algae (very exciting), but not many fish to speak of. One of the teams that was working off of our boat had to install instruments that required hammering stakes into the bottom, to hold the equipment in place. This generally attracts sharks and other large fish if they are in the area, but we hadn’t been seeing much of the charismatic megafauna that the northwest is known for, so I didn’t have my camera out. Now, before I continue, I want to explain that fish are often attracted to the hammering out of curiosity, not aggression. After all, if someone sat on your front step, pounding on stakes, you’d be tempted to open the door and see what the racket was about. So we began our work with the hammering in the background and since my survey requires that I record what the algae or coral is every 20cm, I spend most of my time with my face 2-3 feet from the bottom. This means that I don’t see much going on around me, but each time I looked up, everything appeared normal. As I was finishing my work and packing up, I noticed about four sharks approaching from the area that I had just crossed. Surprised, I noticed that Molly, my dive buddy, was still busy working, so I pulled out the camera for a few shots. Then as I watched them pass, I noticed 4-5 more sharks approaching from the opposite direction. Now sharks are sort of like cops in that you are always surprised and a little nervous to look up and see one in the rearview mirror, but unless you're doing something silly, they pretty much leave you alone. It was exciting to see this group of sharks because there haven’t been many sightings on this trip, and that is very unusual. As Molly finished her work and I continued to photograph, the number grew to 10-15 and, as we made our way to the safety stop, we were joined by the rest of the divers from our boat. The safety stop is supposed to be a minimum of 3 minutes at 15 feet (in order to let the nitrogen built up from the dive escape slowly while still under pressure) and we never stay much longer than that. This one was at least 10 minutes long with a group of 40-50 sharks hanging out with us in the middle of a sea of blue. It was amazing to see them approach from a distance and pass by us without much of a glance in our direction. None of them appeared aggressive or overly interested in us, so we weren’t anxious to get out of the water. It seemed more like a party that started out with 4-5 people, but as word spread, grew into something much, much more ... and what an amazing party it was to crash.