Green bottom clouds

We left French Frigate Shoals yesterday having had some of the most beautiful weather I have seen in a long time.  Blue skies, calm seas, and puffy white clouds all around.  For those of you who haven't spent much time in the tropics, there is a beautiful phenomenon which can occur around atolls, banks, or anywhere else you have crystal clear water, bright sun, and sand on the seafloor.  The sunlight passing through the water is reflected by the white sand at the bottom of the lagoon back up through the water and casts a bright turquoise green glow on the bottom of the clouds floating over the lagoon.  It is a spectacular sight, giving the whole scene that little extra bit of beauty.

Today was our first day at Maro Reef.  Not one of my favorite places as it is where I was flipped in a small boat 7 years ago. Today was beautiful, however, with flat calm seas yet again.  There is no emergent land here, just fingers of reef stretching up to within a foot of the surface.  We have have been spending our time weaving in and out of these finger but staying out of the maze of spaghetti making up the interior of the reef.  One could easily get lost in there and spend hours trying to find the way out.

French Frigate Lake

It was another amazing day with conditions that defy comprehension.  I have hardly ever seen French Frigate this calm.  Edmund takes a quick dip after his dive.

For lunch we have a lovely bouquet ...
... and a visitor who stayed with us most of the day
... as we were hard at work.

Our first dive

Our first day of tows at French Friagate Shoals was wonderful. The underwater visibility wasn't the best, maybe 35-40 ft but the above-water conditions were unheard of in the NWHI at this time of year. Hardly a breath of wind and water as smooth as glass. Here two of our intrepid divers ready themselves for their first dive.

Ready to dive

Well, we are supposed to be within 2 hours of our first dive site, but there is still no land in site. It is a gorgeous day and the haze has lifted so you can see all the way to the horizon in every direction. It still amazes me to look out over the ocean and see nothing else – no boats, land, birds – just blue as far as the eye can see. It reminds me of a desert that’s hiding something fantastic underneath. I can’t wait to jump in and explore what’s below all that blue.

We have been making good time and will be arriving at French Frigate Shoals two hours ahead of schedule. We should be able to get two dives in today and then the work really begins! Weather permitting, we will be diving 3 times a day until our next transit or until we have been diving 9 days in a row.

I better be off now to finish a few last minute preparations, then its time for lunch, a safety briefing and then we dive!

An early wake-up

Today it hardly feels like the ship is moving. We awoke fairly quickly this morning having forgotten that we were going to start drills at 0800 (8:00am). Somehow I managed to miss that on the plan-of-the-day. The alarm went off at 6:30 and I though ... that doesn't make sense, I must have forgotten to reset the alarm after getting on the ship. Back to dream-land. That was, of course, until Jake came knocking on my door with a "wakey, wakey, wakey!"



Drills have been going well, just going over all of the safety equipment and operations we need to follow in the event of an emergency. How do we get an injuried diver out of teh water? How do we use the O2 system? How do we get them to the sick bay? How do we get them to the re-compression chamber? We go through everything.



Just after drills and lunch it became clear that we were no longer moving ... hmmm. it appears the engineers had noticed something strange and thought there might be something caught in one of the propellors. So we, put a swimmer over the side to check things out. After a brief dip by Gaetano, we got the all clear and are back on our way again. We'll see how things go from here.



We certainly can't complain. So far the food has been excellent and, when we're inside, we can hardly tell that the ship isn't still tied up at the dock. The seas have been flat calm all day, let's hope that continues ...

On our way ...

We were supposed to leave the dock yesterday at about noon. We arrived at the ship to find that one of the small boats was having engine issues and that we would have to delay sailing until at least 4:00 that afternoon. Not a huge big deal, we had plenty to do to get the ship ready for our two months out at sea. At a little before 4 it became clear we would not be sailing that day. Another night at home and I didn't hear anyone complaining. We are all excited about the trip, but another night in one's own bed never hurt anyone.



We awoke this morning to a day much sunnier than yesterday, made our way down to he ship and were ready to set sail. Would it happen ... only time would tell. A few hours later the call was made and the crew started to make ready for sea. The gangway was raised and we were off.



As we steamed out of Pearl Harbor, past Ford Islands and what was once the second tier of Battleship Row, we made our last calls home and started to feel the south swell under our feet. After a few weeks of often harried preparations, we are on our way. Our first stop will be French Frigate Shoals on Sunday afternoon. We have much to do before we arrive, but we are all looking forward to getting back in the water again.