The last stop on my whirlwind adventure of an internship was American Samoa. Prior to booking the flights, I didn’t even know where American Samoa was, let alone anything about the island that awaited me on the other side of the 6-hour flight. I didn’t even know who was meeting me at the airport! Fortunately, when I landed in American Samoa the night of Friday, September 9^th and made my way out of the airport, I looked so lost that I was approached by two strangers who turned out to be Biological Science Technicians Michele Felberg (the 2015 OWUSS North American Rolex Scholar!) and Paolo Marra-Biggs. While I was ecstatic that I was finally here – I have heard so many wonderful things about American Samoa throughout my journey – I was also exhausted from the long day of travel. As we drove to the village of Utulei, where I would be staying with Michele, darkness hid the island from view. Yet still, the sound of the waves hitting the shore along the coastal road and the palm trees faintly lit by the occasional streetlight seemed to taunt me in my tired and sleepy state.

The next morning I woke up to the smell of Michele cooking a Welcome brunch for me. Soon Paolo, fellow park service employee Ian Moffit, and his girlfriend Nerelle, came over, donning me with a lei as they walked in. It was quite the welcome party! Following brunch, Paolo and Michele took me on a grocery run and gave me a brief introduction to the island.

American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the US at 14° south of the Equator, and it consists of five main islands and two coral atolls. Boasting a population of around 60,000, the big island of Tutuila is only slightly larger than Washington DC. Here, there is only one main road and it runs east-west along the length of the island, hugging the dramatic southern coastline. As we drove through what seemed to be taken from the pages of a travel magazine, beautiful blue water gave way to long stretches of sandy beaches on our left, while we passed by mountains flaunting lush green rainforests and towering over quaint villages on our right. The rest of the weekend was a blur of sensory overload as I took in the pristine natural beauty of my new island home, from wading in the shallow lagoon at Coconut Point to looking out over the village lights at night from atop Aoloau.

When I arrived at Park Headquarters in Pago Pago for my first day, we got straight to work. The National Park of American Samoa (NPSA) encompasses over 13,000 acres, of which, about a third are marine, which means the marine team is kept very busy! To start us off, Marine Ecologist, Tim Clark, called a morning meeting to discuss the weather forecast and to go over the plans for the week ahead. With the wind and waves holding steady over the next few days, our goal for the week was to tow-board the entire north side of the island looking for outbreaks of crown-of-thorns sea stars (COTS), a voracious echinoderm that feeds on corals.

For the past few years, the NPSA marine team has been monitoring a large-scale COT outbreak on the northern coast of the island. Although these sea stars are native to the Indo-Pacific, because they prey upon living corals, population surges can overwhelm and often decimate an entire reef. Thus, in an attempt to rescue the reefs here, the Park Service has undergone eradication efforts to control the population and return it to a natural level. They have gone on hundreds of eradication dives and killed thousands of COTS, all in hopes of restoring balance to the reef. So, our mission for the week was to determine the current status of the outbreak by locating and documenting the individual COT outbreaks along the coast.

After putting together a Float Plan, a document detailing our plan for the day as well as any and all complications that could arise, we headed to the warehouse to grab the boat and gather the gear. Within the hour we were on the water, launching out of Fagasa, and ready to towboard. Towboarding is a survey technique where two people are towed behind a boat while looking down at the reef. In this case, we were looking for signs of COT outbreaks.

Traditionally, in an area with a COT, one will see a gradient of discoloration on a stretch of reef, ranging from bone-white, where the most recent meal was, to a faded yellow, where algae has begun to grow overtop of the dead coral skeleton. However, this can be hard to spot from 60 feet above the reef and it took me awhile to develop a search image. Not every patch of bright white on a reef indicates the presence of a COT, as both coral bleaching and coral disease often leave behind a white coral as well. So, for the first few outbreaks, Michele would signal the boat to stop so that I could get a closer look and begin to distinguish COT scarring from bleaching and disease. In some instances, the outbreaks were worse than others and could last a few hundred yards or so, indicating the presence of multiple COTS. Soon enough, I began to recognize COT outbreaks and even found a few of my own!

When I wasn’t in the water, I was sitting on the back of the RV Poge, the park’s 28 ft Boston Whaler, and recording the data. Any time an outbreak was found, the towboarders would signal me to take a GPS point to mark the location of the outbreak while writing down both the depth and the intensity of scarring. While still keeping an eye on the towboarders, I couldn’t help but take in the spectacular views!

     

Over the course of the first week, we towboarded the entire north coast (over 30 miles!), both in and out of the park boundaries. You might think that staring at the ocean floor while being towed behind a boat for 8 hours a day, multiple days in a row, would get old, but it was possibly the best way to be introduced to the reefs of American Samoa! Through this process I was able to get a spectacular bird’s eye view of the vibrant reef and I was absolutely blown away by what I saw. Plate corals and fuzzy tabletop corals formed intricate multi-level terraces on the steep reef slope, while boulder corals the size of minivans loomed over small pink cauliflower corals, humorously juxtaposed. Home to over 250 species, the reef was alive with every combination of color, shape, and size of coral imaginable. Never before in my life had I seen such massive and diverse corals! And as an added bonus, while we were towboarding I got to see some charismatic megafauna, including countless green sea turtles, a pod of dolphins, and my first-ever blacktip reef sharks!

     

     

After we completed the towboarding, the next task was to take all of the data and compile it into a map so that we could visualize where the outbreaks were along the coast. After receiving a quick lesson from Paolo on how to import the data from the GPS into ArcGIS, Michele and I worked on creating a map of the towboard data. Once it was finished and we compared it to the map with previous years, it was evident that the number of outbreaks had significantly decreased. When we showed Tim, we discussed the next step and whether or not we needed to go on any eradication dives. Since the goal of the program is to return the COT populations to their natural levels and not eradicate them completely, we decided to forego eradication dives for now. Instead, Tim suggested we go on a few GSI collection dives to take care of the one or two larger sections of outbreaks.

 

 

GSI stands for gonadosomatic index. It is a measure of gonad mass as a proportion of total body mass and is used in many different species as way to determine sexual maturity. So, in addition to monitoring and controlling the COT outbreak, the NPSA marine team has begun collecting GSI data on the seastars in an effort to track their spawning cycle. But first we needed some COTS!

With our new mission in hand, we headed into the field to collect a dozen COTS for GSI. With Ian captaining the RV Poge, we sped off to Fagamalo, an area with a concentrated outbreak. Paolo, Michele, and I excitedly assembled our rigs and geared up for the getting in the water. Because COTS are covered in long, poisonous spines, we wore protective gloves and wielded barbeque tongs on our dive in order to protect ourselves when removing the COTS from the reef. Once we splashed, we searched for a patch of reef with heavy scarring, indicating the presence of multiple COTS, and then descended, tongs at the ready. Not wanting to be vulnerable and exposed when predators are out, the nocturnal seastars tuck away in the cracks and crevices of the reef during the day. However, despite the COTS’s best efforts to hide, Paolo and Michele were pros at this and had gathered half of what we needed before I had even finished checking under my first rock. It only took a few more minutes for us to fill the collection bag with a dozen of the little buggers, two of which I collected on my own!

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

Making sure to keep them submerged in seawater, we brought the COTS back to the warehouse in order to take the GSI measurements. Wet weight, number of arms, and average diameter were all recorded before cutting each COT open. Then came the tedious task of sorting the red-orange tissues of the digestive glands from the paler yellow-orange tissues of the gonads using a pair of tweezers. Once the gonads were completely removed from the COT, they were weighed as well. Finally, before finishing up with a COT it was sexed by looking at the gonads under a microscope. On average, the whole process took about 40 minutes per COT, but the more fecund ones took a bit longer on account of the sheer amount of gonads needing to be separated (over 200g!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, during my second week, the wind and waves picked up and kept us out of the field. However, there was plenty of work to be done back on land. While, Michele and Paolo planned for an upcoming outreach event at Coast Week, Ian and I kept busy at the warehouse as a lot of things needed maintenance. The backup compressor needed fixing, the boat trailer needed new brake pads, the RV Malie’s engine needed rebuilding, etc. Together, Ian and I checked each item off one-by-one. When we got to the engine, though, there was not much I could do to help, so I sat and watched Ian take the engine apart as I spliced lines to be used for moorings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the week rounded out, the wind and waves died down just in time for the culminating festival for American Samoa’s annual Coast Week. With the motto “A healthy coast is a wealthy coast”, the event is aimed at raising awareness for the natural resources the island has to offer and the environmental issues impacting those resources. The NPS, along with other government agencies and local businesses, ran educational tables as vendors sold food, village youth groups put on traditional performances, and South Pacific Watersports hosted competitive outrigger canoe races. With so much to do, the event was bustling the entire day. It was amazing to see the community come together to support the cause and have fun while learning about the environment!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At work the next week, we switched gears to fish-tracking. Much like the work being done in Kalaupapa, the project here at NPSA is also tracking fish with the use of acoustic tags and receivers. However, the NPSA marine program’s goal is to try to locate the spawning sites of large snappers and groupers that have been severely overfished, in order to inform policies to better protect them. Preliminary work in the park has been promising, so the project was beginning to pick up steam. At our Monday morning meeting, Tim set the mission for the week – expand the receiver array by installing 4 more receivers and tag more fish. In order to prepare for the next few days in the field, I checked to make sure that all of the acoustic tags were still working, inventoried the receivers, and set them up to start collecting data. With the receivers launched and ready to go and plenty of mooring lines already spliced, we were all set for installation.

With a preliminary receiver array already in place, we were aiming to fill in the gaps and expand the study area with these installation dives. When we got to a site, Tim and Michele would drop down with a mooring line and find a large, sturdy reef structure at about 80 feet. Once they did, Paolo and I would descend, guiding down a subsurface mooring buoy. This proved to be a difficult task as you can imagine due to the float’s buoyancy, but with the help of some heavy linked chain, we managed to swim it down gently. From there, we secured the line to the bottom and then to the buoy before releasing the chain, sending the buoy shooting into the water column. Since the study was intended to track benthic fish species, the receiver was placed at 40 feet off the reef and aimed down, hence the need for the buoy. Over the next two days, we installed 3 new moorings, replaced one that was fraying, and deployed 4 new receivers.

With that done, we spent the next day fishing for the groupers and snappers the study was targeting – specifically, the yellow-edged lyretail, Variola louti, and the two-spot red snapper, Lutjanus bohar. We started off in Tāfeu Cove, a protected bay in the Park where both species have been known to hang out. After an unsuccessful morning, with the only catch being a small untaggable parrotfish, we decided to head around to the other side of Pola Island where known feeding grounds are located. As we rounded the Pola, I got a bite. Following a bit of a fight, with an incision wound to show for it, I finally reeled in the feisty barracuda! While we ended the day empty handed, I was pretty stoked about reeling in both of the catches of the day, even if they weren’t what we were looking for.

On our way back to Fagasa to take the boat out of the water, Tim noticed the classic arched back of a humpback whale. We immediately stopped the boat to watch. A few hundred yards away, what looked like two or three whales were hanging out on the surface preparing for a dive. Just after they disappeared under the surface, a humpback majestically breached out of the water and landed with a spectacular splash. Our jaws dropped. I have never seen a whale breach before in real life and it was perhaps the most regal thing I have ever seen in the wild! Unfortunately, I was not camera ready, but I did manage to get a picture of one of the whale’s flukes to prove that we did in fact see whales.

On the weekends, when we weren’t working, Ian, Paolo, and Michele took care to show me a good time around the island. One weekend, we hung out on the secluded Larsen’s beach. The next weekend, we went on a hike through the rainforest in order to get to Massacre Bay, the site of a massacre that occurred when the French explorer LaPerouse landed there in 1787. Another time, we even got to take Ian’s sailboat out for a spin. Every weekend was a new adventure! I could tell you more, but I think the pictures speak for themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On my final weekend in American Samoa, I was excited to get to experience the traditional cultural holiday known as White Sunday. Over the course of my month stay I have come to learn that, like many other Polynesian cultures, the Samoan people have at their core faith, family, and music. These traditional values are evident in many aspects of their life – from the period of daily afternoon prayer, called sa, to every Sunday being dedicated to spending time with the family, going to church, and preparing the traditional ground oven or umu. However, this Sunday was special. Akin to a Mother’s Day or a Father’s Day, White Sunday is a day dedicated to honoring children. As the name implies, all the kids wear white and some even get special outfits sewn for the occasion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I accompanied Nerelle and Ian to church that day and had an amazing time. I was immediately welcomed by the close-knit congregation and invited to celebrate the holiday with them. In true White Sunday fashion, the celebration was led by the children and featured all kinds of performances put on by the kids. It was a delightful way to end my last weekend in American Samoa!

I would like to extend the sincerest of thank you’s to everyone who made my month in American Samoa so fun and memorable! Tim for providing the opportunity to come work for your beautiful park and for inviting me to join the marine team. Paolo, Michele, Ian and Nerelle for welcoming me with open arms and sharing with me your adventures and your homes. Adam, Shivaun, Alan, Sabrina, and Bob for the talks on the beach and the hikes through the rainforest. And last, but not least, Alex for sharing with me your friendship and showing me your take on American Samoa. You all made this experience something I won’t ever forget.

 

Kalaupapa National Historical Park

On my way to Kalaupapa, I made a pit stop in Kona on the Big Island of Hawai’i to visit my cousin, David, and his wife, Katie. Though my stay was brief, I very much enjoyed a relaxing afternoon at the beach and a morning swim at popular snorkel site Honaunau Bay (aka Two-Step) with my family. Thanks guys for welcoming me to Hawai’i and taking me in for a night! But after spending just over 24 hours in Kona it was time to make moves towards Kalaupapa National Historical Park.

 

 

 

 

 

The 8-passenger, propeller plane left from Oahu just before sunrise. With just a half hour flight, we left behind the hustle and bustle of early morning Honolulu and entered a completely different realm. The park is located on the remote Kalaupapa Peninsula on the north side of the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i. Sea cliffs, the tallest in the world at over 3,000 feet, and the surrounding ocean isolate the peninsula from the rest of the island, a fact that played an important role in its history. Today, visitors to the park, like myself, must either walk down a trail along the cliff face from topside Moloka’i or fly in directly on a small, chartered plane operated by Makani Kai Airlines.

At the airstrip, I was greeted with an aloha by Marine Ecologist and Park Dive Officer, Eric Brown. After showing me to the historic Nurse’s quarters, my home for the next two weeks, Eric took me on a quick tour of the park, educating me on the extraordinary history of the peninsula.

In the mid-1800’s, Hansen’s disease, more commonly known as leprosy, began to sweep its way across the Hawaiian Islands. With no known cure and little knowledge of the disease itself, King Kamehameha V became fearful of the consequences of such an epidemic and exiled those afflicted with the disease to the Kalaupapa peninsula in 1865. Over the next hundred years, more than 8,000 patients with Hansen’s disease were torn away from their families and forcibly quarantined in the settlement on Kalaupapa under the Segregation Act. Early patients suffered not only from disease and the sorrow of separation, but also from food shortages, inadequate shelter, and a complete lack of medical care. Eventually, the generosity, charity, and effort of individuals, like Father Damien and Mother Marianne, brought major improvements to the lives of the patients. In the late 1940’s, the discovery of sulfone drugs brought about a cure for Hansen’s disease and the number of patients at Kalaupapa began to decrease as a result of the treatment. Finally, in 1969, the century-old Segregation Act was officially abolished.

Today, about a dozen cured patients have chosen to remain in the settlement and are allowed to come and go as they please. Here, they are continually cared for by staff from the Hawai’i Department of Health and members of their families. With a mission to preserve this solemn narrative for future generations, as well as protect the plethora of cultural and natural resources on the peninsula, Kalaupapa was established as a National Historical Park in 1980 and nowadays Park Service staff rounds out the population in the settlement at just under 100 people. As Eric’s tour progressed it became increasingly evident that the community here at Kalaupapa is extremely close-knit. Having been on the peninsula for less than an hour, Eric had already introduced me to about twenty residents! If this was any indication of how the next two weeks were going to go, I was excited to become a part of the Kalaupapa community!

Eric and I ended our tour at the Natural Resource Management Office just in time for the workday to begin. Here I was introduced to the rest of the Marine team – Maintenance Mechanic, Randall Watanuki, and Biological Science Technician, Sinefa Annandale. Together, we had a meeting to discuss the plans for my time here at Kalaupapa. This was my longest stay in a park to date and I was excited to get to experience multiple weeks of park operations at a single park. The first week of my visit, we would be finishing up the benthic marine monitoring surveys the team had started the previous week. And for the second week, visiting researchers from the University of Hawai’i were coming for a shark-tagging project! But first, there was one last freshwater site to be completed for annual water quality monitoring.

Without knowing quite what to expect, I hopped in the truck with Eric and Sinefa and we drove off to the eastern side of the peninsula. At a certain point the paved road of the settlement gave way to faint tire-tracks running through a meadow and leading up to the edge of a tropical rainforest. Machete in hand, Sinefa led the way into the dense growth. I followed behind Sinefa as he hacked away at sinewy vines and low tree branches. By far the coolest hike I’ve ever done, we trekked through the underbrush, blazing our own trail, and descended down 1,000 feet into Kauhako crater toward the freshwater lake sitting at the bottom. Though barely 300 feet across, the lake bottoms out at over 800 feet deep, making it, according to Eric, the deepest lake in the world for its surface area. As I collected and filtered water samples for lab analysis, Sinefa tested the water quality with a Sonde. The whole process only took 10 minutes and then we made our way back up the caldera walls, having to make use of ropes for the steeper parts of the ascent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back at the office, Eric decided to make use of the last hour or so of the workday by performing my checkout dive. While it can get repetitive to prove my skills to each new park, it is crucial that these checkout dives be performed so that the park divers are aware of my composure and comfort-level underwater and I am aware of theirs. After going over the basic mask clearing and buddy-breathing skills, we had time for a quick lap around the dock.

Kalaupapa’s underwater resources are vastly different from those I have seen so far on my trip. Large volcanic boulders scattered the reef slope, each with one or two individual coral heads growing on top. Compared to other reef communities I’ve seen where encrusting corals, sponges, or algae will fill in any and all exposed substrate on a reef, there appeared to be a considerable amount of open space just waiting to be occupied. However, while Kalaupapa’s percent coral cover and coral species diversity seemed relatively low, the community of fish that call these reefs home was vibrant and flourishing. Everywhere I looked – in the coral heads, under the rocks, up in the water column – I saw hundreds of fish. Huge schools of surgeonfish, unicornfish, and chubs swam alongside us, only to panic and swim away as a large barracuda came into view.

 

 

Over the course of the next two days, Eric, Randall, Sinefa, and I went out on the boat and completed the last remaining sites for the benthic marine monitoring program. Every year, the Marine team visits a total of 30 sites around the peninsula and gathers data on coral cover, rugosity, and fish species. On each dive, Eric would lay down the 25m transect tape and perform a fish count, while Sinefa or Randall (whoever wasn’t on the boat) would follow behind and take photographs of the substrate at every meter, which be analyzed later for percent cover data. Finally, Eric and I would round up the dive, teaming up to take a rugosity measurement.

However, the work week was cut short due to incoming storms Hurricane Lester and Hurrican Madeline. On Thursday, the park service and the state employees had the day off in order to prepare for the storms. In the morning, everyone gathered at the town hall to hear from the Emergency Preparedness team about what to expect for the weekend. With Lester set on a B-line for the entire Hawaiian archipelago and winds estimated to be over 100mph when it reached Moloka’i, the settlement went into lockdown mode. The trail to topside Moloka’i was closed, in addition to all flights out being suspended for the next few days. Additionally, a storm shelter was being set up in the town hall for those who experienced any damage or power outage during the storms and needed food or shelter.

With this in mind, Eric and I spent the day batting down the hatches at the office. We also moved the boat to a more secure mooring offshore and added extra lines for security. We debated moving the boat to the harbor on the other side of the island, but with the trail closed, Eric decided to play it by ear and make the decision as the storm got closer and its path became clearer.

Overnight, Madeline had stirred up the wind and dumped some heavy rains, the only damage being a small landslide and downed tree on the trail. The good news was that the Friday morning weather update showed Lester taking a more northerly route. While we were longer in the direct path, Moloka’i was placed under a Hurricane watch for high winds and rains throughout the weekend. So in anticipation of being locked up in our houses for the next two days, Tim Richmond, the Food Services Supervisor for the settlement, invited a bunch of people over for a potluck movie night. We watched Young Frankenstein as we indulged on a delicious dinner of spaghetti and Eric’s vegan meatballs. All in all, it was a fun bonding activity that made me really feel like a part of the Kalaupapa family.

The weekend passed by extremely uneventfully. For all of the hectic preparations, not a drop of rain or the slightest breeze made an appearance on Saturday or Sunday. So on Sunday, the trail opened back up and activity resumed in the settlement.

That Monday, Labor Day, was relatively quite in the settlement. I was used to pool parties, fireworks, and BBQs, which is why I didn’t initially question the bonfire-esque smell coming into my room at 1:30 in the morning. But at 2:00, I rolled over and immediately knew I was in trouble. The building, not 20 yards out my window was on fire. Screaming came from the adjacent rooms and it was evident Kylie, Jake, and Susan had awoken to the blaze out their window as well. Kylie ran to sound the settlement alarm as Jake radioed it in to the park Emergency Services. Together, we all ran from our building into the street. All we could do was watch as the kitchen burned. Soon everyone from the community was outside watching with us as others from the community fought the fire from two fronts. By the time we had noticed the fire, it was too late to save the state dining hall and the majority of the effort was spent controlling the fire and preventing it from spreading to other buildings or into the open field across the street. We were extremely lucky it had rained not an hour before and the grass was still wet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While devastating to watch, it was amazing to witness an entire community come together in the face of this disaster. Everyone helped out, whether it was turning the hydrant on or getting water bottles to the firefighters, stamping out the embers in the adjacent field or holding the high-pressure hose. Just as the sun peaked over the horizon, the last ember went out. The next 24 hours was an emotional time in the settlement as everyone tried to go back to his or her daily schedules. I have to commend all of the brave souls who helped fight the fire and supported their fellow community members through this tragedy that destroyed such a historic building and a vital cornerstone for the settlement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After an exciting night started off my second week in Kalaupapa, two visiting researchers from the University of Hawai’i, Kosta Stamoulis and Alex Filous, flew in to continue work on a shark-tagging project. In order to track sharks, and other apex predators, acoustic transmitters are implanted into a cavity on the underside of the fish and a plastic tag is attached at the base of the dorsal fin. These transmitters emit a coded series of pings that are then picked up and recorded by acoustic receivers that are placed strategically around the reef. The array of receivers allows for the researcher to track the movement of the tagged fish as well as the time stamps of the movement. When compiled, this information can be used to identify feeding grounds, spawning sites, and habitat ranges.

Before we could get around to tagging any new fish, we had to collect the receivers and download the data from the last 6 months. We spent the next day and a half collecting receivers located all around the peninsula – even venturing over to the breathtaking eastern side of the peninsula! Some were located just offshore in a shallow, meter-deep lagoon where blacktip reef sharks have been known to hang out, while some were located 500 meters offshore at a depth of 70 feet. We were able to retrieve all but Receiver #7, which had broken off of its mooring presumably during a strong swell event and, after a 50 minute search effort, we determined that it was lost to the sea.

Once all the receivers were collected, the mornings were spent underwater redeploying the downloaded receivers and the evenings were spent on the boat fishing. This was by far the biggest fishing endeavor I have ever been on, as I’ve only ever fished in lakes, so I was a bit overwhelmed at first. We had bait rods and game rods; we were using live bait, so we had a flow-through bait tank to keep the bait alive in the back of the boat; and, not to mention, we had all of the equipment and gear to do the tagging. Baitfish seemed to be the limiting factor for all of our outings. Oftentimes it took us a while to locate the ‘opelu (mackerel scad) or akule (big-eye scad), but once we saw a huge school on the fish finder we would drop the lines, jig them up, and reel in the bait.

After stockpiling up some bait, Randall would drive us offshore a bit where Kosta and Alex would toss in their lines with the live bait thrashing about and wait. Sometimes they would bring up their lines only to find that a predator had taken a huge chunk out of the baitfish without their knowing. Other times the predators would make it known and put up a fight before somehow managing to get off the hook; they were taunting us. But by the end of the week, Alex and Kosta had reeled in four sizeable fish – unfortunately, none of them were sharks. Alex and Kosta each caught one ‘omilu (Bluefin trevally, Caranx melampygus) and one ulua (Giant trevally, Caranx ignobilis). Once they brought the fish on board, we would run a hose over the gills as they measured its size and inserted the two tags. And of course, we grabbed a picture before putting it back in the water. I didn’t catch any taggable fish. Instead my biggest accomplishment of the fishing trips was catching 3 ‘opelu on one line to save the day and allow the guys to keep fishing for a bit longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day before I left, Eric came over and invited Jake, a visiting archaeologist for Cultural Resources, and I along for a monk seal survey. Beginning at the northernmost tip of the peninsula, we walked along the rocky western shoreline in the hopes of observing monk seal activity. Hawaiian monk seals are one of the most critically endangered marine mammals in the world with fewer than 1,000 individuals left in the wild. The park has been monitoring their behaviour and tagging individuals to help track the population as well as determine habitat preference and seasonal behavioural dynamics. About an hour into our walk, we spotted two subadult monk seals basking on the sandy beach. Jake and I ducked into the tree line while Eric quietly approached to observe them and identify them based on their tags. It was amazing to get to see these endangered animals up close and know that the park is doing what it can to help document their behaviour and protect their habitat. And as if the two weren’t enough, we spotted and identified another two individuals, potentially a mating pair, hanging out just up the beach!

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, the two weeks I spent at Kalaupapa were quite eventful. Kalaupapa is unlike any park I have been to as of yet. With a tragic narrative set at the base of majestic sea cliffs, Kalaupapa is truly a park of endurance and beauty. Its storied history has shaped the settlement into the quaint, close-knit family it is today and its isolation has helped preserve its wonderful natural resources from the vibrant fish communities to the fertile jungles. I am so grateful for having had the opportunity to experience all it has come to be.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to Eric, Randall, and Sinefa for making me an honorary member of the Kalaupapa Marine crew and allowing me to explore your beautiful park through a variety of experiences! Thanks to Kosta and Alex for imparting me with your wisdom and teaching me how to fish. And a big thank you to Tim, Jake, Kylie, Susan, Julia, Ryan, Emily, Claire, Meli, and the rest of the wonderful people at Kalaupapa who welcomed me with open arms into your community and into your family. Until next time!

A Kalaupapa sunset.

On Friday, August 19^th, I said goodbye to the Hawaiian Islands and hello to the California coast as I crossed back over to the mainland. I landed in LAX and caught a shuttle to Ventura Harbor where Park Headquarters is located for Channel Islands National Park. There, I was greeted by Marine Ecologist Joshua Sprague who led me to the park’s 58-foot research vessel, the Sea Ranger II, where I would be spending the weekend before joining the Kelp Forest Monitoring (KFM) team for a 5-day monitoring trip.

On Monday, after a day exploring the harbor and beach for myself, I awoke to the hustle and bustle of the crew arriving bright and early to prep the boat for the week ahead. Josh introduced me to Marine Biologist and Regional Dive Officer Dave Kushner, Captain Keith Duran, and Biological Technicians Katie Grady, Parker House, Keenan Chan, and Christy Santschi. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only visitor for the week. Ian Jacobson, the Dive Program Coordinator for local nonprofit LA Waterkeeper would be joining me in helping out the KFM team. After loading dive gear, survey equipment, and enough food to feed an army onto the boat, we were off to the Channel Islands for an intensive week of diving and field surveys in the kelp forests of Southern California.

The park itself consists of five of the eight Channel Islands – Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Santa Cruz – and the water extending one mile offshore. Located at the confluence of cold northern waters being carried south by the California current and the warm waters coming up along the coast from the south, the Channel Islands boasts an exceptionally diverse marine ecosystem. In addition to bringing together both warm- and cold-water species and yielding a high biodiversity, the currents also produce a nearly continuous upwelling phenomenon, which brings nutrient-rich water up from the deep ocean, supporting a highly productive environment. Because of this, the park boasts some of the most pristine examples of kelp forests in California. In fact, when Channel Islands National Park was created in 1980, Congress specifically noted this and highlighted the park’s scientific value as a site for long-term monitoring.

Launched in 1981, the KFM Program is the longest established marine monitoring program in the National Park Service. Now in its 35^th year, the KFM Program has grown from monitoring 13 permanent sites selected at the time of its formation to the now 33 sites located throughout the park. In 2005, the program doubled when 16 sites were added to better monitor the newly established Marine Reserves and to assess the efficacy of these reserves over time. Every year, each site is surveyed following the same detailed protocol and data are collected on over 70 species of algae, invertebrates, and fish. This long-term, multi-decade dataset has helped scientists understand the large-scale ecological patterns and processes at work in kelp forest communities that a five-year study would fail to detect. In addition, the data has allowed scientists to predict the larger trends in population dynamics of individual species and has informed various resource management strategies adopted by the state of California (including the establishment of marine reserves in 2002 and the closure of the abalone fisheries in 1997). Maintaining such an important and comprehensive dataset means that every summer, from May until October, the KFM team heads out on these 5-day monitoring trips every other week in order to complete surveys on all 33 sites.

On the way out to our first site, Josh explained the game plan of a typical day at a monitoring site. With a total of 12 different sampling techniques to perform and a massive amount of data to collect, each site typically requires 3 or 4 hour-long dives. Per person! And with a total of eight divers on board, there were a lot of moving parts to keep track of, especially with two of us being new to the program and the protocols. However, having done this countless times before, the KFM team ran like a well-oiled machine. When we pulled up to Anacapa Island at Site #13, Landing Cove, as soon as the anchor dropped, a team of divers entered the water. Their job was to lay the 100-meter baseline transect and take a video of the site. Once that was done, it was time for everyone else to hop in.

Not only was I new to the program and the protocols, but this was also my first dive ever in the California environment, let alone a thriving kelp forest biome. So all of the organisms were new to me. As such, I was paired with Dave Kushner for the day and told to just take in the ecosystem and observe the site while being his dive buddy.

When I first splashed into the water, I was immediately taken aback. I was not quite sure what I was expecting, but it was nothing in comparison to what I saw. I was surrounded by Giant Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera), some easily over 40-feet in height. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but when I paused for a second, I noticed the calming rhythym of the fronds swaying majestically in the surge. Taking a deep breath, I followed Dave into the dense maze of kelp, trying not to get entangled. As we swam along, strange fish I had never seen before darted in between the kelp blades. In the distance, a bat ray (Myliobatis californica) glided by in the canopy and a sea lion swam just yards away, checking us out. Compared to the showy color scheme of a Caribbean coral reef, the Californian kelp forest had a much cooler color palette, filled with earthy tones and muted hues. That is, except for the Garibaldi damselfish (Hypsypops rubicundus), whose burnt orange added an occassional splotch of color to the landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we made it to the start of the baseline transect, Dave and I began working on 1-meter quadrat surveys. With a goal of determining abundance of certain sedentary indicator species, this sampling technique was primarily focused on algae and invertebrates. At regular intervals along the transect, I would set up two 1-by-1 meter quadrats, one on either side of the tape, and Dave would search for snails, sea stars, and other organisms within the boundaries and record the abundance. On our next two dives, Dave and I took band transects perpendicular to the baseline. Though conceptually similar to the quadrat surveys, this sampling technique was designed to determine the abundance of less common or clumped organisms, like endangered abalone species or rock scallops, and therefore encompassed a much greater search area. While Dave swam the 60-square meter sections collecting the data, he would point out different organisms so that I could begin to develop a search image of my own. Additionally, as he was doing the surveys, I took pictures of various fish, algae, and invertebrates so that I could look them up later and identify them for practice.

 

As we continued our way down the baseline doing more band transects, we crossed paths with other members of the team who were busy at work. Some of them were collecting size measurements on hundreds of urchins, while others were counting the number of stipes (think stems) of individuals of Giant Kelp. Nearby, Katie, attached to a surface supply of air, could be heard calling off data points into her full-face communication system for Keenan to record topside. With four dive pairs operating at once, the site was alive with a suite of scientific activity! Finally, after racking up over 26 hours (yes, you read that right – 26 hours!) of bottom time and rigorous data collection, we had completed the first site of the trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout the rest of the week, we went to different spots off of Santa Cruz Island and repeated the day-long process of surveying a site. Our second site, Pedro Reef, was a stark contrast from where we were diving the day prior. Instead of diving on a beautifully lush kelp forest, we descended on an empty and exposed urchin barren. Located outside of the Marine Reserve, Pedro Reef serves as a prime example of how overfishing can have devastating cascading impacts on a kelp forest. Fishing pressures on predators like the California sheepshead and other apex consumers, allow sea urchin populations to boom unchecked. From there, elevated urchin populations graze on and mow down entire sections of kelp forests. To add insult to injury, the site saw a dramatic change from the previous year’s already dismal barren state. An invasive brown alga Sargassum horneri had taken over and covered practically every inch of available substrate.

At Pedro Reef, I was paired up with Katie and got to switch it up and implement different sampling techniques. For our first dive, I got to practice identifying the various species of fish I had studied the previous night by doing a Roving Diver Fish Count with Katie. Together we dropped down, each with our own dive slates and began swimming in a lane that spanned out 10 meters on either side from the baseline transect, counting every fish we saw. For someone who just learned about the fish of the southern California waters, I have to say that I was proud of my ability to at least identify all of the indicator species, even if I did have to write down descriptions of a few fish because I didn’t remember their names. On our second dive, Katie and I were designated to do the 5-meter quadrats. This protocol called for combing 1-by-5 meter segments on either side of the baseline and quantifying the amount of adult and juvenile Giant Kelp and Sargassum. As this site was overgrown with Sargassum, we spent well over an hour raking through the macroalgal carpet counting the individuals and determining their reproductive maturity. While tedious, this data will be very important for understanding long-term patterns and processes associated with urchin barrens and the cascading effects of overfishing. Plus, as a bonus, looking at the substrate so closely during the surveys revealed some colorful surprises!

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday, we changed it up and did something a bit different. We went to the backside of Santa Cruz Island, to Yellowbanks, a site that had already been surveyed earlier in the summer. Instead of doing the normal routine, we went to check on the Artificial Recruitment Modules (ARMs). Basically just stacks of cinderblocks inside wire cages, ARMs are an important part of the KFM program. All of the other sampling techniques the program utilizes are non-intrusive, meaning divers do not turn over rocks or reach inside crevices to look for organisms. However, since many young recruits and juveniles often take shelter in those protected spaces, a large and crucial demographic of creatures are overlooked in these surveys. By deploying the artificial 3-dimensional structures and thus providing shelter for juvenile organisms, the KFM team has created an artificial habitat for a comprehensive intrusive survey.

On the first dive, each person picked an ARM and disassembled it, carefully removing each cinderblock and placing all of the indicator species found on, in, or under it into a giant mesh collection bag. After an ARM was completely disassembled, the goodie bags of sea creatures were brought back to the boat where their contents would be measured. On deck, everyone gathered around the bucket of creatures with a set of calibers and called out mesurements of urchins, sea stars, cowries, and snails to a data collector. The organisms were then returned and the ARMs reassembled.

Following our long days, whether they were spent diving for 3-4 hours or sitting hunched over a bucket of urchins, we would motor over to Santa Cruz Island, where we dropped anchor in Prisoner’s Bay for the night. Every evening, a different person on the KFM team cooked dinner for the group as the rest of us sat down and talked about the day. There was always a little bit of data processing and discussion to be done before work was officially over and dinner was served. Life aboard the Sea Ranger II was similar to that of the MV Fort Jeff out at Dry Tortugas National Park. While most people might find the cramped spaces or the lack of certain amenities like cell phone service or internet hard to handle, I had really come to enjoy life aboard a dive boat. Something about the daily schedule of dive, eat, sleep, repeat really clicks with me!

On Thursday evening, after spending the day surveying Scorpion Anchorage off of Santa Cruz Island, we had a visit from a surprise guest. The infamous Pike Spector, last year’s OWUSS NPS Intern, just happened to be spending his last week before heading back to grad school on Santa Cruz Island and came out to say hi to the KFM team. It was awesome to get to meet Pike and chat about his experience last year and the cool things he is doing now after his internship.

Thursday, August 25^th, also marked the official date of the NPS Centennial. I could not think of a better to celebrate the Centennial than by spending the day diving in the kelp forests of Channel Islands National Park, all while taking part in the longest established monitoring program in the National Park Service! So while parks around the country were celebrating the Centennial with big parties and special events, we celebrated the best we could…by baking cookies!

Friday came all too quickly. Unfortunately, I had to sit out of the last day of diving because I was flying out of LA the following morning. That afternoon, we made our way back to Ventura Harbor and unpacked the boat from long week in the field. After saying goodbye to the KFM crew, I stayed overnight on the boat before catching an early morning shuttle to begin my weekend of travel to my next destination: Kalaupapa!

I had an absolute blast diving with the KFM crew and living on board the Sea Ranger II! I really have to commend the crew for the commitment they show for their work. I have to admit that that one week exhausted me. And to think they do it dozens of times in a summer season! I also want to extend the sincerest of thanks to the entire crew for welcoming me into your family for the week and for incorporating me into such an important monitoring program! Another huge thanks goes out to Parker and Josh, who let me borrow their cameras when I flooded mine. (Without them, this would have been a pretty borring blog.) I had such a fantastic time! I’ll definitely be back!