After an epically early flight from Medford, Oregon, I arrived in Honolulu, Oahu for the next phase of my internship. At the airport I met up with Brett Seymour, photographer for the SRC, and his trusty sidekick and VIP (Volunteer in Parks), Jim Koza. Koza spent more than 30 years working in and on water within the National Park Service and retired as the Park Dive Officer from Lake Mead National Recreation Area. He became involved with the SRC years ago when they first started dive ops at Lake Mead. Since then, he has become a trusted member of the team, and spends some of his retirement travelling around with the SRC crew to volunteer his time on field projects. I knew I was in for a great trip-everyone at the office had told me how much I would enjoy working with Brett and Koza. We made our way to Pearl Harbor Naval Base, where we would be spending the week, to get our base passes and check in to our housing.

After dealing with those logistics, we headed out to Pearl Harbor and the new visitors center for the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument. It includes the USS Arizona Memorial, along with the memorials for USS Utah and USS Oklahoma, commemorating the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 that initiated the U.S.’s involvement in World War II. USS Arizona was one of nine ships sunk during the attack, and represented the largest loss of life in U.S. Naval history. Only Arizona and Utah were too heavily damaged by the attacks and left submerged; the other ships were salvaged and repaired. USS Arizona is the source of a contentious, continual oil leak; approximately 500,000 gallons of crude oil remain within the ship, although only a few gallons seep out on a daily basis.

Our first task was to transport all of our gear for the week out to the Memorial, which is accessed via a free public ferry operated by the navy. We hauled several carts full of dive gear and hard cases packed with video equipment across the visitor’s center and loaded them onto the ferry, much to the curiosity of the visitors. It is a short ride across the harbor from the visitor’s center to the Memorial.

As the boat pulled up to the Memorial, I felt an unexpected surge of emotion. I actually tend to avoid war memorials. My family survived World War II, but in a different way then the Pearl Harbor Survivors. My grandparents were Holocaust survivors. I deeply appreciate the sacrifices of those who fought for their freedom, but growing up being constantly reminded of the horror and atrocities that afflicted my family has often made me shy away from things like war memorials and films. Walking into the USS Arizona Memorial, I could feel my eyes blurring and my face quivering…it was an incredibly powerful place. To be on the site of such devastation and terror, a final resting place for 1,177 lost lives, is to be in a state of introspection. I couldn’t help but wonder about the young sailors who fought for their lives on this exact spot, and whether they knew the global resonance of what happened that day. So many of them would never know that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor didn’t shatter the Pacific fleet (as was hoped by its orchestrators), but solidified America’s resolve to join the war with failure being an unacceptable option. That the subsequent actions of American and other Allied troops would ultimately lead to my own grandparents’ survival from the largest act of genocide committed in human history. I was especially aware, as I walked into the Memorial, that my own existence is due to the particular way that events unfolded in that war, and to the selfless sacrifices of so many. All these thoughts raced through my brain as I stood there, surrounded by visitors from all around the world who had come to pay their respects and witness this infamous battleground.

My introspection was a necessary divergence, but we were here to work. We had come to Pearl Harbor to film in 3D, to gather footage for use in education and outreach. We were joined by several people from different entities: Scott Pawlowski, Chief of cultural and natural resources at the park, Maryann Morin, Evan Kovacs, and Luis Lamar from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Advanced Imaging and Visualization Lab, and Dan Lenihan, the founder of the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit, or SRCU Team which became the SRC. Dan snorkeled the site in 1982 at the request of the mangers of the newly formed USS Arizona Memorial, ran the subsequent site documentation and mapping operation from 1983-85, and is the individual who actually rewrote the corporate history of the site with the discovery of the #1 gun turret which is still in place on Arizona despite documented records from the aftermath of the bombing. Also on the production team were Lonnie Hubbard and Ryan Lummus from Ocean Technology Services, a long time partner of the SRC. The OTS guys delivered the custom built underwater communication system we would be using. After testing some gear in the pool, we met up with Scott and the crew from Woods Hole to do some filming on the model of the wreck that is housed inside the visitor’s center to provide viewers with perspective and a sense of place when viewing underwater footage of the same features. We spent the night panning, zooming, and reviewing as we took take after take after take of the model. I quickly learned that filming is much more time consuming then shooting still photos. Especially when filming in 3D! Not only do you have to worry about composition and lighting, but edge violations, intraocular distances, and I’m sure much, much, more. It was a very interesting process to observe, and I was curious to see how all this would be undertaken once we added the underwater element to the mix over the next few days.

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I arrived in Crater Lake after six weeks in south Florida, highly unaccustomed to the brisk mountain air, the noticeable lack of mosquitoes, and the tall trees. My first impression? It is freezing here!!! Dipping into the 40s at night, the temperature was the first of many dramatic changes I would experience in comparison to the parks I came to know in Florida.

On Monday morning I met Scott Girdner, aquatic biologist at the park, and joined his two field technicians, Hillary and Andrew to monitor zooplankton out on the lake for the day. When I first saw the lake on our drive around the rim, I was awestruck. Granted, there were several active fires in the area so the air quality hasn’t been as good as normal, but the lake was still stunning—a cobalt gem hidden amongst the rocky cliffs and pine forests of the caldera wall. Crater Lake, located in southern Oregon, was formed 7,700 years ago following the eruption of Mount Mazama. After the eruption, the mountain collapsed on itself, forming the bowl shaped caldera and several other volcanic features. Two of these, Wizard Island (a cinder cone) and Phantom Ship (an eroded volcanic dyke) can be seen on the surface of the lake, while the rest of the features lay deep below the glassy blue surface. The lake has no source of water other than precipitation and snowmelt; neither does it feed into any stream. For these reasons it is considered a closed ecological system, and studying this particular lake can shed light on how things like climate change will affect our planet in the future.

This lake is notably low in both biomass and biodiversity, due to its volcanic origins, isolation, and extreme water clarity. While at the park, I was able to get involved in ongoing monitoring of zooplankton, primary productivity, and water quality, which are only a few of the many projects that are conducted in the lake. I also helped out with some maintenance diving to secure moorings in the lake, getting the rare opportunity to experience this park underwater.

The park conducts regular monitoring of zooplankton, and we spent a day sampling these microscopic creatures at 20-meter intervals through the water column, down to 200 meters of depth. Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States, and has some of the clearest water of any lake in the world. This clear water enables extremely high levels of UV radiation to penetrate deep into the lake, which actually seems to prevent significant amounts of plankton in the top layers of the water.

Monitoring water quality is an important part of the long-term monitoring here at the park, and USGS researcher Bob Hoffman works collaboratively with Mark and Scott on this monitoring project. My second day at the park, Bob and his wife Susan joined us to collect water samples using devices called Niskin bottles, to measure factors such as primary productivity, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, Ph, alkalinity, and clarity. Water quality in the lake has been monitored since the mid-1980s, and the lake can be characterized as having very low productivity and high clarity. Changes in water quality can affect the lake’s world-famous clarity, and researchers are closely monitoring the lake to watch for impacts from perturbations such as climate change.

Bob also collects water samples from streams that feed into the lake. We took the boat around the edge of the caldera, past Phantom Ship, to a bunch of small streams that were cascading into the lake to take samples. In the beginning, the water was flat calm and as reflective as a mirror. I could barely contain myself (ok, I couldn’t contain myself) as we drove by the incredible rock features of the caldera, reflected in the glassy surface of the lake. Phantom Ship was lit dramatically by the sun diffused through the quickly building clouds, and all the sudden I felt as though this place did not belong on earth, but in a fantasy novel. It was simply otherworldly. Then, the skies opened up and the rain poured down on us as we drove, soaking us in what seemed to be payback for the beautiful weather we had earlier in the day. With all the samples collected, we headed back to the trail for the mile-long hike up the caldera wall.

Diving in the Lake

Recreational diving is permitted in the park, but divers must be able to hike in and out of the crater with all of their gear on a steep 1 mile trail—no easy task! The water can be cold enough to freeze regulators, and high altitude diving carries additional risks, so only the most committed and prepared divers attempt to dive here for fun. The park uses a small tractor and trailer to transport dive, science, and maintenance gear from the rim to the water’s edge, so thankfully I only had to get myself up and down the trail every day while my gear hitched a ride. Mark and Scott regularly dive in the lake to conduct scientific monitoring and maintenance, and were kind enough to give me the opportunity to dive with them in this unique ecosystem.

I put on my drysuit with apprehension, slightly nervous of how I would react to the cold water against the few areas of exposed skin after spending the last month and a half in the warm waters of Florida. Our first dive was on Phantom Ship, the island that is a remnant of an eroded volcanic dyke on the south side of the lake. After a safety briefing from Mark and buddy checks, we got on the rest of our gear and I dropped into the clear blue lake. I COULD NOT BELIEVE how clear the water was. I looked down, knowing that I was seeing a bottom which was at least 100 feet deep before dropping off into the blue abyss, but to me it seemed like it was only 20 feet below. We headed in a counter-clockwise direction, with the goal of circumnavigating the island. We dropped through a large crack in the rock down to about 50 feet, at which point I looked back up at the surface—it looked like I could still reach out and touch it! I found myself checking my dive computer about every 60 seconds on this dive, just to ensure that I didn’t lose track of my depth (which can be easy to do in such clear water). The water was cold, but I had come prepared with extra thermals and my core was toasty warm throughout the dive.

It was very odd to dive in a place like this, which clearly has a deep and mysterious quality, while knowing that there is nothing big and scary in the depths that can possibly get you. Eventhough large predators are rare in the oceans these days anyway, diving in deep water always has me thinking about what is beyond the limits of the visibility. Here in Crater Lake, there is nothing bigger then a trout, and I actually didn’t see a single fish on this dive. In fact, at first glance, it appears as though the lake is completely lifeless. I knew this wasn’t true after our zooplankton monitoring (although productivity here is remarkably low), but I had to look pretty carefully to find any macrofauna. Upon close inspection, the sharp rock walls were inhabited by a couple of different types of snails, and some filamentous algae. That was about it though. In the shallow area where we completed our dive, there were endemic newts and some sponges growing on the undersides of the rocks. It was definitely the emptiest-feeling place I had ever dived. Really it felt more like flying then diving, with nothing around me but my dive buddy for hundreds of feet in most directions and seemingly endless visibility.

Our next dives were to reinforce the mooring buoys used to secure the park’s two boats. Installing moorings in this type of environment is a challenge due to the lack of flat, shallow substrate. These moorings are anchored to 55 gallon, concrete-filled barrels that sit on a sloping, silty bottom. They were secured with several triple-stranded steel cables that ran along the bottom to the shore and were secured to large boulders. Unfortunately, the cables were not standing up to the wear and tear they were receiving, and in some places they were visibly wearing out. On our dives we laid heavy-duty galvanized steel chain along the original cables with the ultimate goal of securing the chains to the boulders and removing the old cable. The chain would hold up much better and reduce the amount of maintenance currently needed on the moorings. The chain was very heavy, and Scott was tethered to the surface with a live communication link to have constant contact with Mark as he maneuvered the boat to properly deploy the chain to us underwater. Having very limited experience doing maintenance dives, I found this work to be very rewarding.

As I left Crater Lake for the airport in Medford, Oregon where I would catch my flight to Hawaii, I could not help but feel surprised at how much I enjoyed my time here. I never would have expected to like such a cold place, so far from the ocean. But this place has a special, mystical charm that I am sure will bring me back in the future!

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Before heading to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, I made a quick stop at the Submerged Resources Center (SRC) in Lakewood, Colorado for the weekend to pick up and try out a drysuit generously lent to me by Kim Johns, the owner of USIA. The drysuit will be needed for the frigid waters of Crater Lake where the surface temperature can reach 60 degrees, but at depth the waters can be in the 30s and 40s!

I also picked up a full-face mask for use when I head to World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Hawaii, for use while diving  on the USS Arizona.  The water in Pearl Harbor isn’t exactly pristine, and the presence of leaking oil at the wreck site makes it preferable to dive in a full face mask.   Additionally, I will be working with SRC photographer Brett Seymour to assist him while he shoots 3D video underwater, so the communication features of the mask will come in handy then. 

Dave Conlin, chief of the SRC, and his wife Michelle kindly put me up for my two nights in town.  Dave and I spent Saturday at the pool refreshing my drysuit skills and practicing with the full face mask.  Aside from reviewing basic buoyancy skills, Dave had me practice regaining control of my buoyancy without fins, and in a mock stuck inflator valve scenario, where I had to flood my suit to avoid rocketing to the surface.  The 80-degree water of the pool felt cold as it rushed into my suit—I knew I was in for a big shock when I hit Crater Lake!  Dave also had me practice holding a loaded weight bag out in front of my while swimming, to simulate my camera.  It was awkward at first to make sure that all the air stayed in my arms to support the weight, but I got the hang of it after a few tries.

If you are unfamiliar with how a drysuit works, it is the opposite of a wetsuit.  A wetsuit traps a thin layer of water around your body, which is heated with your body heat and retains warmth.  The less exchange of water there is in the suit, the warmer you stay, which is why it is always recommended to get a tight fitting wetsuit.  A drysuit on the other hand insulates with air, not water.  It has watertight seals to prevent any water from entering the suit, and thick fleece undergarments are worn underneath for insulation.  Kind of like military grade fleece footy pajamas!  The big complication of diving in a drysuit is that air undergoes changes in volume depending on pressure, so you need to keep track of your drysuit air just as you would with a BCD.  As you descend and air compresses, you need to add more air to maintain neutral buoyancy.  As you ascend, that air needs to be released as it expands to prevent an uncontrolled ascent to the surface.  If a significant amount of air gets to your feet, that air can pull you up feet first. Hence the practice drills to ensure that I am prepared, as it has been a while since I have dived in a drysuit.

Prepped with more drysuit thermals then I hope to need, and excitement for a new place, I headed west on Sunday morning for Crater Lake, Oregon!

I spent Tuesday through Thursday of the second week in September with the dive team from the South Florida / Caribbean Network (SFCN), which is a part of the Inventory and Monitoring Program of the National Park Service. SFCN works throughout the parks in southern Florida and the Caribbean on natural resource management projects.  These projects focus on two main tasks: performing baseline surveys of natural resources in the parks to provide information on park ecosystems, and long term monitoring to keep track of ecosystem health.  SFCN works in all habitats found in the parks in this region from marshes to the open ocean.  There are terrestrial, aquatic, and marine biologists who work with the SFCN.  Matt Patterson, the coordinator of SFCN, put me in touch with Mike Feeley, in charge of the marine monitoring team, and I arranged to spend a few days diving with them as they monitored coral reef fish communities throughout Biscayne National Park.  The dive team was conducting annual reef fish censuses throughout the park, which required diving in a variety of habitats and depths.

Our first day I was surprised in Black Point Marina by a manatee that was spotted by SFCN’s SCA (Student Conservation Association) Intern, Lee Richter.  I had been hoping to see a Manatee ever since I arrived in Biscayne, but summer is not the best time to see them in South Florida.  In the winter, when the water is cold, they aggregate in marinas and canals, where there is warmer water.  Knowing this, I had accepted that I probably would go two summers in Florida without ever seeing one (I spent a summer working in the Keys a few years ago, manatee-less!).  I was so happy when Lee found the one in the marina, chomping on algae growing on the pilings.  I tried to take a photo of it in the water, but the visibility was awful—hence the blurry, dark photo below.  But I finally saw one!

Our three days on the water were highly productive.  The divers successfully did their fish surveys at 21 sites, ranging anywhere from 12 to 90 feet, in conditions bordering on pea soup to clear blue water.  We dove in shallow sites in the bay, where there were small areas of suitable habitat surrounded by sprawling sea grass beds, areas of dense coral cover in blue waters offshore, and even at a deep site 90 feet down, where there were some of the largest sponges I have ever seen.  I only saw three lionfish throughout all my dives (very good), but I only saw a few fish larger than 12 inches on the reefs (not good). The SFCN monitors specific “Vital Signs,” which are physical, chemical, and biological processes present in park ecosystems, as measures of ecosystem health.  Marine fish communities are considered a Vital Sign, and the fish monitoring done by the dive team will help park managers measure the current conditions of reef fish communities and how they are holding up to pressures such as fishing, pollution, and climate change.  Without consistent and reliable monitoring, we cannot know when ecological communities become weakened until it is too late.

I had a great time diving with the SFCN team, and got a great feel for what is it like to do fish monitoring in south Florida.  This type of diving is very satisfying; task oriented and knowing that the information gathered is directly affecting future conservation decisions.  I have experience doing fish and coral surveys from before this internship, and my time in south Florida has confirmed that I still enjoy this type of diving.  I really like being task oriented underwater, whether that means taking photos or collecting data.  In addition, all the people I dived with in south Florida (Dry Tortugas and Biscayne) have been absolutely wonderful to work with.  I would be thrilled to work with any of them in the future!  THANK YOU so much to all my new friends and acquaintances in Florida.  I won’t forget your warm hospitality and generosity as I head west for the next leg of my internship!

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After all the drama and uncertainty of last week, the weather and other cosmic conditions have calmed down and allowed me to get in the water here at Biscayne. I can happily say that I now see why the waters around Biscayne are so revered; outside the shallow green waters of the bay lies a veritable wonderland of coral reefs. I was really surprised by the density of coral coverage that I saw in hard corals, and soft corals were blanketing all other available surfaces at many of the sites I visited. I accompanied park divers Shelby Moneysmith, Katie Johnson, and Meghan Balling on several dives to monitor fish diversity and abundance, and to monitor benthic habitat.

Dave Conlin and Susanna Pershern came down to Biscayne this week to do some archeological work at the park. Due to the sensitive nature of the project, I can’t talk about it in detail, but I can say I learned a lot through my first underwater archeology experience. I am beginning to comprehend one of the major differences between natural resource management and cultural resource management. Natural resources, while finite in the long term, can often recover from short-term perturbations such as over extraction, disease, and pollution, if managed properly. Cultural resources are at risk from very different factors, and once damaged, those resources are permanently lost, along with the history that gives the wreck or artifact its cultural significance. These sites are remnants of our collective history as humans, and link us inextricably to our past. I really didn’t understand the value of wrecks before, but having the opportunity to dive on wrecks in Florida has changed my perspective on the matter. These wrecks are places where sailors once fought to save their ship from sinking, and themselves from drowning; sites that once were dominated by destruction and even death, which now bring new life to the ocean floor as artificial reefs. They are valuable to us not only for their recreational opportunities as divers, and as habitat for marine life, but as lasting reminders of our continued attempts to master nature. I am constantly reminded of the sea’s immense power when I see these wrecks, and it helps me to maintain a healthy reverence for this amazing body of water that balances life on our planet.

Unfortunately while diving in the park, evidence of human carelessness was also clear underwater. Discarded fishing line, beer cans, old ropes, and broken traps littered the otherwise pristine-looking reefs, sea grass beds and sand flats. I was able to venture into some mangroves in a shallow area off of one of the main canals, and in the surrounding sea grass there were many huge prop scars and “blow holes,” caused by boats flooring the engines when they are stuck in low water. We had been careful to enter the area at the peak of high tide to avoid the risk of running aground, but clearly other boaters had not been so careful. The habitat takes quite a long time to recover from these scars, and they are clearly visible from the surface.

Despite these insults to this sensitive habitat, Biscayne is still a beautiful place, and well deserving of its designation as a National Park. It protects the longest stretch of mangroves on Florida’s east coast, part of the third longest coral reef system in the world, and 16 threatened or endangered species, like sea turtles and manatees. The park also supports recreational and commercial fishers, as well as divers, snorkelers, kayakers, wind-surfers, boaters, and other water enthusiasts. Park managers are currently finalizing a new General Management Plan to ensure that Biscayne National Park is managed responsibly for the next few decades, to safeguard the recreational opportunities, fisheries productivity, and ecological services that the park currently provides for future generations.

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After my first few days in Biscayne National Park, I am getting a true taste of what it is like to live and work in South Florida. After stocking up on groceries for my time here, I remember pondering how wonderful it was that I could find mangos, papayas, passion fruits, dragon fruits, and many other tropical delights at the local fruit stand. Unfortunately, being in the tropics comes at a much higher cost then mosquito bites and sunburn. All the tropical fruit in the world seems insignificant when a potential hurricane starts making its way towards you.

On Monday morning I met up with Shelby Moneysmith, the Park Dive Officer and Biological Science Technician, and Dr. Vanessa MacDonough, Fishery and Wildlife Biologist at the park. After getting a tour of the park’s facilities, I headed out on the water with park divers Anthony DiSilvestro and Meghan Balling to monitor the short stretches of available coastline on Elliot Key for sea turtle nests, followed by a couple of dives searching for lionfish. This is about as different as it gets from the Dry Tortugas, for being only 180 miles away (as the crow flies). Biscayne is on the mainland of Florida. You can drive for 10 minutes and be at a grocery store. The shore here is densely populated with mangroves, and near shore waters are often the color of tea, due to tannins released by the decaying vegetation. The smell of mangroves is also distinctive—pungent and organic, you can’t really ignore it, just learn to love it! Not only are there dense mangrove communities, but dense human communities abound nearby as well. Visitors from all over south Florida, including Miami, visit the park, and there is clearly much more human impact out here than in the deserted islands of the Dry Tortugas. Propeller scars in the sea grass, anchor damage on coral reefs, and marine debris are all telling signs of challenges facing park managers. Sensitive and endangered organisms like Manatees, sea turtles, and Elkhorn corals all rely on habitats found within the park, and the difficulties of managing human use of the park and maintaining these habitats in pristine condition are immense.

One of the most obvious challenges the park faces is the significant amount of marine debris that washes ashore here, due to winds and currents. The first time I saw one of the sea turtle beaches I was appalled by the amount of trash these turtles must haul themselves through to nest. Not only that, but the beaches here are lined with craggy, sharp beach rock that can be murderous to human feet. I can only imagine how difficult it would be for a turtle that gets stuck at low tide to crawl back to the water. These are not the powdery soft beaches of the Tortugas. Although there are small numbers of turtles that nest here, despite the harsh conditions, park resource managers have seen a significant decline in nests and an increase in false crawls. It is important for all of us to remember that our waste has a global effect—not only can it end up on turtle beaches and prevent them from nesting, it can end up in the ocean and entangle, poison, choke or otherwise harm wildlife and habitats. The debris that washes up on the shore of Biscayne represents a global epidemic of mismanaged waste, and we all need to do out part to reduce our impact.

Unfortunately, our day was cut short by the looming threat of Hurricane Irene, which on Monday (August 22) appeared as though it might be heading for the east coast of southern Florida. At this point it was only a Tropical Storm, but park managers wanted to play it safe to ensure the safety of park facilities and give the park’s employees enough time to deal with preparing their homes in case the storm hit. We spent the next couple of days battening down the park—taking all the boats out of the water and securing them on their trailers, tidying loose debris and equipment around the exteriors of all the park buildings, and putting up hurricane shutters. I stocked up on water, ice, and food in case we lost power in park housing. By Wednesday(August 24), we were all in a suspended state, waiting to see where Irene would go. I spent the week helping crews prepare for the hurricane, and assisting in the office as needed. The park is currently preparing for a public comment session on the draft General Management Plan (GMP), which will dictate management priorities in the park for the next couple of decades, and I helped out with the creation of a presentation about marine reserves to be used in the public meetings (for more information about the draft GMP, see http://www.nps.gov/bisc/parknews/draft-general-management-plan-released.htm). It was really interesting and informative to get a behind the scenes look what goes into preparing for public meetings, and to see all the different potential alternatives for zoning of the park in the future.

Thankfully, Hurricane Irene headed away from Florida and up the coast on a northern trajectory, although this was quite unfortunate for the northeastern states. By Friday morning we had all the boats back in the water, and were able to go out diving! Anthony, Katie Johnson (Park Biologist), and I went out to search for lionfish. We didn’t have very much luck, and the visibility was awful due to the high winds and thunderstorms all week, but I was just happy to get back in the water. If the weather holds out, I can look forward to lots of diving next week!

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I spent the last 10 days living aboard the M.V. Fort Jefferson, the Park Service’s supply boat to Dry Tortugas National Park, with a turtle research group from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). They come out to the Tortugas several times a year in the summer months to monitor and tag sea turtles in the area. They are seeking nesting females and adults and juveniles of both sexes. To find them, the team walks nesting beaches at night to locate females hauling up to lay their eggs, and searches shallow foraging grounds for juveniles and adults.

Our hosts aboard the M.V. Fort Jefferson were Captains Blue and Janie Douglass, and John Spade. Janie made sure that we all stayed well fed and had plenty of delicious leftovers for our nightly 4am fridge raids! The turtle team consisted of 9 researchers, students, and volunteers, all associated with USGS or University of Florida.

The project lead, Dr. Kristen Hart, is a research ecologist with USGS who has been studying sea turtles in the Tortugas for 4 years. She has been able to track individual turtles for more then 800 days with satellite tags to see where they go during different seasons. Sea turtles are highly migratory, and may traverse thousands of miles per year. Satellite tags are the best way of learning where they go and when, so that effective management strategies can be implemented and critical habitat protected for these endangered marine reptiles. Kristen has been able to determine that the turtles tagged in the Dry Tortugas travel as far as 800 km from the small island group into the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas, or to Cuba. In addition, Kristen deploys acoustic tags whose signals are picked up by receivers scattered throughout the park to learn more about local movements and habitat use on a finer scale.

Our ten-day cruise was filled with long nights patrolling for turtles on the nesting beaches, and afternoons on the water trying to catch foraging turtles. While walking the beach at night might not sound difficult, doing it from sunset until 4 am definitely wears you out after a few days! Each night, we would set up our gear and a big circle of beanbags on the beaches of Loggerhead and/or East Keys, and take turns patrolling the shoreline every half hour. I loved walking the beaches at night; the moon has been bright and the skies have been mostly clear, with lightning flashing on the distant horizon (except for two nights when we had to cut things short due to lighting storms that came too close). In between walks, we would talk, read, do crossword puzzles, play cards, or nap. I found that mastering the art of beanbag chair napping was critical to a good night on the beach!

When a turtle was seen, we would wait for her to complete the nesting process before approaching her, to make sure that she wasn’t interrupted before having the chance to successfully nest. Often, turtles will crawl up on the beach and dig a few pits without nesting, and then head back to the sea. On their way back to the water, the team would corral the turtle to keep her in one place while they collected biometric data and attached tags. They collected standard body measurements, a blood sample, tissue biopsies, and inserted PIT tags (stands for Passive Integrated Transponder, a small scannable device-like what you put in a dog or cat in case they get lost) and attached flipper tags. Then the team attached either satellite or acoustic tags, waited for the adhesive to dry, and released the turtle to continue its journey back to the sea.

Two nights we found Loggerhead hatchlings crawling to the sea while doing patrols. I can’t describe the feeling of surprise when I saw a tiny hatchling scampering into the surf directly in front of me while patrolling the beach for 300+ lb nesting females. To imagine these minute creatures, just hatched out of a golf-ball sized egg, growing up over the next few decades to become the huge turtles that crawl onto the beaches to lay their eggs is truly awe-inspiring. Not only do these hatchlings face natural threats, from nest inundation to predators, they now are confronted with a barrage of man-made challenges that dramatically reduce their chances of surviving to adulthood. Lights on nesting beaches, rats, cats, and other non-native predators that consume eggs and hatchlings, beach erosion, the veritable obstacle course of fishing gears strewn throughout the world’s oceans, poachers, boat strikes, disease, spilled oil, climate change, plastic pollution—any one of these things can spell disaster for a sea turtle. With Loggerhead nests declining more than 40% on index beaches in Florida from 1998-2006 (for more information check out Decreasing Annual Nest Counts in Globally Important Loggerhead Sea Turtle Populations by Witherington et al. 2009), clearly Florida’s turtles are not able to hold up to such a treacherous environment. That is why work like Kristen’s is so important—the genetic and immunological information found in the blood, biological indicators from isotope analysis of the tissue samples, growth rates and body condition information from the biometric measurements, and spatial data from the PIT, flipper, acoustic and satellite tags enables natural resource managers to make the most informed management decisions possible with respect to managing sea turtle populations.

As only nesting females come ashore, turtles are also captured using the rodeo technique to get a more representative sampling of the population, including males and females who aren’t nesting this year. Rodeo catching of turtles is quite a thing to watch. We took the Carretta, a 26 foot boat that Kristen had built specifically for her research, out to shallow foraging areas where there are tons of turtles that are easily visible in the clear water. We would get a turtle in our sites and approach it from the proper angle so that the jumpers could leap from the boat onto the turtle and grab onto it as it surfaced. The boat has a tall tower with a console where the captain had the best vantage point for finding turtles and avoiding submerged hazards like shallow coral heads, and a specially built leaning post on the bow that the rodeo jumpers could hang onto. In addition, the boat has a 48 inch wide door in the side to haul in the hugest of turtles. Once the jumpers caught a turtle, the boat would swing up beside them to pull the turtle in through the door and start working it up. The team collected all the same data as they did for the nesters and applied tags. We caught some absolutely enormous turtles, including the biggest male rodeo capture in the history of the project.

To catch juveniles the team took the Livingston, a small skiff, into the shallow waters around the fort and dip-netted the youngsters to collect measurements, blood, and biopsies and attach flipper, and sometimes acoustic, tags. The majority of the juveniles captured on this trip were recaptures—they had been caught and marked in prior years. This is excellent because Kristen can track their growth rates over time and determine the site fidelity and survival rate for this population.

This is a group of extraordinarily dedicated researchers. We would walk the beaches every night starting at sundown, and wouldn’t return to our mother ship until at least 4 am. After scarfing down leftovers and all eight of us waiting for our turn to shower, it was easily 5 am before most of us got to bed. The next day we would be up by noon at the latest for breakfast/lunch, and then out to the field for rodeo or dip netting of juveniles. Then we would all sit down for one of Janie’s excellent dinners, followed by dessert every night (you need all those calories, at least that’s what we would tell ourselves!) before heading back out for more beach walks. The team worked great together, and there was never a lack of laughs or interesting conversations. When they got a turtle, the team operated like a well-oiled machine; everyone knew what had to be done and what their role was.

I was also able to get some diving in during our time on the M.V. Fort Jefferson. Kristen’s acoustic receivers had to be retrieved to download the data and replace the batteries, so John Spade and I reinstalled them in their custom built augured ports. I was the a backup diver while Blue and John did maintenance work on some of the mooring buoys in the park, and then Kayla and I got to jump in to search for Lionfish and take photos. These were my first boat-based dives in the park, and being out in the blue water was awesome. I have spent the last few years in the highly productive, and often green, northern Gulf of California, which is incomparable to the clear, warm water of Florida. The sites we dove were rocky pinnacles rising out of the sandy bottom, and were covered in hard and soft corals, sponges, and sea fans. I saw some big groupers, hogfish, and jacks, although I somehow have yet to see a Goliath Grouper! I have been pretty diligent about wearing my 3 mm wetsuit every time I get in the water to avoid sunburn and to minimize the risk of jellyfish stings, but I have actually been too warm! That is a first for me.

IMPRORTANT NOTES:
-All photos of turtles taken at night were captured using ambient moonlight and/or low-power red lights to minimize disturbance to the turtles. NO flash was used at night on nesting beaches.
-All marine turtle images taken in Florida were obtained with the approval of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC MTP #11-176) under conditions not harmful to this or other turtles.

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A few days ago, I tagged along with Tracy Zeigler, (Fisheries Biologist for Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Parks) as she observed a group of sea grass researchers on research dives. They are conducting an ongoing project to monitor sea grass abundance and cover of other benthic organisms in the region, and on this trip they also installed buoys to mark transects that they will return to next year. They had been in the Tortugas for a couple of days, based on a 45-foot liveaboard out of Key West called the Explorer II. The group is from Florida International University, and included Kirk Gastrich, staff biologist in Dr. Mike Heithan’s lab, Jenn Sweatman, PhD Student, Elizabeth “Z” Lacey, PhD candidate, Justin Campbell, PhD candidate, and Rachel Decker, a research assistant in the Fourqurean Lab. They were extremely friendly and it was great to observe them in action. The captain of the liveaboard, Bernie Altmeier, has been captaining boats specifically for research cruises for years up and down the eastern seaboard. Tracy and I snorkeled alongside the divers on their shallow dives to observe their methodology, and they were great about having me shooting them paparazzi-style (check out the photos of them in action below). A big thank you goes out to the team for being so welcoming!

After shuttling Jeff Reckner and Zach Gibson to Loggerhead key, where they are working on preservation of the historic buildings on the island, Kayla and I had some time to go snorkeling and explore the shallows in the park, looking for lionfish and good photo spots. We met up with the Spree, a diving liveaboard out of Texas, and snorkeled alongside their divers on the Windjammer site, the wreck of Avanti, then parted ways to find some other shallow sites in the area. We ended up at some beautiful, clear and calm areas with lots of coral and fish.

After a week and half of being up at sunrise and working in the field all day, I finally had a chance to hop on one of the guided tours of Fort Jefferson offered by the crew of the ferry Yankee Freedom II. Our guide, Chelsea Barattini, was very enthusiastic despite the blazing heat, and clearly has a genuine interest in the history of the fort. She shared lots of interesting anecdotes about the construction, historical uses and one of the fort’s well-known prisoners, Dr. Samuel Mudd. Dr. Mudd was imprisoned at the fort for sympathizing with the confederacy during the Civil War, but was pardoned after his work during the Yellow Fever outbreak that devastated the fort’s population in the mid 1860s. I decided to take the seaplane through Key West Seaplane Adventures back to Key West on Monday, where I will meet up with the M.V. Fort Jefferson and a group of sea turtle researchers led by USGS Biologist Kristen Hart for the next 10 days. The flight was awesome; seeing the Dry Tortugas from the air really put their diminutive size and extreme isolation into perspective. It is a very different experience from taking the ferry, and if you ever have the opportunity I highly recommend flying!

Now I am sitting in a café in Key West, while a thunderstorm booms outside. Tonight begins the next part of my adventure!

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I am loving the Dry Tortugas! I have spent the last week and a half focusing on getting to know the current NPS staff at the park, monitoring nesting turtle activity, exploring Fort Jefferson, and of course, getting in the water!

The current crew out at the park has been extremely welcoming and friendly. Employees here work on an alternating schedule, so generally only half the staff is here at any point in time, thus I haven’t met everyone who works out here. The current crew includes: Elizabeth Ross, the acting site supervisor who maintains order among the many facets of the park, Kim Pepper, John Chelko, and Sharon Hutkowski, Park Rangers who ensure enforcement of laws within the park, Tracy Ziegler, Fisheries Biologist who coordinates research activities, Drew “Tree” Gottshall, Allen “Zam” Zamrock, Brion Schaner, and Patrick Moran who work hard to maintain the fort, boats and other facilitates, Jeff Reckner and Zach Gibson, who work on restoration projects, Julie Marcero, Juli Niswander, Judy and John Simmons, the volunteers who interface with visitors, run tours and help out with whatever needs to be done, and Kayla Nimmo, Biological Technician as previously mentioned. I am spending the week as a volunteer under Kayla’s direction, assisting with natural resource management projects.

Most of the people who work here stay at the fort for 1-2 weeks at a time, then take a few days off back in the Keys. It is a 2.5-hour commute via ferry from Key West, so committing to a job out here is not to be taken lightly. NPS employees live at the fort with very limited communication outside the park, in close quarters to each other, reliant on a desalination unit for water, and have to bring in all their food and supplies. Clearly, these people are a dedicated group. They are all committed to keeping the park in working order so that visitors can come and experience the history and natural beauty of this spectacular island group. Tourists come every day from Key West on the ferry, Yankee Freedom, or by seaplane, as well as in personal boats. They can take a historical tour, snorkel, kayak, fish, and explore the fort by foot, or SCUBA dive if they come via dive boat. For such a small place there is a lot to do, with opportunities both topside and underwater.

Aside from a few campers, the majority of the tourists leave in the mid-afternoon, so in the evenings the fort is eerily quite. When I stop to think about how far we are from Key West and that we are surrounded by a huge expanse of open ocean, it makes me feel like I have fallen off the face of the earth. Then I wake up to a boatful of tourists disembarking the next day, and it snaps me back to reality! I like this contrast.

Map of the Dry Tortugas

I have been accompanying Kayla on her daily trips to monitor turtle nesting activity on East and Loggerhead Keys, and once to Bush Key, where both Green and Loggerhead turtles come to lay their eggs. East Key is a tiny, sandy cay, and the turtles that nest there apparently have no lack of energy and indecisiveness. I have had some previous experience monitoring turtle nests, but these nesting tracks are particularly remarkable to me in that they are very long and complex—not your typical crawl to the top of the beach and back. Turtles also nest on Loggerhead Key, which is larger and has a lighthouse and a few historic residences that are sometimes occupied by Park Service personnel. Only a small number of turtles nest every year on Bush Key, which could practically be swum to from the fort, although it is off limits to visitors to minimize impacts on sensitive vegetation, and the Brown Noddies, Magnificent Frigatebirds, Brown Pelicans, and Sooty, Roseate and Bridled Terns that nest on the island. During nesting season as many as 10,000 Brown Noddies and 100,000 Sooty Terns come to Bush Key to nest!

The number of nesting turtles this year is very low in comparison to prior years—about half of what is typically expected. Monitoring nesting sea turtle activity is crucial to tracking the population health of these enigmatic and endangered species, and the previous baseline of data has enabled park researchers to see the dramatic decline in nests this year. Apparently the nesting populations of Green Turtles normally fluctuate quite a bit, but the low numbers of nesting Loggerheads this year is a concern to park researchers. A year after the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, monitoring these nesting sites gives researchers insight into how populations of turtles in this region may be affected.

Sea turtle nest monitoring consists of walking the nesting beaches every day or every other day and marking all the new tracks with their dates and likelihood of nesting. Often sea turtles will haul themselves out of the water and all the way across the beach just to turn right back around without nesting—this is called a false crawl. They may even dig a few pits without laying eggs. A real nest is obvious, due to its size, shape, and the amount of sand flung back over it in the end of the nesting process to disguise the nest from predators. In about 52 days, the nests hatch if they are successful, and the hatchlings make their way to the sea under the cover of darkness. A minimum of three days after that, Kayla excavates the nests whenever possible to determine their success. Nest digging is no easy task—it can be backbreaking work with nests buried more than shoulder-deep, which must be dug with care to avoid collapse. The empty shells are examined and inventoried to monitor predation rates, un-hatched eggs are noted and any straggling hatchlings are collected for release that night. A few days ago we found one Green and seven Loggerhead hatchlings that were still buried in their nests and released them later that evening. The importance of nest monitoring cannot be understated; it is one of the few glimpses we get into the life cycle of sea turtles, and provides researchers and managers with critical information for protecting these species. While we cannot know how many of these hatchlings survive to adulthood, at least knowing when and where nesting occurs and the success of particular nesting areas enables managers to protect critical habitat such as the Dry Tortugas.

The most exciting part of the past week was definitely getting underwater with the camera for the first time. I joined Kayla on a couple of dives to search for and eradicate invasive lionfish. Lionfish are a Pacific species, and they have no natural predators in the Atlantic. Without natural predators to keep their population in check, they are able to consume an inordinate number of native reef fish and outcompete native fish for food, thus have a devastating effect on local reef habitats. They were first spotted in Atlantic waters off of Biscayne Bay in 1992 (thought to have escaped from an aquarium tank that was broken in Hurricane Andrew), then spread north and eventually throughout the Atlantic, from Massachusetts to Venezuela. In the park, visitors are requested to report any sightings to park officials so that they can be removed before they can cause any more harm. Kayla knew of a particular lionfish that had eluded capture several times before, so we went out in search of it on our first dive. She found it quickly and skillfully speared it, ensuring that this fish and any of its potential offspring would not be able to degrade the reef systems here. We continued to search for more lionfish among the pilings of the old south coaling dock (a relic from the days when the Fort was used as a Naval refueling station), and I experimented using the camera. I was actually quite surprised at how difficult it was! I figured I would be good at multitasking due to my previous scientific diving experience, but it was definitely a challenge at first. I have been in the water with the camera every day since, and think I am starting to learn what works and what doesn’t. The winds that dominated my first few days here have died down and now the water is as smooth as glass, a rare treat in the open ocean! I have been photographing as much as possible –check out the pictures and let me know what you think!

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This week I arrived in paradise. Its other name? The Dry Tortugas, a group of seven, small, low-laying, sandy islands west of the Florida Keys. It is home to Fort Jefferson, the largest masonry structure in the United States, and critical habitat for nesting sea turtles, migratory sea birds, and endangered corals. To top it off, the waters are a crystalline aquamarine, the beaches are soft white sand, and the sky is as big as it gets. Like I said, paradise.

I left my new friends at the SRC early last Wednesday morning and was in Key West, Florida, by the afternoon. Kayla Nimmo, a biological technician for the South Florida Natural Resources Center, met me at the airport. She works on a variety of natural resource projects at Dry Tortugas National Park, which include monitoring sea turtles, seabirds, vegetation, reef fish, and corals, among other things. Thursday, bright and early, we boarded the ferry Yankee Freedom and were at Fort Jefferson by 10:30 am. I spent the day getting reacquainted with the fort and the current activities at the park, and accompanied Kayla to East Key in the late afternoon to monitor nesting activity of Green Turtles (more about that in upcoming blog entries). I visited Dry Tortugas National Park once before in 2007, and have wanted to return ever since. I am so thrilled to be spending the next three weeks here!

This place is magical for photographers, wildlife enthusiasts, divers, snorkelers, history buffs, and anyone who can appreciate the beauty of being on small, sandy islands that are literally in the middle of the ocean. These islands are located on the edge of the natural shipping passage where the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the western Caribbean Sea meet, 70 miles from Key West and about 90 miles from Cuba. It is the only moorage between the Rio Grande and Chesapeake Bay that is large enough to contain a battleship fleet. This strategic position inspired the construction of Fort Jefferson on Garden Key to protect the trade routes to the southeastern United States. The project began in 1846, but was never fully completed. Today, the fort is slowly succumbing to the erosive powers of nature and time; however, the Park is committed to preserving the fort for future generations. Current conservation efforts involve bringing in teams of masons to repair the crumbling brick walls. The fort, which is now frequented by visitors and provides housing to National Park Service staff, was used as a military prison until the late 19th century. Dry Tortugas, including Fort Jefferson, was designated a National Park in 1992 and covers 100 square miles (only 0.15 sq. miles of that is terrestrial). Underwater, one can find beautiful reefs and lots of shipwrecks–shallow shoals and hurricanes caused ships to wreck in this area throughout history.

It is not simply the remoteness and history of the Tortugas that is so awe-inspiring. The quality of light is so different from anywhere I have been on the mainland. The air, while humid, is refreshed by ocean winds that bring in dramatic cloud formations, which change colors throughout the day like a mood ring on a teenage girl. The white sand, which can be blindingly bright at midday, turns a deep gold as the sun’s rays illuminate it late in the afternoon. The ephemeral nature of the islands themselves is fascinating; in fact, several islands have been swept away by storms since the discovery of the Dry Tortugas by Ponce de Leon in 1513. And the water—Oh that water! It is the type of water that makes you believe in mermaids and Atlantis–like peering into another world with lenses made of turquoise glass. This is a truly awe-inspiring place.

Three weeks in paradise—not a bad start to the summer! I can’t wait to get to know everyone here and explore the park, both topside and underwater. My days will be filled with turtle monitoring, diving, snorkeling, photography, exploring, and learning the history of this one-of-a-kind landmark surrounded by some of the most pristine coral reefs in the United States. Hint: underwater photos coming soon!

To learn more about Dry Tortugas National Park, please visit http://www.nps.gov/drto/index.htm