A little bit of Science

April 21st

Hammerhead shark. One of the highlights during the cruise. Image NOAA NCCOS.

Cruise is over. Arrived to the Coast Guard Base in San Juan Yesterday. Today we have had Kids day and me and Will have, somewhat tired, been helping kids to try out survival suits in the blazing sun all morning. In a few hours we are both leaving to the nearby Island Culebra for a few days of beach life and slow pace, can't wait! 

Multibeam backscatter data showing the seafloor texture and the reefs. The different
sized points on top show individual fish of different sizes derived from the EK 60
fisheries acoustics . Pretty cool stuff, finally know where the big guys are hiding!

Got some images/results from the last three weeks work on the Marine Grand Reserve Area that we have been mapping. I have mainly been working with the draft habitat maps that we create on site in order to plan our daily ROV dives. Once that is done I spend lots of time staring at the video live feed and all the cool stuff we find down there for the rest of the day. Back at the office we will bring all the information together to create maps with information about the seafloor and the biological cover to support better management and resource planning, its pretty awesome if you ask me.

A big School of Jacks. Image NOAA NCCOS  

Marine debris, still fishing and trapping lobsters.  Image NOAA NCCOS

Juvenile Lion fish - an invasive species  that are taking over in
many of the deep water coral areas we found

Lionfish hanging out. Image NOAA NCCOS

One of few really nice reefs with life coral that we found. Image NOAA NCCOS

Nurse Shark! Image NOAA NCCOS

Lots of things hiding in the reef

Bridge crew looking out for Humback Whales breaching in the area. 

The Chief! Tim Battista ready to abandon ship. 

As if it wasn't hot enough already...

Mike enjoying the last sunset of the cruise.

Definitely will miss this part of ship life... 

Now get me that Hammock!