Dr. Londraville photographing one of many black tip reef sharks from the afternoon dive.

What an incredible day! The morning was marked by an incredible snorkel at coconut grove, a reef in the surge zone of Oponohu Bay. Three of us ventured out amongst the breakers to search for butterflyfish. The waves crashed overhead while we dodged coral heads left and right and tried to keep an eye on the fish we were following.

Meanwhile, the UV fish team homogenized their ocular media (ground up their fish eyes) for testing and continued analyzing UV reflectance patterns of their specimens. Team lizard spent the morning compiling their data and scheduling their field studies for the week. All of the groups have been designing preliminary statistics and getting a rough sketch of their write ups.

The afternoon was the truly exciting part. The divers suited up to head out to the outer reef. Our guide, Franc, reported that the sea was relatively calm with a little chop. Clearly Franc is much more robust than we students from Akron as we were all trying not to wretch between pitches and rolls. Once moored to the buoys we all made haste to get in the water and out of the waves to avoid any seasickness. As soon as we got under the water we were immediately confronted by schooling black tip reef sharks which circled us through the entire dive. The surface swells translated to current and surge while on the bottom which moved us about as it pleased, we had little control over where we were taken. The dive was short, but not without highlights: emperor angels , flame angels, and unicorn tangs.

What a great day on Moorea!

-Stephen McNulty