23:30 Another fantastic day. Morning consisted of pulling out the data
loggers to retrieve the data, none of which I got, then I put them back out
(where the tide was so low that I could walk out the Tableland – which is
basically half way out into the lagoon, crazy!!!) and decided to climb up over
beyond the Sharktooth rock. This is
rarely possible, maybe 4 or 5 times a year depending, so I had a little explore
before taking a different route back to check one more time for the Open Ocean
logger – no luck!
I sat out in the sun for once until the
L’s arrived, and then I gave the Minnesota (Moorhead?) group the orientation.
After dinner I
walked to the lab counting 15 or so live Harlequin crabs on the trail, then
returned after looking at microscopes for a night hike on the reef. One of the
better hikes if you ask me: saw a crab eating a crab (that’s right,
cannibalism), a fish eating a crab, the normal suspects, a lot of juvenile sea
hares about compared to normal, one very relaxed octopus strolling about, and
one particular rock pool that had every species in it seemed. Also saw another very tiny pufferfish, and
found a couple of nice Chromodorid and Aplysia (Sea slug and Sea Hares)
individuals. The sea slug I had not seen before, was white with no external
gills and had a pink wavy strip down its middle and the other was blood red
with mouth projections (pallipae?) as well as thin wavy gills on its back that
were luminescent pink/red. A simple
internet image search will find the later at least, just look for the reddest
one, saying that you might be interested to know that their diet reflects their
colour so obviously the cute guy I found had a thing for munching on a lot of
red algae.