Mecherchar

The rock bridge adjacent to our outer Mecherchar site.

For our third day of sampling, we went to a site called Mecherchar. It was our southernmost site, and we sampled both inside and outside the lagoon. The outer site was a really successful one for us - we got the full number of young coral samples we were hoping to collect, and they were all very small, probably only 6 months old, which is what we were hoping for. We deployed all of our panels in dead coral or sand, and we look forward to seeing what grows on them. Adjacent to the outer site was a very interesting rock bridge, pictured here. The rock islands are all undercut because of tidal erosion, and I guess the erosion was strong enough at this site to erode a hole through the bottom of the rock island. It was a very cool site.

We then headed into the Mecherchar lagoon with the plan to collect samples and deploy tiles there. We were able to deploy our tiles, but the reef did not have any young corals for us to sample. We swam and surveyed the whole slope, but there were no juveniles to be found. It was a disappointing end to our sampling, but after three long, dive-filled days, we really can't complain.

Exhausted/euphoric

We have been underwater for 4 - 6 hours each day, and our bodies are starting to show it. We both have sore muscles from swimming and raw gums from having SCUBA regulators in our mouths for so long. Our fingers have abrasion in spots where we hit a dead coral by accident, and our hands are blistered from hammering. We are exhausted.

We got all of our tiles deployed and collected the young coral samples we needed. Now, we just have to wait and hope that coral larvae settle on our tiles. We'll be on land for a few days and then go back out to recover them. It's time for a break!