Diving in

Settlement on CATAIN's end cap

I am back in the U.S. after a short break and diving right into research - literally. My camera system, CATAIN, waited below the WHOI pier for me to return from the Arctic. It was due for recovery this week, so I went for a dive.

I was honestly a little nervous about CATAIN. We've had it underwater more or less for a year (two-month deployments separated by brief periods to charge batteries and download data). The camera didn't get much settlement in the winter months, and I was concerned I might have chosen a poor location to deploy it. Every time I checked on the camera, it looked the same - just a few snails, maybe a barnacle, and not much else. What if I was missing my prime opportunity to collect quality data? 

Bryozoans on CATAIN

Fear not, my friends. Today CATAIN was covered in growth. I was pretty relieved when we approached the camera underwater and saw all the bryozoans growing on the housing. This means the low settlement in winter was not location-dependent at all. Settlement is strongly seasonal, and I had to wait until the water was warm enough for things to reproduce. I'm actually pretty excited now to be able to show seasonal settlement patterns using the CATAIN data. 

I turned the system around and re-deployed the very next day. It's good to be back in the water!