Quirks of life in Palau: part 2

When you're in one place for a while, you get to see things happen around you. People come and go, events take place, and things can change during the course of a long trip. That has been the case for us in Palau. We've been here for a month already, and in that time, some interesting things have happened. 

The Taiwanese navy showed up. We saw their ship in the port in Malakal on the way to our study sites one day. The ship was what you would expect for a navy ship, no matter what country it came from - large, utilitarian, gray. A string of colorful flags stretched from the bow up to a mast, across the middle of the ship, then down to the stern. Small white boats clustered around a rope ladder on one side of the ship, presumably to bring sailors ashore. And oh my goodness, did they come ashore. It felt like the island was drowning in tan uniforms. Seriously, there were so many of them. 

Matthew talking about corals to the sailors.

A group of the Taiwanese sailors came to check out the Palau Aquarium and ended up wandering over into the PICRC research area. This happens with tourists every once in a while. The outdoor aquarium displays are right next to the PICRC tank room, so it's fair enough for people to get curious and wander over. What I struggle with is the tourists who look at the scientists as if we were another aquarium display: Researchers in their Natural Habitat. If they ask questions, I'm happy to answer. But if they stare at me wordlessly, lean uncomfortably close to see over my shoulder, or get in my way, that's less fine. Got to be honest, the sailors were my favorite group that has ever wandered over to the tank room. They were full of questions! I'm not sure if they had discussed it beforehand, but the group had a clear leader who asked questions in English. Each of our answers was followed by hurried discussion among the group in Mandarin. I tried to explain the research we were doing, but Matthew eventually stepped in to show the sailors our corals. They ended up crowded around a seawater thank as Matthew explained the basics of coral biology. 

Later that night, we ran into some of the same sailors at a restaurant, where they were clearly enjoying the freedom of shore leave. It was actually a really cool experience to interact with the Taiwanese sailors and show them what we were up to!

Liam Lachs (Newcastle Univ.) showing off
his eclipse viewer - it worked great!

A few days later, I had a similarly overwhelming experience with a large uniformed group! We were loading our dive gear onto a boat for the day when 4 cars pulled up on the PICRC dock. One by one, researchers in blue T-shirts stepped out of the vehicles until it felt like I was swimming in a sea of blue shirts. The shirts all had the same logo for ICONA, the International CO2 Natural Analogs Network. You may not know this, but there are actually a number of places around the world where the level of carbon dioxide in the ocean is higher than surrounding areas. There are seeps in the Mediterranean, a few sites off of Japan, and even some bays in Palau - all have elevated dissolved CO2 and lower pH than the surrounding ocean. ICONA uses those sites to understand the consequences of ocean acidification on organisms and communities. For about two weeks, ICONA researchers flooded PICRC - 15 people altogether. It was the largest group I had ever seen at the station, but they were incredibly polite. We chatted about our research and shared space in the lab. I'm glad to be aware of their work now.

There was a solar eclipse! I had been vaguely aware that it was going to happen while we were here. Another researcher, Liam, was super excited about it and even made a safe eclipse viewing device out of paper. Believe it or not, this is the second time I've seen a solar eclipse on a research trip. For about an hour, the sun felt less intense and the air was a little cooler. It was really neat to experience!