Manta rays, immersion suits, and East island seabird monitoring

Kristina swimming with a manta ray, there were about 10 large rays in the area.

The water was really deep and murky, but it was still fun

Masked booby chick banding

Lindsey with a masked booby chick

The Christmas Shearwater chicks have hatched!

Christmas Shearwater and chick

Red-footed booby chick trying to scare off some sooty terns

Red-footed booby and parent

Great Frigate bird and chick

This Great Frigate bird chick was trying to look intimidating 

We picked up this albatross to band and found that his leg had coral wrapped around it. It looked as if the coral had been there for quite some time and his leg had grown a little awkwardly. He seemed much happier after we removed his coral anklet. 

Albatross banding on East Island.

Jimmy is trying to coax an albatross chick to come back to shore.  The chicks can't fly quite yet and it is dangerous for the chicks to float around in the shallows where they can easily be picked off by Tiger sharks. 

Double banding on East Island

Masked booby banding on East Island

Kristina and Lindsey testing out their life jackets 

Immersion suit training - raft formation

Goofing around in our immersion suits while a turtle checks us out

Jimmy and I in our immersion suits - this is now what we wear for sun protection :) 

Fun on the boat

This has been an exciting week. We started setting up East island for seabird monitoring plots. In the past only Tern Island in the French Frigate Shoals has had seabird plots and now East Island will too.  We started the project by banding Albatross and Masked Booby chicks.  There is still a lot left to do, but we will have to hand everything over to the next group of volunteers that will be getting here in the next week. After a hot day banding on East Island we had immersion suit training. We keep immersion suits in our tsunami and hurricane emergency kits, so it is necessary to know how to use them properly. It was also nice to get in the water to cool off.  After safety training we headed down to Manta Ray Bay where 10 to 15 large Mantas were feeding on plankton. Despite the water being deep and murky it was an incredible experience. The Manta Rays were doing beautiful and graceful acrobatic flips and turns in the water. It is a memory we will never forget.