Last fieldday in Kwajalein Atoll!

MFT: My new underwater camera
LFP: Forgetting sunscreen (woops)

So today was our last day of fieldwork in Kwajalein Atoll. Tomorrow we fly back to Kwajalein Island and then pack up all day before we head out to Majuro (the capital of the Marshall Islands). The best part was we ended on a good note. We got a lot of data today -- 3 passes and 1 motu!

We started out on the boat and banged out two passes in the morning. Then we had lunch on Illegani motu and GPR, Surface samples, and Topo. Steph and I found a really cool connection between our island, Illegani, and the neighboring island. We ended up walking the isthmus to the next island in the name of science (but mostly because it was so much fun). Anyways, lots of cool pictures from that! We ended up getting 6 miles of walking today so it was a good workout. 

By far and away the best part of the day, however, was ending with a short spot of snorkeling. The boat crew knew a great place to go, so we stopped for about 30 minutes and went for a swim. You can see lots of pictures below. It's amazing how fast the coast slopes upward (over about 10 feet the reef slopes up from say 40 ft to maybe 10 ft). I got to practice my diving again (at first my breath holding was spectacularly unimpressive, but it improved a bit). The fun part was seeing the grey reef shark! It was a tiny one (maybe 3-4 feet). 

Then on the way back to Roi, we went fishing and Chris managed to hook a Wahu! Overall it was a perfect way to end our Kwajalein part of the trip. Now onto to Majuro where internet may be completely unavailable. We shall see. It's a bit of a smaller atoll so that should be nice (only 40 km across instead of like 80 kms). Feel free to comment. 


gorgeous panorama of two connected motu by an isthmus.

Stephanie posing on the isthmus

Me out on the connection

Richard :)

Diving down to see the reef up close

Chris diving down and posing :)

Steph enjoying her snorkel

our tiny grey reef shark! (caused a bit of a stir)

Fishing real hard!

What a fun day.

Chris' Wahu!

The crew & us: Aleja, Dan, Nate, Chris, Tracey,
Richard, Steph, & Adam

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