Rain, Rain, and then Salty Rain

MTF: My new chacos & camera
LFP: Worms in relict coral

Hallo!

So yesterday was a nice long day with lots of ups and downs. We took down the RTK completely from Kwajalein...it won't get used again Majuro. After dealing with RTK very efficiently we meandered on over to the Patriot boat. While Steph and I were loading up the boat we saw a couple of good sized nurse sharks! We took the boat to Carlos and then unloaded the GPR. We had to attach the Trimble GPS to the GPR because the nomad (the normal handheld device we use to talk to the Trimble GPS) had to be used for the hydrolite system (single-beam bathy system). Anyways, after about 1.5 hours of troubleshooting everything on the GPR (putting the wheel the right way up, getting the Trimble converged and happy, etc) we were finally ready to go.

At this point, however, we found out that our fancy walky-talkies and our fancy marine radio, don't have really any range when there are trees on an island. Long story short, we finally re-connected the two groups. Then Richard and I got to go play with the bathy system. At this point the skies opened up. Anyone who has been in the tropics understands how much water can pour out of the sky and drench you. Well on the boat this was mostly fine (other than turning us into drowned rats), but some of the land equipment (aka the GPR) are really not supposed to get wet. Sadly, unlike the earlier rain events that last all of 5 mins, it decided to rain for over 30 mins...This meant of course that the poor GPR group was in trouble. Good news is that the bathy system works really well. It's nice and simple and gives us good data. Plus we got to see a pod of dolphins playing in the ava (deep pass between lagoon and ocean in atoll). Bad news...the GPR got a little too soaked yesterday with the two long rain events (like 30 minutes each). So now it is drying with rice and we have to resoder components. Fingers crossed we can get this system up and working again tonight (because I need it for my work badly!).

The GPR group had some issues with the local fauna but all went all right in the end. Anyways, we spent the evening cleaning everything (getting rid of salt spray and water) and today is a bathy (CHIRP and hydrolite day only). I hope the pictures help explain more. Please leave comments if you feel inclined!

The cool breakwater at Carlos (it's an old army boat!).

Striding over relict coral reef with the awesome dog

The GPR setup -- dragging it behind

Steph in action

Troubleshooting the GPR Trimble (white antenna)

The cute hydrolite bathy system

A motu, picture from Gea Ava

Drowned rats

before it rains -- all nice and happy

connected to the GPR

Drowned rats

A little fishing on the way home

Mostly dry :)

Bird Pile!

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