Mission Log: Ashley Knight
Today (Sunday) was very successful! The science team followed a total of 27 fishes throughout the day. We split up the observations pretty evenly among the three species (black grouper, blue parrotfish, and hogfish). Jere and I started out along the Ridgeline to get a few parrotfish and groupers. We swung by our new favorite spot where, for four days straight now, we have seen the aggregation of midnight parrotfish (about 4-5), filefishes (about 4-5), and black groupers (about 2-3). It is quite a sight to see all of these species foraging together on one small cluster of coral. The coral cluster has been different every day but the species makeup of the group stays the same. We are hoping to go check on them one more time tomorrow morning.
On our afternoon dive, we headed out near the Kamper station and headed off to a new section of reef we had not yet explored. Suddenly, I had to blink because there were two small (~1m) bonnethead sharks swimming along the reef. Then, they started attacking one another! Just for a second though, one swam one way and the other in the opposite direction. We tried to follow one, but he was going way too fast for us to catch up. Then, not 10 seconds later, a giant Southern stingray lifted off about 15 meters away from us, and swam along the reef. It was a pretty incredible 45 seconds! That’s one of my favorite things about the ocean, you can swim around all day seeing very cool stuff and then suddenly something even more amazing happens!
I am so happy to be here once again. My last mission was such an incredible experience, I never thought I’d get to go again. I forgot how indescribably comforting it is to lay in my bunk, listen to some tunes, and watch the fish swim by the viewport (AKA the window). There are these three huge Goliath groupers that hang out around the habitat at night; they just lumber past the viewport every once in awhile — peering in on us.
We are decompressing early, begining tomorrow. I’m a little sad to be leaving early, but I must admit I am excited to see the sky!
Ashley Knight
Aquarius Aquanaut
CSUMB
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