Mystery Coral

Steve and I were doing our Exploratory Survey of Zone 3, which is on the east end of the island. Everything was going great and normal until we spotted something new, something we have never seen before.

We have never seen coral like this before. The shape and the fact that it is blue is what is so different from other coral around here. Also…it is huge!

Guys, Steve is over six feet tall. How is it that no one has ever spotted this thing before? It has branch coral like the table coral (which is what all that flat circular stuff in the background is) so its genius is Acropora.

Look at the close up…it is so pretty!

I tried looking up the coral in the books we have here. Nope. So then I tried the internet. It was taking forever. So I sent the pictures to Hawaii to have a marine expert look at it. She said that she has never seen Acropora in a dome shape before. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? We are supposed to get the GPS location of the coral so that NOAA can look at when they come out here in Jan/Feb. Hopefully they can tell us the species. Steve and I have been brainstorming names in case the unthinkable happens.

Also, here is a picture of what I thought was a new coral because of the color. At first, I thought it was dead coral because it is white, but the polyps still have color. I also emailed this picture. The expert said that the coral tissue that is covering the skeleton is bleached but the retracted polyp tissue is not bleached. Pretty cool, huh?

Where has the Time Gone?

The boat will be arriving tomorrow, your today I imagine! Sometimes I just felt like I have been on this island forever, probably due to the lack of new stimuli. Like, nothing really changes here. I have lived and worked with the same four people for the past seven months.

I am ready for some changes. Like people, movies, news, a space larger than this island. The boat is supposed to pull in at eight am. We are going to do an island tour with the newbies. Later in the day, it is the plan to show them how to make and disperse bait. I think the next day we are going to do an early morning ant survey and then go to one of the outer islands to explore!

Not sure what the exact plan is, but sometime during the next five days we will show them our ant survey routes, the ant farms, how to work the compost toilets, how to make drinking water, the marine survey routes, how to go queening, how to do bird banding, how to search and destroy an invasive plant here, ant ID, where to take their trash, how to do the slop bucket runs, how to do dishes, how the oven works, changing propane tanks, how to conduct bird MICs, how the sea turtle survey works, and how to do the weekly and monthly chores.

We are going to be busy. This was our view of the island coming in. I wonder how it will feel seeing a boat coming to our remote island!

Caitlin “Buttercup”

Caitlin “Buttercup”

Turned 26 on island in June

Hometown: Ypsilanti, Michigan near Ann Arbor

Education: Associates degree in Liberal Arts from Oakland Community College, BS in Aviation Flight Technology with a minor in Business from Eastern Michigan University

Jobs on the island: Turtle Survey, Marine Survey, Garden

What do you do on the island for fun?

I like to read, sit at Corner Beach having the water hit my feet while I sit in my chair, snorkel, and sit in Hidey Hole and watch turtles. I spend a lot of time at the Internet Café talking to my family and my best friend, bake bread, scream when geckos climb up my leg, and attempt to slack line. I take a ton of pictures. The folks here say I take creeper photos because they find out later that I have taken photos of them and they didn’t know it. I write a daily journal every night, which is now well over hundred fifty pages typed single-spaced and over 110,000 worlds. I, of course, write these blogs so that the family can see what I am doing and hopefully inspire those who read it to follow their dreams.

Why did you apply for the job?

The job description sounded amazing. It is in a crazy and great location. Guys, I’m on a beautiful remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It’s 85-90 degrees and sunny every day. Another reason I wanted this job was because of the length of field time.
Lots of other jobs require a year of field work before you can apply.
Many of the other jobs I applied for were only two to four months long. This one is eight! Plus, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. This island is owned by the U.S. Army and maintained by the Fish and Wildlife Service. You couldn’t come here if you wanted to. It is closed to the public. I would have never been able to come here if I didn’t get this job. In the end, I was not in a happy place in my life doing aviation things. It was fine and all and it paid well and I was really good at it. But I didn’t feel like I was doing my part for the world. I want to help animals. And here I am helping to restore the breeding and nesting grounds of many species of birds that need help. And I feel great doing it!

What do you hope to get out of island?

I want to learn as much as possible during this whole experience.
Whether it is more information on different species of birds, fish, turtles, ants, or research and survey operating procedures . . . I want to know it all. I really like that the crew is from all over the country and that I can learn from them as well. We are constantly asking each other questions. This is experience is going to look great on my resume. It will open doors for me for more conservation jobs. While I was applying for this job and others like it, I kept running into an experience problem. No one wanted to hire me because I have never done something like this before. Well, now I have. Give me a job other conservation people . . . please. Another thing I hope to get from the island is peace. One, to learn more about myself and maybe discover something new. And two, it is so nice to not have a thousand people in my view at one time. It’s going to be scary when I get back home.

What’s next for Caitlin?

I want to apply to Oregon State University to get a bachelor’s in Fisheries and Wildlife. They offer a second bachelor’s program which will be great not to have to take GenEds. OSU also does a lot of research, so there will be lots of opportunities of me to further my experience. They have a master’s program for either wildlife or fish conservation management, and they have a Ph.D program as well. Not sure how far I want to go with school, but I know my career has to be something that helps animals. During this experience I have already met two extremely successful people who attended OSU and hold a BS in Fisheries and Wildlife. I feel that this a great sign. I can’t wait to be extremely successful myself!

What do you miss most from home?

My puppies, thunderstorms, organic produce, homemade kombucha tea, drive-in movie theatre.

What movie came out while on island that you can’t wait to see when you get home?

Expendables 3

If you could either fart melodies or produce multicolored burps, which would you choose?

Fart melodies

What are your family and friends not missing about you?

My mood swings

Beach Clean Up

A couple of weekends ago, Kyle and I decided to clean up the beach on the East side of the island. There is a strong current that leads straight to that beach and lots of things get washed up there. There were these little tiny shards of plastic everywhere. Some were only a quarter of an inch wide.

It took a long time to pick up each and every one of them. We also found numerous buoys, pieces of plastic chairs, toothbrushes, combs, and shoes. We had a collection of rope, foams, rubber, light bulbs (?!), toys, and bottles, lots of bottles.

Some bottles had Asian writing on them. I found one bottle with what I thought was Russian writing, but Kyle said it wasn’t. I wonder where it came from.

There were also shards of plastic sheeting. Kyle and I walked the beach and picked everything up. We filled nine trash bags! Plus all the other stuff that wouldn’t fit in bags.

We tied all the buoys together and put them on the back of the bike trailer and took everything to the trash bunker. The beach looks amazing! We finished the day with a high five. Way to go, me and Kyle!