Out at the pinnacle after our morning commute down the travel line we had plans to finish up and cleaned up the last of our monitoring experiments. We drifted down the steep slope of the pinnacle taking in the marine vista for the last time this sampling season. My buddy Julie and I made our final counts on the dispersal and accumulation of seaweed fragments on the sea bottom.

At the same time the dedicated and fabulous dayboat half of our research team was doing the same at the shallow end of the depth gradient we've been sampling. Heidi, Amanda, Lisa, Tony, Becky and Adam have been working tirelessly on a myriad of experiments that parallel our own. We've been in constant communication with these great folks. They and the Boat Capt/DSO Kendall Boykin have been making sure water samples have been promptly filtered and processed as well as doing many other essential tasks that have made this a complete and successful research mission.

At the end of our dive at the Pinnacle we got to visit with our research partners as they descended from the surface we wouldn't see for another 48 hours. We exchanged greetings. Then they were off to work transporting the experimental equipment to the surface and making the same measurements we had just made, but 40 feet shallower. They looked as tired and excited as we probably did. On our trip home we took a minute to photograph what I've been calling "Big Red." Big Red is a Montastrea coral head that is the largest I've seen on Conch Reef and it glows the most interesting red color. It was great to finish off the morning with a bit of fun and with healthy looking old growth coral.