Just imagine if I were to turn up to "show and tell" (as a boy again) and recount this weekend's experiences to my third grade teacher (a certain Miss Hasluck). I am sure that she would look aghast and dole out a detention without flitting one of her blue laden lids. This hapless and distracted child is making things up again!

The weekend has been a busy one. The PAM that had internal surgery is functioning well and we deployed it to 80 and 40 feet on two separate missions. We also did a series of depth transects to look at the extent of photosynthetic inhibition along a gradient from 40 - 100 feet. This involved long hours in the water at midday and as close to midnight as we dare stretch our support team's time (they have to be ready to go at any time we are in the water). Saturday saw us in the water for 6 hours and Sunday 8 hours. Water logged and "prunesque", we emerged from the water triumphant on Sunday evening with the feeling that we had the end of the project in sight. Hot cocoa by the kitchen porthole never tasted so good!

The visability has been varying between dirty (seeing for less than 10 foot) and moderately good (40-80 foot). It seems that the water motion from the storm has left murky patches of water near the coast that occasionally waft out to us. We have seen some strange beasts - large Trevally (3-5 feet in length) come in every now and then - sweeping in majestically to check out the local food fish. On Saturday, a large majestic Spotted Eagle Ray zoomed in - looking very much the Battleship Galactica of the marine world.

The night time work has been fun - to do a measurement (something called rapid light curves) you have to remain on the bottom for about 5 minutes, steadily holding the PAM probe against the coral. This gives you a chance to turn the light off and view the reef at night. Clouds of luminescent creatures rise up off the reef at night - especially tiny Ostracods that truly have a fascinating biology. The males drift up into the night (as males will) and let off small species-specific light shows (using luminescent compounds sprayed into the water around them). This then attracts females of the right species and the fun begins. While we waited, we gazed over scores of these strange beasts doing a strange dance in the darkened sea.

Otter (Mark) and James have continued to steer us along - forever true to their motto and tattoo "here to support the science". The team continues to function as a cohesive unit - these are the people (together with top-side support) that you would want with you on any expedition.