Marine Ecology Maui

So now that I have a little breathing time I will catch everyone up on the past few months in Hawaii. I think I left off right about the time I went to Maui with my Marine Ecology class. Our field trip lasted 4 days from Wed Feb 25-Sat Feb 28.

Day 1: Wed Feb 25
The day started off early with only 15 min of sleep. We took the Super Ferry over which left at 6:30 and we had to be there at 5:00am so we had to leave Laie by 3:30am! Since we left during midterms week I didn't have much time to pack so I was up until 2:45 packing, slept for 15 min then got up at 3:00am to get ready.

Sunrise off the ferry (not my pic luckily someone in my class was still awake!)

Just some shots of the boat

From what I remember the super ferry was fun. I took some Dramamine which made my stomach hurt, but it was fun to be out on the open ocean. I slept most of the way over. The boat ride lasted a little under 4 hours and you could go outside and sit on the deck, but it was really windy and really wet from splashing.Right when we where getting used to our sea legs we arrived in Maui. Our first stop was to check into our cabins. We were staying at camp Olowalu. We had the whole place to ourselves. This place was really really cool. There were 5 sleeping cabins and a huge lunch cabin that had a full kitchen. Not to mention my favorite parts. They had a tree swing, a lawn chair and a love bench hung up in the tree. They also had a kayak that we could use. After setting up camp we headed over to Safeway to fill the up our new kitchen. After we filled our stomachs we headed over to the Maui Ocean Center.

Views of Maui

Views of the camp

The Maui Ocean Center was really cool and it was actually pretty big. There were lots of fish and turtles, but the best exhibit was the last one. It was a huge tank with 5 or 6 sharks and 3 huge manta rays. When we got to the shark tank it was feeding time and there was a diver in the cage hand feeding the manta rays. After we watched the show you walk through this underwater tunnel and all the sharks and rays would swim around you. All in all the Ocean Center was really fun and really amazing.

This was a cool tube of jelly fish

Just making friends with the locals

This is called black coral and it actually glows!

These next ones are of the cool tunnel at the end of the aquarium

After the Ocean Center we had to make an unscheduled stop at the airport. One of the guys in my class thought we were actually leaving on Thursday so he missed the ferry over. Dr. Bybee was not happy to say the least, so he wanted to leave Adam waiting at the airport as long as possible. So Dr. Bybee took us to get Panda Express and went and got gas and even drove really really slowly. When we finally picked Adam up Dr. Bybee didn’t even acknowledge him, you could tell he was livid with the guy. Well I guess it didn’t help that once we were about an hour away from the airport and all the big grocery stores, Adam decided to tell Dr. Bybee that he needed to get some food. It took Bybee about 5 min to respond I think he was just trying to control his anger, and when he finally did respond all he said was "well that would have been nice to know about an hour ago". Luckily Andres quickly said he would share his food with Adam. When we came back to camp a few of us decided to try out the kayak. I have never been kayaking before so it was really cool to go out on the open ocean. I think it was so nice just because I got to sit in the boat while Jen pushed me around.

Day 2: Thursday Feb 26

I was the most excited for day 2 because we were supposed to go out on a whale boat with the scientists and get really close to the whales. We were going to be the first class that they took out on the whale boat. We actually didn't get to go out on the boat because it was too windy so instead we did a whale consensus of the bay from an overlook off the road. It was still fun and we saw lots and lots of cool whale action. The coolest part was this pair of males that were battling for a female. They swam parallel to each other and did jumps and slaps. It was cool.

After that we headed over to the Hawaiian Humpback Marine Sanctuary Center. This was the organization that was hosting us while we were over there, so basically all of our experiments were through them. Anyway we went back to the Humpback Sanctuary and the volunteers were doing a presentation for the tourists, so we stayed and watched. It ended up being what felt like a 5 hour presentation, but the best part was this one volunteer. He was like 65 and had these 2 plastic whales that he waved around and smacked together to act out the whale behavior they were talking about during the presentation. You could tell he really loved his job! After the presentation we did a water quality experiment. We collected 3 different water samples and tested the levels

of phosphates, nitrates, dissolved oxygen, and the turbidity (clarity) in all three different water samples.

Determining the number of whales in the bay

This picture is actually towards the end and we were all just watching the whales by now

You had to determine how far away each whale sighting was

Each person had a section of the bay and you would yell out the behavior and how many whales every time you sa w a whale do something, then 1 person would record it all.

I just like this pic because of my frumpy hair :)

Water Quality Testing

Collecting the samples

Testing turbidity

Checking the nutrient levels

After the sanctuary we just went back to camp and chilled. I wanted to go back and snorkel where we were whale watching so we could hear them and maybe even see one, and Bybee said he would take us back except he had to run to Lahaina to get someone a blanket and someone else a toothbrush. So while we were waiting for Bybee to get back we decided to go out on the kayak again.

This time me megan and adam went snorkeling while jen and mike were in the kayak. For the first part of the trip I just held on to the kayak and they pulled me along. The current was really strong. The coral was really really really beautiful. I have never been snorkeling on a black sand beach so it looked really cool to see the white and yellow coral against the black sand. The coral was in really cool formations because they were big elk horn corals that were at least 4 ft tall and 3 ft wide. I really wish my underwater camera had been working at this point.

Anyway I had let go of the kayak and gone swimming on my own for a while when I looked up and saw jen and mike FREAKING out. Since the wind was blowing in the wrong direction I couldn’t hear what they were saying. All I could hear was Ra….look…chel..look. They were frantically pointing (I thought behind me, but they were pointing in the water). I started freaking out cause I knew they saw something really cool. I thought it was a dolphin or something really really cool. I couldn’t hear them at all so I started swimming toward them and every 5 seconds I would stick my head up and look around for what they were seeing. I was about ½ way over to them when I stuck my head up and looked over at them just to see jen and mike still waving there arms and yelling, then as I was about to stick my head back under when a tiny little wave came and knocked them over into the water. It was pretty hilarious to see. So I finally made it over to them and luckily found jen’s snorkel mask that she lost when they tipped on the ocean floor. The current was so strong that when I made it over to jen, mike and the kayak the current had pulled them about 100 ft to the right. Then when I handed jen her mask she let go of the kayak and the current started pulling it away and in about 2 seconds the kayak was about 20 ft. away and mike had to swim as fast as he could and luckily he caught up to it. So they finally told me what they were so excited about. They said they saw this 2ft round white creature in the water and they wanted me to look at it. They said it looked like a big white manta ray. I asked them why they didn’t stick their heads under and look and they said they were too scared. They said they ended up chasing it for quite a while and even poked it with their oars. They only lost it when they fell in the water. Apparently I was only like 5 ft away from it at one point, but I was so focused on looking for a whale or dolphin I wasn’t looking under water for a creature. Bummer it would have been cool to see it. Anyway by the time Bybee got back the sun had set because he got stuck in traffic so we never got to go back and listen to the whales, but some of us at least saw the legendary White Hawaiian Manta Ray instead!

The rest of the day we just had dinner, built a fire, cooked smores and told scary stories about the Hawaiian Night Marchers.

Day 3: Friday Feb 27

Day 3 started out with the coolest thing that we did the whole trip. I had taken the marine ecology class down to the Waikiki Marine Life Conservation District to do fish surveys and help with my senior project. So Dr. Bybee found a MLCD on Maui. So we started off early in the morning to go snorkeling at Ahihinui MLCD. We were supposed to do more surveys and compare not only abundance, but biodiversity between the Waikiki and Ahihinui MLCDs. This place was so cool though we all just ended up snorkeling and exploring. This is officially where my camera fell apart and I’m still hoping that I can get the pictures off the card one day. This was the most beautiful place I have EVER been. The coral formations were over 30 ft tall and made up of all different types of corals. There biodiversity was AMAZING. I have never seen so many beautiful fish. Just to give you an idea at the Waikiki MLCD I saw 12 different fish species in my section and at Ahihinui I saw 42 different species just in my section and those were just the ones we decided to write down. The coolest part was towards the end someone told us to go under water and listen, AND YOU COULD HEAR THE WHALES SINGING!! It was so cool. It is a bummer that jen couldn’t hear them because earlier mike had dared her to dive and touch the bottom and it was so deep (I'd say around 2-30 ft where she dove) that she ended up popping her ear drum. All in all though it was beautiful and I’m defiantly going back there again!

This was actually the bay to the right, but you can see Lanai really good and the water was crystal clear

This is Ahihinui MLCD

These were taken by a girl in my class, these do not do the coral or wildlife ANY justice it was so so so much better than these pictures!!!

After snorkeling we went straight back to the sanctuary this time we did algae identification, then a plankton tow and plankton identification. It was kinda fun, but honestly the labs weren’t that challenging so we all got a little board and restless.

We found a bunch of free tattoos and went a little crazy. I ended up putting a picture of a whale tail on my neck, but everyone just said that it looked like I had a hole in my neck from smoking.

You can kinda see the sweet tat on my neck

(I have to admit it does kinda look like a smokers hole)

Identifying Plankton and Algae

After our plankton tow we brought the samples back and looked at them under microscopes

This was the outside of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale Marine Sanctuary, by the end of the trip I don't think anyone was sad to be saying goodbye to this place

After snorkeling we headed up to Lahaina and went to a Thai food restaurant. The best part was that it was on the Biology Department! We spent the last night just playing ping pong and sitting around the fire. We had to pack up and clean the cabins the night before because Dr. Bybee wanted to take us all up to Haleakala and watch the sunrise. Me jen and megan decided to sleep in the car so we wouldn’t have to get up at 4 am. We all ended up regretting that decision later.

Free food is always the best (Dr. Bybee told me the bill came to over $300, so thank you Bio Dept!)

Just enjoying the Maui night life

Day 4: Saturday Feb 28

So everyone woke up at 4 am and we started our drive up the mountain. We ended up getting lost and I was drifting in and out of sleep plus I was crammed in the back of the car with both jen and megan so it seemed like it took 20 years to get up the mountain. It was raining and cloudy so we never got to see any sort of a sunrise anyway. Plus it was FREEZING there were actually ice crystals everywhere. So we couldn’t get out of the car. I was so irritated by the time we got there. I got so claustrophobic in the back seat on the way up, then I couldn’t get out of the car because of the cold, plus I was so sick of everybody so I was a little bit frustrated. It didn’t help that we were just sitting up on top wasting time because we didn’t have to be to the ferry by 11 am. I tried to go to the other car, but it was so nasty. As soon as you opened the door the nasty stench of rotten egg smacked you right in the face. Apparently Ada decided to eat boiled eggs for breakfast on the way up. I was so annoyed with EVERYONE so all I could do is pretend to be asleep and hope that we would leave soon. On the way down we saw a beautiful rainbow and stopped off at krispy kreme before we checked in at the ferry.

This was only 1/3 the rainbow. Coming down the mountain you could see the whole thing across the sky, you just couldn't get any good pictures of it though

Our Chariot home

Waiting to board the ferry

The ferry ride home was a lot less pleasant than the ride over. There were 10-16 ft waves and we all had to stay in our seats. I was sitting next to jen and behind Dr. Bybee and Adam was sitting in front of Dr. Bybee. Adam (the kid who came late) got sea sick and started throwing up. Luckily he made it all in the motion sickness bags. Well jen doesn’t do well with throw up so once Adam started to go she freaked out and stood up to leave. I grabbed her jacket cause I didn’t want her to leave me alone by Adam. But I soon let go and as soon as I let go a HUGE wave hit the boat and threw jen across the isle and on top of this guy! She spilled his drink on him and he was so mad! All she could say was I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I’m so sorry and ran away to the back of the boat. She was so embarrassed! After she ran off the guy kinda mumbled “oh sure thanks for spilling my drink all over me”. It was really hard not to laugh because she took the dive of all dives on top of this guy. Then Dr. Bybee turned around to me and asked “did she just fall on that guy”, me half laughing: “yeah”, Bybee: “ WOW she didn’t handle that well” and then he turned around. He sounded pretty mad, but all I could do is laugh to myself. Then a little while later after the waves calmed down a little Dr. Bybee went to go get some food at the snack bar. When he was coming back to sit down I looked up and he was trying to be funny so he started to walk like a drunken sailor, all of a sudden a big wave came and hit the boat and threw him on top of this sleeping woman. She screamed so loud when he hit her. So I immediately started laughing and laughing. So he got up and said I’m so sorry and explained to her that a wave hit the boat and knocked him over. When he came back his face was sooo red and all the kids from the class came up and laughed at him. When he sat down he turned around and told me that when the woman woke up she said “Who are you?!?”. I laughed so hard it was hilarious!!! That might have been my favorite part of the trip!!!

More happenings on the ferry ride home included a breaching whales about 30 ft off the boat, a dolphin jumping in the ferry’s wake, and flying fish jumping in the boats wake. It was a fun ride, but I ended up sleeping for about 3 of the 4 hours.

This is a baby whale breaching!

Out last look at Maui

Once the boat docked on Oahu I had to go to the bathroom really bad, but we had to go to our cars so I thought I would just go at the port station. So we were leaving and I asked some of the guards where the bathroom was and they all kept saying to go down this one way. So I got to the end of this area and there was nothing, but a metal gate. So I asked another security guard where the bathroom was and she finally told me that the port was closed for the day! But they were nice and reopened the port so I could go. I was grateful that day for the aloha spirit. I slept for most of the ride back to Laie. We finally got home at 5:30 pm and I slept from 6-9, then my roommate came home and woke me up so I ate dinner, then slept again from 10-8am the next morning when I had to go to Stake Conference. As a side note Stake Conference was cool because we got a new Stake Pres and Elder Christofferson came! Then after church I took a 3 hour nap from 1-4. I think my body was trying to tell me something. In total I slept for 20 hours in a little over a 24 hour period.

Anyway all in all it was a really really really fun trip and I made memories that I will hopefully keep for a lifetime!!