Intern Account: Melanie:
"Our field work on Lāna`i went very well. The weather was perfect, the island was beautiful and the diving was spectacular. We could even hear the whales singing while we were under water. We spent 3 days diving the offshore islets Pu`u Pehe, Po`o Po`o and the famous dive spot Cathedrals. It was awesome. My role in this project is to assess the marine invertebrate fauna found around the offshore islets. So during the first qualitative reconnaissance dive I take note of every invertebrate I see in the area and I photograph and or collect those I cannot identify for later identification in lab. I also deploy pelican buoys to mark places of ecological interest and as per the protocol I break off a small dead coral head and bring it back to the lab to identify small and or cryptic invertebrate animals living in the vicinity. For the second quantitative dive I follow my dive buddy who is the fish counter from the Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) who lays out the three 25 meter transects. I stay behind the DAR diver so I don’t scare the fish away and record all the inverts I find within a one meter swath of our transect tape. My data includes a GPS position for the start of the first transect and our heading for each 25 meter transect. I then record what invertebrates are within .5 meters of each side of the transect tape, how often they occur and along which transect they are found. At the end of the 75 meters I pop a pelican buoy to mark the end of the transects and get a GPS position. On the vessel we put all our samples into relaxant solutions for later fixation. In the evenings on Lāna `i we went over our data, identified unknown organisms, processed and fixed all our samples, downloaded and enhanced photos and recharged cameras for the next diving day. It was a perfect field experience and relatively flawless, hopefully they all go that smoothly."

Intern Account: Louise:
"The island of Lanai, in regards to coral reefs, is one of the remaining places in the main Hawaiian islands where one can find a healthy abundance and diversity of fish, corals and algae. Our team of underwater surveyors set out to Lanai to record the presence of these marine flora and fauna around the islets of Po’o Po’o and Pu’u Pehe (‘okinas are essential!). There’s nothing like going to work and hearing the songs of whales nearby. Dolphins broadcasted various chirps, zips and whistles. Although I did not encounter and marine mammals, I did find a great deal of algae, which is what I had set out to do. My part in this survey of marine life is to identify and quantify the presence of algae around these islets and take back to the museum anything that I cannot identify in the field. This can sometimes prove difficult, as many species within a given genus can only be identified by looking through the microscope and translating a myriad of botanical jargon. These specimens are then taken to the lab at the Bishop Museum where I pour over them, dismantle them and squash them under slides; also, the body of the plant is dried onto special herbarium paper that soaks up all the water to make an acceptably astonishing press. My favorite part of our brief trip to Lanai was diving at the Cathedrals. These are underwater formations of lava rock that have massive chambers within them, and light trickles in threw crevices and holes providing beams of dancing sunshine. There were large schools of Myripristis sp. that hovered and darted in the darkness reminding me of bats in a terrestrial cave. At one point I saw an acceptionally dark shelf within the cavern and thought ‘wow, if I were a shark, this is definitely where I would hide out.’ I shined my flashlight in just long enough to see the iridescence of eyes in the dark void and a pair of fins. My coworkers and I laughed about the fact later that my eyes were as big as saucers as I vigorously made the shark signal to warn all around me."