Maintenance Update

The stations was maintained and cleaned today at 10:45am.

Dave Ward

Agaricids paling in deep water (20 m)

Dave Ward (via Jules Craynock) reports that the large, plating Agaricia spp. in deep water (i.e., 20 m) are about 30% bleached. The Agaricids are known to be conspicuous annual 'bleachers' and the majority of this is likely sub-lethal seasonal paling (See work by our colleague Dr. William Fitt at the Univ. of Georgia).

When Dave and I dove at the end of August, these same colonies were either partially bleached or pale, so this report is not unexpected.

Tootles,
Derek Manzello

coral disease at Salt River

Hey team,

After consulting an expert (Marilyn Brandt at RSMAS) I am pretty confident that the disease I saw on a bunch of Montastraea faveolata colonies at Salt River is "Yellow Band Disease". Tyler Smith reported seeing a bunch of this around the rest of the USVI and Marilyn told me it was quite prevalent in the Dominican Republic. I think it may be worth doing some more intensive monitoring of the progress of disease on tagged colonies when we go to Jamaica.

Take care,
Derek

Coral Observations

Here are some observations from diving August 28th:

-Overall: only mild, partial bleaching and paling on very few colonies. Likely nothing more than normal summer paling as only Agaricids seemed affected and they are notorious partial, annual bleachers.

-Most colonies of Montastraea faveolata appeared to show signs of disease. I am not totally convinced that it is "disease," nor am I confident regarding which disease it is (Yellow Band?), but I will investigate further.

Derek Manzello

Station Maintenance by AOML Crew

Yesterday (Aug 28) the "brain" and Vaisala weather package were removed from the station and taken back to the hotel for reprogramming, etc. We saw NO major signs of bleaching in the area, just very few scattered minor incidences--"nothing to write home about" (Derek).

Today, the logger was re-inserted into the stick, the new Vaisala was installed, and the CT was removed. However, problems arose with the deep CTD, and we decided to watch it through the day and see how it would look by the end of the day. Tonight it appears the CTD has "cleared its throat" and is once again transmitting correctly.

Crew: Dave Ward, Derek Manzello, Mike Jankulak, Jim Hendee

Cheers,
Jim

Maintenance Update

Dave just called me. He said he did a cleaning at 1130 yesterday. Station looks OK. Slight bleaching occurring near the station.

Jules

New CTD

The instruments were cleaned on 5/30/07 just after 11:00 am. The shallow CTD was changed out and plugged in just before 11:00 am. The fouling on the deep BIC was almost nill????

Dave

Maintenance.

General maintenance and cleaning on the station.

Dave Ward

Maintenance Update

Hi Jim

The instruments were cleaned on Feb. 28, and March 27 before 12 noon. Nothing significant was noticed. I am still waiting for instrument brackets, long and short cable ties, and word on when to remove the groundtruth CT. Please advise

David Ward
Scuba Shack
PO Box 3221
Frederiksted, VI 00841-3221
340-772-DIVE
Toll Free 888-STX-DIVE
www.stcroixscubashack.com
email info@stcroixscubashack.com

Cleaning update

I cleaned the instruments on Jan. 28 at 10 am. Not a lot of fouling noticed. I am still waiting for instrument brackets, long and short cable ties, and word on when to remove the groundtruth CT.

Dave