The reef team completes the first phase of their study of Naitauba’s reef

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With much-appreciated support from many contributors around the world, the USP team completed an intensive one-week survey visit to Naitauba’s reef in early September. They worked very hard throughout their time and were able to complete the full survey at sites all the way around the Island, encompassing all the many habitats that make up the totality of the reef.

Island residents joined them on their dives inside and outside Naitauba’s reef, opening new vistas and new understanding of the work ahead.

"Preserving a reef" is a vast undertaking, and as we continue to learn from Naitauba's reef and the reef research that is being done globally, we can see that the footprint of humanity on the coral reefs of the world is much deeper than we have recognized.

During this brief intensive visit we took well over 2000 photos, and the team logged pages and pages of data from their observations on their transect survey dives. There is so much to look at and consider from all the data and many photos!

Help us bring the USP team back to Naitauba

Submitted by ReefInitiativeTeam on

Aerial view of Naitauba's reef

WHAT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW...

At this very moment, we are making arrangements for the USP (University of South Pacific) reef team to return to Naitauba to help us in our mission to monitor, understand, and help preserve Naitauba’s reef.

The team will be visiting Naitauba for two one-week visits approximately four months apart. The first phase of their work will commence during September’s cool weather conditions as they repeat the survey of fish, coral and invertebrate populations at key areas around the reef that they carried out in 2012. This visit, now scheduled for September 10th through 16th, will uncover more about the trends on the reef over the past two years.

Naitauba's sea temperature monitoring program underway! - Part II

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With two men in the boat and three in the water, anchoring the loggers in place was a great chance to develop teamwork. We had pre-planned as much as we could, but coordinating everything from with free-divers at 10 meters depth was a real learning experience, especially at our first location outside the reef. Fortunately, weather and sea conditions cooperated beautifully, with excellent visibility.


Installation of Onset’s HOBO data loggers on Naitauba’s reef


Our anchors were cement-filled cinder blocks, with rope handles and a tether rope for lowering them. We added some floats to help us maneuver them down into position.

Naitauba's sea temperature monitoring program underway! - Part I

Submitted by ReefInitiativeTeam on

OUR SEA TEMPERATURE MONITORING PROGRAM ON NAITAUBA’S REEF IS NOW UNDERWAY!

With our Onset HOBO data loggers in hand and ready to go, the next challenge quickly emerged―we needed to place them securely on the reef and make sure we will be able to find them again when it’s time to retrieve their precious data.

We wanted the initial monitoring sites to give us the fullest representative picture of the entire reef possible.

We decided to measure sea temperatures outside the reef on the two opposite ends of the Island―the exposed eastern side, facing the oncoming trade winds, wave action, and currents,  and the more sheltered western side.

We also decided to place loggers at sites inside the reef, too, in accessible locations that are easy for us to re-locate so that we can check them frequently and so remain vigilant for rising temperatures that could threaten the reef.  

We chose a sunny Saturday afternoon for the installation. We took our underwater camera to document the process, and have included a small sample of the resulting images here...