Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
cwilcox | August 4, 2010For the past five days, I have been snorkeling and diving at Pearl & Hermes Atoll. P & H is one of the prettiest places I have ever been - stunning, vibrant reefs, calm, blue waters - the works. It's stupid pretty. The atoll has the highest standing stock of fish and the highest number of fish species in the entire Northwest Hawaiian Islands - and you can tell the minute you're in the water.
It's an atoll in the truest sense, in that most of it is underwater, with only a handful of small, sandy islands fringing its edges. While the reef covers over 194,000 acres, only 80 of that is…
cwilcox | July 27, 2010We just spent two days at French Frigate Shoals, most of which I spent diving or sleeping. Our research is going very well, which keeps me pretty busy, but I still find time to snap a picture or two. Here are some shots of the cruise so far!
cwilcox | July 25, 2010We spent the past day at Nihoa. Even from afar, its jagged shape seems somewhat ominous. It blows my mind to think that people used to live on this island! There seems to be no source of fresh water, and the only source of food is the blue depths off shore, which are patrolled by territorial beasts which may attack at any time. After my experiences yesterday, I have to admit that I am afraid of them - which I had never been before. I had always thought that as long as you don't bug them, they won't bug you, and they're no real threat. But yesterday, I was scared, and I seriously worried that…
cwilcox | July 19, 2010So, you may have heard this rumor that I, on occasion, do things other than blog, tweet, or facebook. It may seem shocking, but I do have a day job (if you can call it that - a graduate student's job never seems to be restricted by sunlight).
For the past couple weeks, I've been getting my butt kicked into super shape by an intense 2-week scientific diver certification course, which covers from open water to master scuba diver at warp speed. It was intense, physically exhausting, and mentally draining. But it was well worth it, because now, I can do something even more intense, physically…