3 Ships

 Another exciting week as usual.  We've had 3 ships come this week.  The Robert C. Seamans is a Woods Hole Research vessel that does a semester at sea program where people learn to sail while learning oceanography, biology, or whatever the focus of the course is.  They visited us out on Tern Island last year with a University of Hawaii group.  The next ship that showed up was the Kahana, bringing us a load of fuel and will take back some of our waste.  The NOAA ship Oscar Elton Sette also stopped by.  They are putting out teams on most of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to monitor the Hawaiian monk seals. That's along with the photography visitor group, the NOAA marine debris crew, a group waiting to take the Sette to Kure Atoll, and a team working on removing some contaminants from the island.  I'm sure I'm leaving out some good stuff, but that's good for this week.

 This is the Robert C. Seamans.  A 134 ft. brigantine rigged ship.  The weather has been cloudy lately, otherwise I would have had a better photo.  There's a better one on my Tern Island blog, let me just say, it's much nicer having piers than having to run small boats out to these ships.

 Here's another shot of the Kahana.

The Oscar Elton Sette is back for the first time this season.  

Dennis, Penny, and Joanna are cleaning out the Monument seep on Eastern Island.  We pumped the water out and scooped out a lot of the muck that harbors bacteria that produces botulism toxin.  We didn't quite finish up, but at least we got rid of the anaerobic conditions that the bacteria likes.  It fills back up with groundwater pretty quickly.

Another dangerous sinkhole opened up near the seawall due to the waves crashing over.  I had to get 6 birds out of there.  We'll get it covered up this week.

I told you last week that I moved into my new (old) house.  It was recently renovated.  There are still no blinds on the windows, but it's not bad.

This is a Laysan albatross chick.  They are getting big.  I was going to show you a picture of the Short-tailed albatross chick that I took today, but this blog program is acting goofy.  It's something for you to look forward to next week, I guess.