News from Curacao Expedition

Deep Reef expedition – Wednesday, Aug 29, 2018

We worked with the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) early in the morning (7 am).

Main goal was to test the ROV again and survey and inspect the reef at 30m depth. We followed with another Curasub submarine dive with Nicole De Voogd (our sponge specialist who collected many specimens) and David Kline (Corals). Typical sub dive is 3 1/2 hours. Then we did two scuba dives, including one with David to survey the reef. David did a 30m long video transect at 10m deep and 20m deep. Goal was to determine the percentage of coverage and the species composition of corals.

Deep Reef expedition – Monday Aug 27, 2018:

Boarded our science ship the R/V Chapman early and left Curacao. Arrived at Klein Curacao at 12 noon. Sunny/windy. Prepared for a Curasub (the submarine) dive with Dr. David Kline (corals), Dr. Carole Baldwin (fishes and invertebrates), Prof. Nicole De Voogd (sponges) and Barbara the fearless and meticulous sub pilot. Brought back many specimens to be studied soon: already known? New genera?

Arrived in Curacao late last night – Saturday Aug 25, 2018

Tested the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) today Saturday in the Seaquarium testing pool and in the Caribbean Sea.
All works well. Tested at about 10m depth. Monday will be the real thing at –100/150m.

Decided to name the ROV ‘Reefy’ as it is going to do a lot of observation work in the shallow and deep coral reefs of Curacao and Klein Curacao.

More testing tomorrow. Also the entire science team will be preparing its scuba gear and we will start to load the ship (R/V Chapman).

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