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GARDNER PINNACLES PROVIDE UNEXPECTED LOOK AT THE LAND AND SEA

This morning, October 16, the vessel Rapture arrived at Gardner Pinnacles to complete their final dives of the expedition. Four dives around the tiny volcanic pinnacles revealed a quick and somewhat complete look at the waters immediately adjacent to land. The five to ten mile underwater bank that extends seaward from the islands in all directions was not surveyed because the waters quickly dropped to depths of 15 to 20 fathoms, outside the expedition's sampling depths.

Divers off Gardner Pinnacles

At Gardner, coral biologists recorded 27 species of coral, more species than were seen at the more southern islands of Necker and Nihoa. Their finds were somewhat surprising to the researchers for several reasons. "The island was small, so the distance between dive sites was short, yet we found incredible differences in coral coverage and diversity of species between the sites," said Dave Gulko, coral biologist with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources. "We also saw more coral species than we expected.

"At our first dive site on the windward side of the pinnacles, the corals were more exposed to wave action we saw mostly encrusting corals, with some small branching and table corals. At our second site on the leeward side, where there is more protection from wave action, we found large Acropora corals, and larger colonies of coral of a variety of species. The larger Acropora were the dominant species."

Overall, despite the higher diversity, the researchers found much smaller coral cover than expected. On average they found a 15% coral cover at the sites they visited, with only 5% cover in some places. They also noticed little coral growth. Some corals were found growing on rocks individually, but not connected together as reefs. They researchers suspect that the low coverage and slow growth is due to the scouring action of waves against the islands. Perhaps larger corals exist in deeper waters along the underwater bank around the pinnacles.

Divers also found lots of different kinds of habitat along the pinnacle shelf including walls, caves, ledges, mounds, crevasses and flat areas. At the bottom of the coral mounds they found a flat, wave-cut shelf that seemed to surround the entire pinnacle.

Researchers aboard the sister research vessel Townsend Cromwell weren't able to conduct research at Gardner Pinnacles due to incredibly rough seas. According to biologist Dwayne Minton who was aboard the NOAA ship on its visit to Gardner, "the waves on the protected side of the islands were so rough that their splash shot half way up the height of the taller island."

Luckily, this was not the case for the Rapture scientists. In fact, seas were calm enough for a small land team to unexpectedly scale and explore the typically inaccessible volcanic rocks, which are the least visited of all the islands in the northwestern chain. Even with calm seas, however, the landing site proved dangerous. The first land-based biological survey of the island took place in 1923 as part of the Tanager expedition.

Unusual blue-gray
noddies at Gardner Pinnacles

A rare find on land was the blue-gray noddy, a delicate looking bird that is infrequently seen in the northwestern chain. The only other islands the bird has been reported to nest and breed are Necker and Nihoa islands and La Perouse Pinnacle. On this trip, biologists recorded three blue-gray noddys. Although the bird is known to nest and breed on the Pinnacles, its known breeding population has never exceeded several dozen birds.

On this visit, biologists found nine species of seabirds including terns, noddys, boobies and frigate birds. These numbers compare to a total of nineteen species of seabirds that been previously recorded at Gardner, twelve of which breed on the precipitous cliffs. They also saw two species of migratory shorebirds, the ruddy turnstone and the golden plover.

Booby hangout on Gardner Pinnacles

Curious white tern at Gardner Pinnacles

Wildlife technician Jennifer Hale on Gardner

According to Jennifer Hale, biological science technician with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "Our visit to Gardner proved to be quite an exciting and rewarding trip. I was pleasantly surprised by how many different species we had seen, especially considering the harsh environment. Being that there were only a few Portulaca plants, the birds were forced to nest along the rocky terrain. Almost all of the nests we saw were quite exposed and vulnerable to storms and strong winds. These tolerant birds utilized every possible crevice." Hale just completed a three month field stint on Laysan Island and spent much of her time there monitoring seabirds.

Gordon Nishida
on Gardner Pinnacles

Scaling the steep, guano covered island was well worth it for entomologist Gordon Nishida who found what he believes are two new species of spiders, never before known to science. He also found a third spider that hadn't been recorded to exist on Gardner before. According to Nishida, until now, only 8 insects and 2 mites had ever been recorded to exist on the island. The last insect survey on Gardner was done in 1963 as part of the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program. Nishida won't be able to confirm these finds until he returns to his laboratory in Honolulu.

Interestingly, only one plant grows on the pinnacles, Portulaca lutea, a native succulent called sea purslane that is found throughout the Pacific.

The only plant on Gardner
Pinnacles, sea purslane

Gardner Pinnacles consist of two volcanic rocks. The tallest stands 170 feet high and 200 yards long. Geologists believe that these pinnacles, now measuring eight acres, were once about 80 square miles in size, bigger than the island of Kahoolawe but smaller than the island of Lanai in the main Hawaiian islands.

Its nearest neighbors are French Frigate Shoals, 117 nautical miles to the southeast of French Frigate Shoals and Laysan Island, 204 nautical miles northwest. The pinnacles were first reported by Captain Joseph Allen of the Nantucket whaling ship, Maro, on June 2, 1820.

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CORAL HEAVEN' VS. 'SILTY, MURKY REEF' EXPERIENCES AT MARO SURPRISES RESEARCH TEAM

On October 15, scientists dove the waters around Maro Reef in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands. The only atoll without any emergent land, Maro Reef has been described by visitors as a very unusual and contradicting place.

According to Dwayne Minton an invertebrate biologist, at Maro, the reef was topographically very different from the rest of the reefs in the northwestern chain. "The atoll is hardly an atoll at all. With no perimeter reef, Maro is a maze of reticular coral lines that converge at various points. The atoll has little protection from wave action and storms," explained Minton.

"Minton is a invertebrate zoologist at the Department of Zoology, University of Hawaii."

Minton dove the Reef as a scientist on board both expedition research vessels, the NOAA ship Townsend Cromwell and the Rapture. The Townsend Cromwell completed roughly one dozen dives around Maro Reef.

"It's a very strange place. When I dove with the Townsend Cromwell on the eastern side of the Reef we saw pinnacles without much coral, only slimy algal 'fuzz.' The water was silty and the pinnacles were covered with lots of bivalves like arc shells, rock and spiny oysters which bored themselved into the pinnacles. We saw sharks every dive and the water was usually murky. We were always looking over our shoulders," described Minton.

Maro Reef Dive

Another thing Minton found strange about the atoll was the lack of sea urchins. "We've seen them everywhere else. Why they're not here, we don't know. But the lack of urchins may explain the amount of algal 'fuzz, which in turn may explain why there is a lack of coral cover in some areas," said Minton. "These areas are similar to what I would envision in a place where pollution occurs, but based on the remote location of Maro, the source can't be pollution. Something very odd is at work there.

"We did have one nice dive in the central area of the reef where coral cover and diversity was high and the water was less murky," said Minton.

For Minton, Maro Reef in an area that warrants further exploration. "There's something going on there that makes it very different, making it worth investigating further, in my opinion."

The dives Minton describes contrast the early morning dives the researchers aboard the Rapture experienced, confirming the odd nature of the place.

"My first dive at Maro Reef was the best dive I've ever had in the Hawaiian Islands," said coral researcher Jim Maragos. "I was very surprised by the abundance and diversity of coral, and even more surprised because we had heard it was such an inhospitable place. Instead, we found wonderful coral."

In all, the researchers found 25 to 30 species of coral at the Reef (the final number is not yet tabulated) and a coral cover of 95% in some areas. "There was more reef diversity in one place at Maro than we've saw on our 12 dives at Pearl and Hermes Atoll combined," said Maragos. In addition, the coral cover at the few sites surveyed exceeded most other places on this expedition.

"We chose to do our dives in the inside of tha lagoon, sheltered somewhat by a long reef in the center of the atoll," said Maragos. "Especially since the outer areas had already been explored by our sister research ship. For whatever reason, it appears there are a few small pockets of incredible coral species at Maro in the places where shelter is afforded."

But Maro reef is an atoll surviving on the edge. "Because the reefs are fairly narrow and are not consolidated, the reefs are on the verge of drowning," said Maragos.

"It's a contradiction. On one hand, we found lots of healthy reefs. But because they aren't connected together and the reefs aren't very thick, they remain vulnerable to storm surges and waves."

For fish biologist Bill Walsh, "at the sites I dove, there was an incredible diversity in fish and coral abundance. Whether or not this is typical of the rest of the reef, we don't know. The experiences of the Townsend Cromwell crew were much different. We may have just lucked out."

Maro Reef is a very complex and large reef area, with many hazards to navigation, making exploration of the place challenging. Little information is available about the Reef and its a dangerous palce to get to. The nautical charts lack detail and accuracy and most ships avoid the area as a result.

As 'spooky' and hard to acccess as Maro Reef is, because only four sites were explored during their one day at the atoll, most of the researchers on board are unanimous in their desire to see Maro explored more in the future.

RAPTURE TEMPORARILY LOSES ONE ENGINE TO MARINE DEBRIS

About 13 hours into the return trip home from Gardner Pinnacles, ironically, the vessel Rapture's starboard engine was temporarily jammed by a large fishing net that was floating in the ocean.

The encounter was ironic as the crew aboard the vessel had just completed a one- month research expedition to investigate the state of the marine environment of Hawaii's northernmost island and atolls. As part of the trip the scientists looked for human impacts to the environment, including marine debris. Marine debris was encountered at most of the islands, shoals and atolls visited during the trip and is a major problem in this remote area.

Marine debris entangles itself into large masses, causing entanglements to marine life and destroying coral when large balls of net, fishing line and polypropylene rope get caught on the reef. The Rapture was about 20 miles southwest of French Frigate Shoals when it encountered the large net. It took the Rapture crew approximately one and half hours to cut the net from the engine and get the engine working again. The vessel is now underway again on route to Honolulu.

The net that slowed the Rapture

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