Nadi, Fiji to Moso Island

1/5/2023

Thursday

View from our apartment just before we left to go to the airport.

The weather in Nadi is a little damp - and it has been for several weeks - Yikes, I hope we have some decent weather so we can get to the nesting beaches.

Today we will fly from Nadi to Efate Island, Vanuatu and make our way over to Moso Island by van and then by boat.  We had a relaxing night at our B & B in Nadi and, after rearranging our luggage and carry-ons to meet weight restrictions, we are just about ready to go back to Nadi airport and catch our flight to Baurer Field International Airport.  

We made it to the Nadi airport by 1200 hours and spent some time having lunch and sitting around waiting for our flight.

The more industrious part of the team spent their time weaving bracelets.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Makala has Reached the Great Barrier Reef

Image
8/3/2023 It has been over a month now since I last updated Makala activities.  As it turns out, she has remained in the same home range area.  Below is her track up to 8/1/23. 5/28/2023 Makala has remained in her home range habitat on the southern Great Barrier Reef.  The video below highlights Makala's movements during the time period from 4/2/2023 to 5/26/2023.  The trajectories are depicted as straight lines although the turtle actual tracks are usually anything but straight.  After trajectory animation, I have calculated the kernel density utilization distributions for 95% and 50% utilization.  This calculation means that statistically one could expect to find Makala within the boarder of the larger area 95% of the time and within the smaller area 50% of the time.  These areas are quite small and indicates that there is sufficient food for Makala within that small area (95% KUD area = 0.56 sq. km, & 50% KUD area = 0.07 sq. km). The video shows Makala;s trajectory from 4/2/2
Read more

Student Posts

Image
Each of the four student participants will contribute a short post:  Our four intrepid HPA student team members. Animal Friends of Tranquility Resort by Annika Everett While most of our time on Moso Island was spent exploring the beautiful and diverse house reef and beyond, some of our fondest memories were made with the terrestrial animals of Tranquility. When we first arrived at Moso Island we were welcomed by 4 dogs that live at the resort - Boots, Socks, Spots, and puppy Zula! While we actually met these doggies at different times, within a few days they became our best friends. They followed us to and from our fares, joined us on beach adventures and eventually became our guardians staying with us at night! Spots was my and Mrs. Jim’s favorite as she visited our fare often, greeted us home after our night long field work, sleeping aside us! Along with the dogs, we shared the island with tons of hermit crabs to the point where the first day of being there I saw one on the beach and
Read more

1/13/2023

Image
We had a successful night last night.  We were able to capture a beautiful post-nesting hawksbill turtle and attach a satellite tag to her.  She was first observed at 2010 and captured as she made her way back to the beach at 2025.  Below is a picture of the capture team.   After a few hours sleep, I would like bring you up to date on last night's activities.  We traveled from TR to the base camp around 1730 hours, set up camp and prepared dinner.  After dinner we rested for a couple of hours before we made our first beach survey.  Two teams headed out, one to the east (long beach) and one to the west beach area.  As soon as we came out onto the beginning of the longest stretch of west beach, Annika and Alden came across a track!  We stood and listened for a few minutes and could hear the thrown sand (mama turtle covering her nest) and knew she might be close to finishing her nesting (nest location: Latitude: 17° 31’ 19.752” S, Longitude: 168° 14’ 26.052” E).  We radioed back to th
Read more