Our 10th Annual Coral Monitoring Project!

Ok - time to get yourself in gear! The 2006 Coral Monitoring survey period (annual since 1996) will be September 16 - 29.

With a Saturday arrival, we generally plan on acclimation and jet lag recovery Saturday, land training on Sunday and Monday we DIVE! The Monday dives are usually check out dives and more hands on training, lots of coral, fish and critter ID as well as how to deploy 20 meter tapes underwater! We plan on starting our working dives on Tuesday.

Generally, we have enough time so that we can do one working dive and one fun dive each diving day (Shhh, don't tell anyone) - as far as they are concerned you are slaving away - in 150+ foot vis, in 84 f. degree water, with turtles, barracuda, rare tropicals and rainbow runners dancing around you. maybe some mermaids....

Sigh - it's a rough life...

On the (more) serious side, the collected data will be submitted to the Kosrae State Fisheries Department (generally the Fisheries staff, highly trained local scientists, will work and dive with us) for their use in managing the essential reef resource and to Reef Check for inclusion in the International Coral Reef Data Base.

What do you need to know in order to join the survey team?? You must be dive certified. We'll teach you the rest! And as a bonus we'll help strengthen your diving and buoyancy skills. If you are not nitrox certified, we have a nitrox orientation class that will allow you to use nitrox while diving with us, the orientation is provided at no cost to the volunteers.

So - JOIN US! Dive, have fun, learn something AND make a contribution to the continuing health of our ocean.

Will McFarland at World of Diving (http://www.worldofdiving.com) has generously arranged very low cost airfare for the teams for a number of years and is doing it again this year. To take advantage of the special airfare pricing, you will need to make your booking through Will. AND please remember him when you travel again!

The monitoring team members are all self funded and due to requests from previous volunteers we have set up two different rates, one is complete - including airfare from Los Angeles and transit lodging, lodging and meals while on Kosrae, Kosrae State taxes, $50. project fee, nitrox and all other diving related expenses for US$3590.00. If you prefer not to include meals the rate is $3195.00.

The only expenses not included are the airport departure tax ($15), souvenirs or handicrafts and optional tours such as kayaking, canoeing, hiking or climbing.

If you have questions please email me!. Photos and data collected by previous teams on the OceanEarth site at http://www.oceanearth.org.

PLUS - Rob LaGrone's great Jetsetter article on the 2005 Coral Monitoring project is posted here.

See you in September!
Katrina