Leg 2 - Animals

****NOTE: All pictures property of the US Navy****


"Ruby" the red-foot booby (I named her). She hung out on the bow mast for 24+ hours!

Ruby the booby at sunset (still there)!

Striped dolphins!!! Yahoo! (I always have to say that when they start jumping - or running)...

Humpback whale spyhopping!

Massive bird flock - note white terns, sooty terns, and black noddies in the mix (you birders)

Sperm whale mom, calf (to the right) and escort. These are NOT the whales that rammed us!

Bryde's whale mom and calf (calf is underwater in front of the mom, blowing) - so cute!

Bryde's whale calf surfacing (only about 15 feet long - they can get to 45-50 feet long!). Note the three prominent ridges on the rostrum - head - that's how we identified this species...

Short-tailed albatross! One of the rarest seabird species! And huge!!!

Great frigatebird soaring high in the sky - they're pirates of the sea - stealing fish from other birds like poor Ruby the Booby

A white-tailed tropicbird taking off the sea surface - note long white tail, black on wings

Spinner dolphins underwater - they were bowriding with us for a bit!

Matsudaira's storm petrel - one of the most common storm petrel's we're seeing out here...thanks to Richard for helping me learn my bird identifications!

Leg 2 - People pics

Cornelia hiding in the big eyes cover during a rainstorm...

Mark and a nice big ol mahi mahi (we ate it for dinner) - aren't the colors pretty?

Jim!!! Don't eat it! A random pteropod (jelly-like animal that I have no idea what group of animals it falls into - it has eye spots and a gut, even this weird fin thing...). Jim caught it during night-time dipnetting for flying fish.

Jim Cotton - professional photographer...?

What? There's a whale out there? Where?

Dr. Greg Fulling, our illustrious cruise leader, hard at work.

Pulling another fish on board - Mike, Mark and Nalu hard at work (on their tans)

Leg 2 - Random cruise pics

View of the East side of Saipan

Just another sunset shot...

One good thing about squalls out here is that there's a lot of pretty rainbows to look at! So far no pots of gold (or dolphins) at the end...

Another beautiful day coming to and end...

Look closely - this is our data program - Beaufort 2, 5 knots of wind, and a smiling face! FINALLY!!!

The island of Guguan, 6th island north of Guam in the Northern Mariana Islands chain - shrouded in rain and fog. It's uninhabited (mostly because it's one big lava rock I think) and tons of birds nest on it...

Just as we came around the west side of Guguan the rain cleared. You can see the lava rock running straight into the ocean (there's an active volcano on the island) and the lush tropical foliage...

I know, I know, another sunset shot. Just couldn't resist now that the weather has improved!!!

The island of Saipan looking at the northern end - the cliffs are called Banzai cliffs - where a lot of Japanese jumped to their deaths when the Americans arrived during WWII. Now there's a memorial and park there...We also saw the humpbacks here!