Operations proceeded smoothly at Kure the last two days we were there. Lots of territory was covered by towboard, with divers switching every hour and a half between duties of driving and towing. During our transits to and from the ship, the resident pod of spinner dolphins would find our avons, and excited by our speed, swim along at our bow. 
At full bore, we're usually doing around 20 knots and the dolphins easily match that speed, diving in a out of the water inches from the boat and splashing anyone sitting up front.. One of our teams stopped to dive with the dolphins one day on the transit home, and found a big net halfway embedded in the sandy bottom near where they were swimming. One of the dolphins had a piece of net hung up on its pectoral fin too, although its net was probably from a different source. So, the next morning, my boat team headed back to pull up the big net on the bottom. It was pretty big, and about 25 feet down, so we brought along some liftbags. (heavy nylon open-ended bags with straps attached, look kinda like miniature hot-air balloons) A thin strip of the net about 8 feet long was sticking out of the sand, but the majority of it was buried, and the suction was way too much to pull it out by hand. So, we attached two 200 lb liftbags and filled them with air from a scuba tank. One of the bags ripped out the piece of the net it was attached to and went rocketing to the surface, literally. 
Anybody directly over the bag would have been launched out of the water... hmmm. That lesson learned, we attached another bag to a more substantial piece of the net. Once filled, all we had to do was dive down and shake the bags back and forth. As they vibrate, they slowly work the net out of the substrate and if they're properly placed, they pretty much do all the work for you. Two liftbags pulled some of the net out, but we had to throw on a third bag to get it all to go. It worked like magic, and the third bag was just enough to work all of it out of the sand. The net exploded upwards in a giant mushroom cloud of sand, and hung there at the surface like a limp, well.... net. Jubilee and I then painstakingly cut out all the old coral heads that it had gathered over the course of its life since it fell off some fishing boat a couple of years ago. Then, of course, it went up and into the boat- not an easy task for something that is 15 feet long, waterlogged, covered with slimy growth, and weighs a couple hundred pounds...
At full bore, we're usually doing around 20 knots and the dolphins easily match that speed, diving in a out of the water inches from the boat and splashing anyone sitting up front.. One of our teams stopped to dive with the dolphins one day on the transit home, and found a big net halfway embedded in the sandy bottom near where they were swimming. One of the dolphins had a piece of net hung up on its pectoral fin too, although its net was probably from a different source. So, the next morning, my boat team headed back to pull up the big net on the bottom. It was pretty big, and about 25 feet down, so we brought along some liftbags. (heavy nylon open-ended bags with straps attached, look kinda like miniature hot-air balloons) A thin strip of the net about 8 feet long was sticking out of the sand, but the majority of it was buried, and the suction was way too much to pull it out by hand. So, we attached two 200 lb liftbags and filled them with air from a scuba tank. One of the bags ripped out the piece of the net it was attached to and went rocketing to the surface, literally. 
Anybody directly over the bag would have been launched out of the water... hmmm. That lesson learned, we attached another bag to a more substantial piece of the net. Once filled, all we had to do was dive down and shake the bags back and forth. As they vibrate, they slowly work the net out of the substrate and if they're properly placed, they pretty much do all the work for you. Two liftbags pulled some of the net out, but we had to throw on a third bag to get it all to go. It worked like magic, and the third bag was just enough to work all of it out of the sand. The net exploded upwards in a giant mushroom cloud of sand, and hung there at the surface like a limp, well.... net. Jubilee and I then painstakingly cut out all the old coral heads that it had gathered over the course of its life since it fell off some fishing boat a couple of years ago. Then, of course, it went up and into the boat- not an easy task for something that is 15 feet long, waterlogged, covered with slimy growth, and weighs a couple hundred pounds... 
After the days work, all the avons (there are 4 of them) and the ship's SAFEboat all rendesvouz back at the ship. Usually, we all get to the ship within a few minutes of each other, so plenty of time is spent circling around off the stern quarter of the ship waiting for your turn to be craned aboard... Two days ago, the ship's SAFEboat (which goes out every day carrying two other NOAA guys to do fish surveys) returned to the ship the same time as my avon. They charged right up to us and began to play bumper boats. One thing led to another, and soon there was a volley of mustard and mayo from the lunch coolers. My attempt to spray mustard failed miserably, as the French's mustard nozzle makes for a poor stream and terrible trajectory. The Kraft mayo, however, sprays a nice inch-wide stream as far and as long as you want. After Jubilee and I, our boat, and all our dive gear were thoroughly coated in mayo, a truce was called. Side note: most bottled mayo these days apparently requires no refrigeration. The ships cooks were under the assumption that our mayo would be fine left out on the galley table day after steamy tropical day. Upon close examination, it was found that OUR mayo did indeed require refrigeration- not only that, but it had expired in February... 
So, I'm covered in mayo, and thoroughly disgusted. I had just asked my boss if it was alright if I jumped in the water to wash off, when four Galapagos sharks appeared out of nowhere, instantly attracted by the greasy little bits of mayo floating in the water. They swam around, nipping at all the little chunks. Somehow a breakfast biscuit found its way into the water, and Frank accidentally dropped a chicken wing over the side. The sharks weren't intersted however, and never touched anything but the mayo. Ken and Jeff and I have always tried chumming for sharks back on Oahu with good stuff like Ahi bellies, and have never met with any success. Who knew all you needed was mayo?? Frank stuck his arm over the side of the boat and took this pic.
Yesterday, our last day at Kure, we finished up with operations at around 2:00 in the afternoon. Not one to waste good diving time, the boss had us rendezvoused up in the middle of the atoll, and then took us outside the barrier reef for a fun-dive. We anchored up in 40-50 feet of water in an area of spur and groove reef structure. Derek and I took off to find some neat stuff to film with his underwater video camera. The visibility was absolutely PHENOMENAL- You could see well over a hundred feet in every direction, quite possibly 150 feet. I felt like I was floating in the sky above the ground and that I could fall at any moment. Pretty cool. The reef was pretty standard- big coral-cement spurs with small evenly-spaced pocilipora heads everywhere. Sand channels lay between the coral spurs. At first not much was going on; just the usual reef fish hovering around near the bottom. Then, a small gray reef shark meandered over and began circling, then another. A little while later, two big uluas showed up and came to check us out. 
Derek and I took turns diving down to the bottom. I'd go down, hide behind a ledge, and settle in for a while. With no scuba tank bubbles to scare off the fish, after I'd sat there for a while, the uluas came in very close to check me out (see pic), and so did the two sharks. By the end of the dive, we had the sharks, the uluas, a school of rainbow runners (see next pic), and a school of kawakawa (small tunas) circling around us in one big gyre. Pretty amazing, I gotta say... 
Derek and I took turns diving down to the bottom. I'd go down, hide behind a ledge, and settle in for a while. With no scuba tank bubbles to scare off the fish, after I'd sat there for a while, the uluas came in very close to check me out (see pic), and so did the two sharks. By the end of the dive, we had the sharks, the uluas, a school of rainbow runners (see next pic), and a school of kawakawa (small tunas) circling around us in one big gyre. Pretty amazing, I gotta say... 
After loading our boats onboard the ship, we set course for Pearl and Hermes Reef, about 150 miles southeast. We arrived this morning and began ops around 9:30
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