Helios Lake (Part 2)

Beautiful sunrise welcomed us through the window panes (I was still sound asleep, of course), and we had to head out early!

Low-lying mist across the mangroves across the creek.

Fiona and I rushingly packed for an overnight stay at the Blue Hole for twenty-four hours sampling and profiling (or rather, be mosquitoes' dinner, supper and breakfast!).

At Helios, and from afar you can see large and grey low-lying clouds, with roaring thunders in a distance.  From the anomalous wind direction, the storm was definitely headed to our direction.

And it did - the strong winds were vicious. Meanwhile, work has got to go on nevertheless despite the T-storm. Gran titration, YSI Profiling and sampling w depth. It was a risk swimming because of lightning within proximity, but I was still happy to get in the water to resume working - Lowering secchi disk (for turbidity measurement) and adjusting depth of sampling.

Thank god for Mike and George for setting up the tent for our 'work station'.

  

*sings Raindrop Keep Falling On My Head*

Gran Titrating in our tent-turned-outdoor-lab

The weird pink suspended layer whose
depth fluctuates at about 4-6m

The only hint of civilisation in the area.

When T-storm stopped - George went back out to
survey the remaining Banana Holes

By 6pm, the rest of the team left to continue lab work at the houseboat - leaving Fiona and I for our 24-hour duty - which means sampling the water every six hours and YSI profiling every hour. 

We had leftover from last night for dinner, continued profiling. I attempted to have an hour's sleep but my poison wood allergy reacted again and this was the day before I went to the hospital to get it checked.

And did I mention how we had the most bug-infested day ever - as soon as the horseflies decided to take a break and the mosquitoes quickly take over. Just imagine hundreds of them trying to drain your blood dry! =s

Sunset at 7:30pm which Fiona took on my behalf when I was in the Blue Hole.

The moonlight at 3am 

Fiona having 'Fiona-time' with
pen and paper and thinking-alouds
under a mosquito net.

Lowering a YSI Profiler down the lake takes about
half an hour

Keeping warm under the tarp.

Stayed awake until 9am!

[...to be cont'd]

Helios Lake (Part 1)

Where we were last weekend. Arrow pointing to Helios Blue Hole.
(Modified from Google Earth - Click to enlarge)

Last weekend at Fresh Creek was one of the most hectic, but also one of the most exciting i have ever had I have to say! While I try to keep this short and concise, I might have to do this P-log (Picture blog) in parts. Apologies for the late update.

Oh by the way - Do you know that packing 7 people and 3 days worth of supplies & research equipment on a pick-up truck is actually possible?

Okay to be honest we had to make two trips down because the diving gear itself was taking up the whole truck.
We still transported 7 people at one go though.

We drove for nearly two hours down South (thanks to my cat-napping skills I could sleep the whole way - through potholes, bumps and whatnots), settled in the Houseboat and set off on Tommy's boat for half an hour to a little blue hole West of Fresh Creek.

We brought our equipment over from where the boat left us, through a very sharp unstable terrain of very weathered limestone to the blue hole.

There are some very large dissolution features where marine life i.e. small fishes can thrive - called Banana Holes.

Limestone's sissolution feature.

1m deep Banana Hole

And a big Banana Hole next to the Blue Hole where it seems like it's connected
 as evident by large fishes spotted in it.

George and Mike set off to characterise the Banana Holes that seem to be located in a hundreds of metres length of fracture zone, while the rest are left to set up the sampling equipment, profiling machines (YSI, Mantra), soil suction samplers to begin working on characterising the lake.

Why the lake is of importance is because when Fiona, Alex and KT came to profile here, they noted a visibly sulphurous layer of pink (!!). Which is why they decided to come back and sample it and dive through.

The local told us no one has dived there before (excited!).

I couldn't help myself but get into the lake, and the first task was to lower weights tied to the end of a measuring tape and find (roughly) the deepest point to maximise sampling points with depth.

I know, I look ridiculous in that colourful float. 
But reeling measuring tape with weights repeatedly while staying afloat all the time is not ideal.

Fiona and George checking salinity along the transect from the Creek to the Blue Hole.

Then after we finished our work, went back home and watched the sunset for a bit before our late dinner.

Beautiful, indeed.


Day 1 down.


Look forward for the next part :)