Adventures on Rangiroa

Rangiroa is among the largest atolls in the world, with an immense lagoon surrounded by small Motus. This offered the first opportunity for students to conduct research that was organized into a series of small boat missions.  Three teams went off in daily research trips and studied the ecological features of the fore reef, called grooves and spurs; placing sensitive pressure sensors to measure how wave energy was dispersed while also photographing the area for a reconstruction of the morphology of the reef using a technique called photogrammetry. The sharks team went to survey sharks using drones and transects, and after a day of practice were rewarded with a fabulous trip to the blue lagoon that had many small blacktop reef sharks. The coral eDNA project worked at a site called the Aquarium -- a fabulous full MPA where coral symbionts were collected.  Others visited land and snorkeled, taking in the beauty of this remote place.