That evening we banded more boobies, then looked for coconut crabs. Found four 
each about a foot long and one of them crushed a hard bamboo pole. Then we waded 
out to one of the islands to finish up some brown booby bands that we had been doing 
simultaneously in the morning with the red-foots. Along the shores of the island 
5 - foot sea-cucumbers stretched out, feeding their brown length on plankton, 
sifting through their tentacles. Smaller, thicker black sea cucumbers were spread 
more widely over the entire lagoon. These grow to lV* x 3”. Black-tipped sharks 
up to three feet occasionally ran up against our legs and several nips were felt. 
They non at you hard and once jumped 2 feet out of the water as one banged back 
and forth between my ankles. 
Dick met us with the boat a quarter of a mile out in the lagoon. 
29 November 
We all left in the raft to look for some more ducks and to bank 15 fairy terns 
if possible: leftover string blues. Paul and I struggled on and on and at last 
had...l4 when we were called by bwana and returned to camp. Found the last near 
camp. Packed up and prepared to leave but the boats were several hours late and 
we passed the time by feeding old C-rations to the surgeon fish and sharks. 
