42 
THE CORAL TRIANGLE: HEARST BIODIVERSITY EXPEDITION 
the animals we had obtained baek to Manila for ship out on our ‘dry day’ (to give our bodies a 
ehanee to off gas Nitrogen in our tissues from diving), drive right back to Club Ocellaris for anoth¬ 
er 6 days of diving and collecting, then back to Manila for packing and shipping then fly home the 
next day. The daily schedule of activities would be a grueling marathon, but we couldn’t wait to 
get started. 
Life in the expedition 
Every morning, we woke at around 6 am for coffee and Skype video calls to home and work 
where it was 2 pm the previous day. Breakfast (ummm, mango shakes) and our dive briefing start¬ 
ed at 7 am. With up to five dive boats going out each day, coming to agreement on where we would 
be diving was no small act of coordination. After breakfast we would collect and test our NITROX 
tanks for the day, get our cameras and collecting gear ready, and assemble & check our dive gear 
and load it onto the boats. Then we would suit up and zoom out to a good place to get under the 
wanter. 
On each dive, we not only 
collected animals, but also com¬ 
pleted multiple steps designed to 
track each specimen — every 
coral fragment was photographed 
and assigned a number that pro¬ 
vided information on when it was 
collected, from what dive site 
and depth it was harvested, as 
well as the name of the biologist 
who collected it. Each coral got a 
tag attached to it so we would, in 
theory, be able to ID it later. The 
tagging was a learning experi¬ 
ence and morphed over time, so 
much so, that next year we will 
most likely use heat stamped 
numbered zip ties as tracking 
id’s, but attach those zip ties to 
the coral with 20 gauge coated 
wire the tips of which are sealed 
with a rubberized plastic dip 
because the wire will be easier to 
manipulate and create less waste 
than other methods we tried. 
After the second dive, we 
would head back to land and 
offload our animals. From the 
dock, we would change our 
scuba equipment for snorkels, 
and then swim our new specimens to the off shore holding facility, often making multiple trips. 
Then we would eat ravenously, then turn around and repeat the same process for the afternoon 
dives. 
Figure 4: A red Junceella sp., tagged and ready to be placed on the Coral 
Clothsline. This coral is now on display in the Steinhart’s Philippine Coral 
Reef Exhibit 
Figure 5: Matt Wandell swimming a plastic tank filled with collected 
animals out to our offshore holding site 
