Today we continued our transit back east for most of the day, and found ourselves dredging near the French Island of Wallis. As you may recall if you have been following the daily reports (or if not, you can check backwards in time, it’s alright), getting permission to come this close to French territory was the object of some anxiety and doubt. Wallis is a rather large island, which is part of the Samoan chain, further east than Samoa though, and is a habited colony.

We are now dredging deeper than ever before, with over five thousand meters of wire between the dredge and ship. We are collecting rock samples from around Wallis to try and confirm that it is actually part of the Samoan chain, which can be determined by the rock’s composition, which is similar for all Samoan Islands. This would make Wallis Island Vailulu’u’s (the Seamount we visited and studied at the beginning of the trip) sibling island. It is possible however, that with the mess of islands in this region, Wallis is actually part of a different chain, formed by a different hotspot, but rather unlikely.

People on the ship are using the downtime between our large transits, here nearing the end of our voyage, to begin doing some of the work that they brought along with them. Since we will be back in port in three days, the prospects of being back home – and the put off work that it entails, is becoming more pressing, and for the first time people are bringing out non-geological text books to work by.

Ryan Delaney onboard the R/V Kilo Moana.