Tag: sleep

It was one of those weeks…

It was one of those weeks.

Keck 2
The Keck 2 telescope, iPhone photo processed in Prisma
It did not look like it was going to be a bad week. The schedule was for a light week with nothing serious envisioned. Better yet, Tuesday was scheduled to be our departmental retreat, a day at the beach with the operations crew, all good.

One. Deb is having a bad spell. With little warning I took off Monday afternoon to drive her down to Kona to spend a couple hours in the infusion lab for medication.

Two. Monday would just not die easily… The phone calls began just after sunset. The Keck 1 hydraulic bearing system would not come on properly, shutting down just after the main pump came online. It became quickly apparent that I would be joining John and Justin for a trip to the summit in the middle of the night.

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Postcard from the Reef – Sleeping Parrotfish

A number of parrotfish species can secrete an odd mucus cocoon in which the fish will sleep through the night. Divers will often find these fish at night, enveloped in a transparent balloon. The discarded cocoon makes an odd sight rolling around the reef the next day.

Even within the same species some fish will use this technique, some will not. It is not known how this behavior is useful to the fish. This very large bullethead parrotfish is sleeping without aid of a cocoon…

Bullethead Parrotfish
A large bullethead parrotfish (Chlorurus spilurus) sleeps in the coral