🎵 When a (half) moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that’s a mooring 🎵
These halfmoon fish, Medialuna californiensis, kept our divers company while they were cleaning off the M1 mooring in February 2019. This 3,000-pound (1,360-kilogram) doughnut-shaped buoy works year-round to collect oceanographic data like temperature, pH, and salinity from Monterey Bay.Divers from the Mooring Operations Group visit the instrument every few months to clear off clingy goose barnacles, algae, and other hitchhiking marine life. Once a year, the mooring is brought back to MBARI and replaced with a refurbished unit.The constant data stream from the mooring has been a crucial window into the workings of Monterey Bay over time. All the more reason to keep it spick and span!