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Down Time

After a trying day of bathymetric surveys, a science party from WHOI and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) spent some time free diving over Shi’b al Qasriyyah, a reef near Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. KAUST Ph.D. student Aya Hozumi, shown here, is part of a collaborative project studying the interaction of a semi-permanent eddy in the Red Sea east of Yanbu and the coastal zone nearby. WHOI physical oceanographers Steve Lentz and Jim Churchill are working with KAUST colleagues Burt Jones, Yasser Abualnaja, and Nikolaos Zarokanellos to examine the physics of this interaction and KAUST biologists Chris Voolstra and Conny Roder are studying the impact of the interaction on coral reefs of the coastal zone. (Photo by Jim Churchill, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)