Purpose of the Expedition Web Log

Megafauna of the Red SEA

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:39:48 -0400

Today, we had a wonderful encounter with the largest fish on the planet. While we have seen four different types of sharks, all of them more typical of what one might consider the roving predator of the reefs, today we encountered the biggest of them all, the mother of all elasmobranchs - the whale shark! Feeding entirely on plankton, these gentle giants roam the worlds oceans in search of food and pose no threat to people. We swam with a pair, likley Mom and calf, lazily feeding on what appeared to be an upwelling of nutrients providing bountiful food for both. A huge Manta Ray was nearby as well also feeding on plankton. It's amazing to think how big these animals can get just feeding on microscopic funk in the ocean!

Here’s a video!

Happy Earth Day

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:11:23 -0400

Imagine giving up 1/2 of your income, in addition to taxes and payments for house, college etc., just so you can ensure your children have a chance for a future. That's exactly what the desperately poor Vezo an indigenous group of nomadic fishing communities of southwest Madagascar did when they established the first real marine protected area in the Indian Ocean. They risked everything just for the slim chance to save their ecosystem and indeed, themselves. Every day is earth day for the Vezo. As a local leader noted recently, "In order to be Vezo, a person must act in the present, for it is only in the present that one performs one's identity.  Read their story!

As we celebrate Earth Day, how do we act in the present? It's rather shocking to think that over half of the world's population live on 5% of available land space - our slim ribbon of coastal land throughout the world. We have major magnetic attractants to the coast, we orient all we do around the coast - we build our major cities, we set up our major industries, hubs of transportation and trade, energy processing, and of course our favorite vacation destinations are along the coast. In the developing world, the dependence on the coast and it's resources is profound! In coastal Nicaragua - if you want to eat tonight, your families only meal of rice and beans, you must first find mangroves to cut simply to boil the rice and feed your family. The people there know full well the value of mangroves as the lifeblood of their ecosystem - they KNOW how important mangroves are - but find no other alternative than to slowly kill the goose that is laying their golden egg.

Our earth's ecosystem is the most productive along the coast - a margin of productivity that our civilization has depended - and where our footprint is the biggest. As our climate warms, sea levels rise, our desire for seaside development and fresh fish increases - today may be a good day to pause and reflect on what stewardship really means.

Diving in the Red Sea for over three weeks just off the coat of Saudi Arabia, these thoughts are hard to ignore. On several of our dives, we've seen amazing areas of diversity such as whales, sharks, whale sharks, sea turtles, manta rays, schools of hundreds of fish... but we have also seen areas of reefs that are decimated, virtually devoid of all life - and these sites are far offshore, away from human activity. What's happening is anyones guess! Warming that leads to bleaching is one possibility, a devastating outbreak of the "crown of thorns" starfish that eats live corals is another - nevertheless, we are witnessing a ecosystem in decline. Go anywhere in the coastal realm and you will find the same. It would be hard to find anywhere on earth that is spared, but our future does not have to be this. When we listen, truly listen and hear with an open heart and open will to the relationship of people and place, there is great hope.

A small british social enterprise called Blue Ventures lived with the Vezo, listened to them understood what they wanted and built a bridge for them to take their next step and established a huge marine reserve. Imagine what they are giving up to protect their future. What have we given up to protect our future? A small Nicaraguan organization called CIDEO listened to the people of coastal Nicaraguans and created alternative livelihoods such as breadmaking and shellfish farming to generate resources, crated proteced areas for the mangroves. These are small seeds of hope that need cultivation.   As you reflect on what you are doing for earth week - learn more about what you can do to help communities in Madagascar, Nicaragua and next door.

Islands in the Red Sea

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:57:31 -0400

The Red Sea is resplendent in life in a very challenging environment. Precious little rainfall creates stark barren landscapes on the islands that dot the Farasan Banks, yet when you look closely there is remarkable plant and animal life living here. Pictured to the right is a small flowering plant living in the midst of desert rock.

Recently, I took a trip to an island with Dr. Bernhard Reigl and his Ph.D. student Gwilym Rowlands who study reef geomorphology. As soon as we approached the Island both were astounded with the reality that we were about to walk on an entire fossilized coral reef. These islands are the likely result of a uplift that occurred as a huge dome of salt uplifted the sea floor - imagine a lava lamp - and that resulting bubble pushed up the sea floor surface and it’s historic reef structure. It is this process, combined with other tectonic rifts that seems to be shaping the land and seacapes of the Red Sea.

Bernhard described the setting as a limestone island consisting of at least two raised old reef terraces. The age of the first reef (the younger one) is likely to be 125,000 years old - and the second older one is likely to be less than half a million years old. We were all impressed with the “very nice fault-line running though it - it exposes the internal structure of the reefal limestone of the lower reef unit” as Bernhard explained. It shows that 125,00 years ago there was vigorous coral growth at least as good - if not better than today.

There was amazing bird life on the island. This is the Eleonora’s Falcon - a migratory species of falcon that breed in the Mediterranean area that follows the migrating songbirds south and uses the Red Sea Islands as hunting ground to knock off unsuspecting birds such as the Hoepoe - shown above. Perhaps that’s why the Hoepoe like sitting on the deck of the boat... instead of taking it’s rest on one of these islands constantly patrolled by these falcons and hawks.

We were all taken by the beauty of the landscape - Bernhard said to truly know the island, we should all live on this little rock for a month to truly know the landscape, the reefs, the birds, and do a full inventory of what is there. All to soak in the beauty, truly be present in the place, and ask yourself why it was there? The answer to that question is all part of our own personal journey.

Here’s an accipiter hawk - likely not one of the European ones, a Middle East hawk - this one may travel to India. I’m used to forest hawks - not ones that live off the islands - dining on local fauna...

The Big Cat

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:51:08 -0400

The Golden Cat aka the Big Cat - is one of two primary dive platforms for the Red Sea expedition. The Big Cat has had its fair share of troubles this expedition- from twin smoking engines on Day one - to needing what seems like daily care from the amazing crew of the Golden Shadow. However, the vessel has performed admirably for all 25 dives to date (in just over 7 days).

The typical diving day starts with the fish team going in first, followed by the coral team and then the photo/video transect team. Everyone has buddy pairs and we keep to a very strict diving protocol not to exceed 30 meters (@90 feet) and must leave at least 35 bar (500 lbs. per square inch) of air pressure in your tank when you return - also the dives must not last longer than 60 minutes.

We then go down and conduct our different activities and then all come up on the Big Cat and share stories of what we’ve just seen, the relative health of the reef, any cool animals like turtles, manta rays, sharks, big fish etc. and then prepare for the next dive.

The protocol is time tested and well enforced by the divemaster - Rob. His only real drawback is that he’s an avid Montreal Canadiens fan (who are sure to loose to the division leading Bruins in the first round of the NHL playoffs). So Rob started the morning with a BOMB. On Day 8 he was announcing the winners of the coveted “best buddy pair” - a highly sought after award that all seek. The prestige is limitless. The Best Buddy Pair is an award to the safest pair of divers - who followed the diving profile to an exact science - time after time, dive after dive. With great anticipation, Rob announced the winner... it was Phil and I. We had no time to prepare any comments for the paparazzi - we just let it fly. “We have so many people to thank for this fine award....” However, we didn’t expect the vitriol from our fellow divers. So Phil and I are ever vigilant that they won’t “adjust” our air or help us with our buoyancy compensators - because we think the dynamics have shifted - once a collegial group of fellow marine geeks - now will do anything to dethrone the “Best Buddy Pair.”

So stay tuned to find out is we can keep this extremely high honor - or if some “mishap” occurs and our long awaited reign comes to an end....

First Week in the Field

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:42:20 -0400

The team began a full suite of field activities including coral species identification, fish species identification and photo and video transects. The team had remarkable weather and the first six days was a remarkable success. For the scientific results please visit http://www.livingoceansfoundation.org for a sense of the team dynamics - read on...

One notable event from the first week started out as an innocent act of humanity and compassion. Phil, being the kind steward of all things aquatic, saw an injured Booby on the aft deck of the Golden Shadow (with only men on board word spread quickly that Phil had his hands on a ... bird) and tried to help the poor injured avifauna return to it’s native habitat. Just when he was giving the poor bird a loving foist of his arms up in the air to let the bird fly away... the wee beast did a 180 degree turn - with laser sharp aim - and bit Phil squarely on his right index finger. After a moment of sheer Hitchcockian horror - all were relieved that Phil was a left handed and his all important - picture taking finger was NOT INJURED. As for the bird, it keep circling realizing, we think, that Phil has not caught any sort of strange disease and looks like it’s preparing another attack - we’ll keep you posted.

Fun on the reef - so we get to a dive site and we all jump in like parachuters out of an B-52 and it’s all peaceful enough until the tape measures start getting slung - everybody wants their little chunk of science - 30 meters of pure love - at three different depths - 15 - 10 - 5 (roughly 45 feet, 30 feet and 15 feet). The idea is to “randomly” select a site and describe what you see along that transect - and it’s not a good idea to be near each other - so the underwater “real estate” game starts with the first one down getting the prime locale - of course the nearer the boat the better - the fun starts when the tapes begin to unfurl and just when you thought you had the PERFECT LINE - there’s the esteemed Bernhard Rigel - with his little tape right in the middle of my #$%^&@*(# transect - ok - we need to swim - will we have enough air.....

Welcome to the Soup Can! The UNDER WATER housing for a 7k beautiful piece of SONY video craftsmanship (the cleverly named PMW-EX1) is a huge hunk of steel manufactured by SOUP CAN LTD. While brand new, and proudly noted on the SOUP CAN website that it has the longest warranty in the industry (3 years) one would expect perfection, whistles to go with the bells... sheer pleasure to use in the water! Hmmmmm. NOTE to fellow aquavideographers, - BEWARE the SOUP CAN! I must be nice as she and I are just getting to know one another and it’s just rude to complain so early in a relationship. So far the video has been fine and most importantly, the soup can keeps the water out - that’s GREAT NEWS!

Th diving has been amazing - several of our first 15 sites have beautiful coral and many species of fish. Some sites have been hit hard by some disturbance - possible crown of thorns - or possibly a bleaching even associated with high temperatures - such as an El Nino. After every dive we talk in detail about the corals that we’ve seen, the fish, general lack of big pelagic and resident predator fish such as groupers. We have seen a few sharks but not as many as one would expect. Saudi Arabia just passed a law that bans shark fishing - a huge step in the right direction for governance of marine resources. The rules, published in Arabic now need to be published in other languages as well as many of the people fishing for the sharks are not Saudi, rather from many of the poor neighboring countries in Africa and Indian Ocean. It’s a remarkable system one that we will write

Travels to Saudi Arabia

Sat, 4 Apr 2009 20:55:48 -0400

We arrived in Jeddah @ 10 pm on Friday night - after leaving DC at 10 pm Thursday night. While other members of the team went directly to the hotel - I became close friends with Lt. Colonel Ibrahim pictured to the right. We ate dates, and drank coffee while several Saudi officials reviewed my passport. Hmmmmmmm..... All was fine in the end and rejoined the team for a great breakfast and expedition briefing.

The team is a high powered interdisciplinary coral reef science team prepared to explore an area of the Red Sea known as the Farasan Banks. While Jaques Cousteau marveled it’s beauty, no one has ever described this area for science. A live-aboard dive charter may visit this area on occasion for the amazing abundance of marine life and exciting dives, the Farasan Banks is an unknown reef and the team members are all really fired up. This is what they live for.

The multinational team is interested in the overall health of the system and will begin with a basic understanding of the geology, the coral cover and conditions, the fish and invertebrates as well as other unique aspects of the seascape. Fishing pressure remains intense from Saudi Arabia as well as other neighboring countries such as Egypt and Sudan, however this reef may be a bit far from the traditional fishing grounds. The team is hopeful that there will be abundance of life and a great deal to describe. The results will be summed up at a meeting hosted by The Living Oceans Foundation on the Red Sea in October 2009 in Jeddah, KSA.