Tag: Volunteer SCUBA diving

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Maldives: A dozen years, done

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

We have just finished our twelfth (!) year of Reef Check surveying in the Maldives and who better to talk about the results of this coral reef expedition than our scientist Dr. Jean-Luc Solandt:

Dr. Jean-Luc Solandt summarising the expedition’s results

Over the last week we surveyed eight sites, collected hundreds of data points, saw good reefs and bad, big things such as sharks and manta rays (but sadly no whale sharks), but more importantly little things such as butterflyfish, snapper, coral banded shrimp, diadema urchins, hard and soft coral, rubble, rock and nutrient indicator algae. Our newly qualified EcoDivers now know and appreciate the significance of these indicators and their dedication and attention to detail is what makes this expedition work.

Dr. Solandt will now write up our findings into a report, to be published within a few months and given to government and decision-makers in the Maldives. Our placements Shuga, Bas & Hampti will continue surveys whilst we are away, keeping the Reef Check fire burning until we return in a year’s time. A twelve year dataset is an impressive achievement in any kind of scientific study and it is the time and money that our citizen scientists put in that makes this possible. So thank you again Paula, Steve, Olivier, Peter, Rick, Mark, Shuga, Bas, Toshia, Ann, Tine and Hampti and all those that came before you, and happy birthday Mark on top. What a great excuse to have a farewell and birthday party put together.

Expedition team 2022

What a great expedition. I hope to see most of you again on expedition some day on this beautiful and fragile planet of ours!

Dr. Matthias Hammer
Expedition leader

Thank you to Jean-Luc Solandt for all the pictures in this year’s Maldives expedition blog

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Maldives: Giving, not taking

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

We are half way through our annual coral reef and whale shark expedition here in the Maldives. Training in Reef Check was the usual mad dash. Everyone got there in the end. Congratulations to all new Reef Check EcoDivers!

Today is our first day of surveys only. Like a fairly well-oiled machine we descend onto the reef, lay the line of science, then count fish, invertebrates and impacts as well as substrate along it. The numbers and codes we glean from two depths tell us tales of reefs hanging on, despite multiple stresses: oceans that are getting warmer and more acidic due to climate change, land reclaims through artificial sandbanks whose grains in the current smother the corals, building works on many islands and increased tourist activity as if continued growth on a finite planet and building bridges between islands was the answer. It is not. The former is a mathematical impossibility and the latter a short-sighted pipe dream.

So we do what we can. There are 250 liveaboards in the Maldives taking tourist divers around all year. We are one liveaboard of 14 scientists and citizen scientists doing surveys for a week. We are the only ones. You can do the maths yourself.

We may be one in several thousands and a quiet voice in the chatter of growth and development, but it is a beautiful experience nonetheless. A holiday with a purpose with Reef Check as our zen companion. Reef Check teaches you to look at a reef in a totally new way, to appreciate the little things and not obsess about the megafauna. We enjoy coral banded shrimp, the skill to be able to tell a soft coral from a hard coral from rock or rubble. We delight in watching grouper behaviour, small as they may be, or spotting snapper that have not been overfished. Sure, there are lobsters, humphead wrasse, turtles and sharks too. But this is not what it’s about. Instead it is about doing our bit for the reef, giving up our time and money in the process. It’s about hard work, not pleasure diving to satisfy your very own self-centred needs. It’s about giving, not taking. And this really is what the planet needs now.

Thank you Jean-Luc, Paula, Steve, Olivier, Peter, Rick, Mark, Shuga, Bas, Toshia, Ann, Tine and Hampti for giving.

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Maldives: A reef bouncing back

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

The Baros staff passed their EcoDiver tests with flying colours, congratulations. Amongst them is Shuga, a local marine biologist, who will join us on the boat and who will be a great asset to the team.

As the culmination of our two days of diving, we conducted a first survey of the Baros house reef. And what better place to record the data and celebrate certification than the beaches and the bar of this beautiful little island. The data confirmed my initial impression of a reef in recovery mode: good hard coral cover (38%), decent fish populations (with parrotfish and butterlyfish dominating, and groupers, sweetlips and snappers present), and very little coral damage such as bleaching or evidence of anchoring or pollution.I hope this is a good omen for the rest of our surveys. See you later today to find out.

Newly qualified (from right): Shuga, Ali and Ambra
Data entry
Baros house reef from above
Data entry

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Maldives: Flying and reefs

Update from our Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition

It feels strange and somehow wrong to be sitting on a long-haul flight again. Strange because it’s been a good while, thanks to the pandemic, and wrong because so much has happened since then in terms of the planet sending very clear signals that we are doing a great job in cutting off the branch that human civilisation sits on. So we at Biosphere Expeditions have decided we will only fly if absolutely necessary. If we can’t avoid flying (such as to the Maldives), we now try to pack as many jobs as possible into a flight. So I am here on the non-too-shabby resort of Baros, not far from Male’, to train their dive centre staff and the resident marine biologist in Reef Check so that they can conduct surveys themselves and eventually also train other Maldivians (and on the way back, I will stop off in Dubai to work on our forthcoming Arabia expedition).

Baros

Shuga, the Maldivian marine biologist I am training here, will also join us on the expedition, alongside two other Maldivians, as part of our placement programme.

Anyway, I am Dr. Matthias Hammer, founder and executive director of Biosphere Expeditions and I will be your expedition leader for this Maldives coral reef and whale shark expedition, next to our esteemed expedition scientist Dr. Jean-Luc Solandt. We’re both old and frustrated codger-biologists, so you have been warned! 😉

I arrived to grey, stormy weather and rain. Jean-Luc’s codger message to me on take-off was “enjoy the rain, old man”. I wasn’t surprised.

But underwater made up for it. The Baros house reef was in a bad state three years ago, but it has bounced back somewhat. There is quite a bit of coral regrowth and within two 40-minute dives, I saw all fish indicator species (grouper, sweetlips, butterflyfish, snapper and more), three shark species, a turtle and all substrate types (hard coral, soft coral, rock, sand, rubble etc.). Not expecting much, it was a pleasant surprise to see the reef not dead, but fighting back. I wonder whether this is a good omen for the forthcoming expedition? It will certainly be interesting to see what state the reefs are in. Don’t get your hopes up high, though. We may just be documenting humankind’s cancerous effect on this part of our planet too. We will see. Jean-Luc will be telling us, without mincing his words, what it all means and I can guarantee you that he will open your eyes to reefs and help you see them like you’ve never seen them before, no matter what state they will be in.

The itinerary he has set for the expedition is below and a visualisation of the places we will survey and visit is here.

Survey schedule

I will write again in the next couple of days. In the meantime, happy packing and travels. I hope you have swotted up on Reef Check. The more you can do now, the easier the whirlwind of the first two training days will be, trust me.

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Thailand: Elephants all over the study site

The weather is hot during the day now. We like the sun, but we are sweating for science also. In the early mornings we walk by the local families huddled around their fireplaces. For most of us a long sleeve shirt is plenty.

We spent Friday & Saturday surveying in the afternoon, when all elephants have been very active. The two females and the toddler stuck together most of the time as usual and were followed by quite a few of us watching their every movement and recording activities and social behaviour every five minutes. Every elephant has their personal data logger and two more citizen scientists record association data of the herd. Until Saturday the males stayed away, roaming on their own but still followed by us citizen scientists.

We’ve been walking a lot up and down hills, along the main path, to the river, back into dense undergrowth, etc., etc.. With elephant toddler Gen Thong around it never gets boring, anyway. He likes testing the boundaries and is always up for game.

On Saturday & Sunday we found Boon Rott and Dodo together for the first time since we started our surveys. It was great to see them getting along well, Dodo following Boon Rott. He is the newest member of the herd and in the process of slowly settling in. It will take some more time for him to get his bearings and there is a lot to learn from his mate about his new environment. We saw them mud-bathing together and displaying social behaviour – they must like each other.

Apart from surveying elephants, some of the team took the chance to participate in community activities in the afternoon of our early survey days on Thursday and Sunday. Kunsang learnt some traditional weaving skills and her scarf should be finished by the time we leave. Others went for a Thai massage to the lower village to experience a blind man’s magic hands. He is said to be unique in what he is doing – I can certainly attest to this.

We have one survey day left tomorrow (Monday). Keep your fingers crossed that all five elephants will decide to spend some time in one group. That’s our hope at least, but they have their own minds 😉

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Thailand: Collecting data

The team has completed the second elephant survey day. Introductions, presentations and lectures on the science, the history of the elephants to be surveyed, the equipment, safety and living with the local people were followed by a half day of practical training in the field on Tuesday. Data collection started on Wednesday and will continue until Monday, working towards the goal of completing two full sets of survey hours between 08:00 and 16:00. That means that the schedule will change from day to day, some days starting at 06:00 others at 08:00.

We left base at 08:00 on Wednesday for the 4.5 km hike to find the elephants. Too-Meh, the herd’s grandmother (57 years), her daughter Mae-Doom (23 years) and Gentong, Too-Meh’s grandson (6 years) were  together near the river. They foraged most of the time and took a bath in the river later on. Right at lunchtime, one of the male elephants, Boon-Rott (13 years) joined them, so that almost the whole team was reunited for lunch. The third male elephant, Dodo (Gentong’s brother, 13 years) decided to roam around solitary. A team of two citizen scientists followed him up and down steep hills and even further away from where the rest of the herd enjoyed each other’s company. It was a very good first survey day – easy for some, more challenging for others, though.

Today (Thursday) we went for the first out of two early shifts. Leaving base before sunrise, we very much enjoyed the 90 min walk along the river watching the sun come up and slowly dissolving the mist. For the first time during this week the sky was clear blue and the sun pushed the temperature up and over thirty degrees. Keep your fingers crossed that we won’t get any more rain!

We celebrated Neil’s birthday on Wednesday evening. Talia prepared a delicious homemade cake, which was presented after dinner. Thank you, Talia, for doing so, and thank you, Neil, for sharing it with us!

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Thailand: Training

Everyone arrived safely at base today. Our team of ten citizen scientists from Brazil, Germany, the UK and US moved into their homes after lunch. Today was full-on introduction and training, stuffed with information before we go out tomorrow (Tuesday) morning for a practical data collection training walk.

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Thailand: Ready to roll

I arrived at our base camp village of Ban Naklang on Saturday. Kerri, the founder of our partner organisation, and I had a meal at one of the homestay houses and continued to work on preparations, finalising the day-to-day schedule. Sunny weather was interrupted by heavy rain showers on Saturday and Sunday, but the weather forecast in predicting improving wheather conditions.

You will be picked up by Talia, our expedition scientist, tomorrow morning (Monday) at 8:00 at the Imperial Mae Ping Hotel, and Kerri and I look forward to meeting you at base.

I leave you with a few impressions from base and our jungle office, now all ready for your arrival…

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Thailand: Preparations in Chiang Mai

I arrived in Chiang Mai on Thursday morning welcomed by sunny weather and temperatures around 30 C. I spent the day running around the old town doing some last minute shopping, passing food and other markets, enjoying the smells of Thai food prepared on the streets, as well as the cornucopia of strange-looking fruit, vegetables and flowers laid out on the tables.

The weather forecast says that the temperatures won’t change much over the next week or so, but there is a 50% chance of rain on the first couple of days of the expedition.

Kerri & Thalia, founders of Kindred Spirit Elephant Sanctuary (our partner organisation on the ground) and I are also finalising the work schedule. Each day will include a walk of about 60 – 90 min to get to where the elephants are , as well as three hours of observation and data recording, interrupted by a one hour break. Please be prepared that the walk will include river crossings, some of them waist-high as Kerri told me this morning. So please make yourselves comfortable with the tought that you won’t be able to keep your shoes & trousers dry throughout the surveys. You might also want to consider bringing walking poles if you’re not comfortable enough with using the bamboo sticks that will be provided at base.

I will leave Chiang Mai tomorrow morning. You’ll hear from me again once I have arrived at the village. I shall then also let you have my local (emergency) phone number. Until then please e-mail the office in case of emergency or if need to get in touch.

I’ll leave you with some impressions of Chiang Mai…

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Thailand: Getting ready

Hello everyone, my name is Malika and I am going to be your expedition leader on this year’s elephant conservation project in Thailand. It’ll be our second year of collecting activity, social behaviour and other data by following the study objects around in the forest – and I can’t wait to get started.

I was busy with packing and preparing the equipment, paperwork, etc. and will start my journey from Europe to Chiang Mai today. Not much more to say for now; I’ll let you have the latest infos once I’ve arrived on the ground as well as my local (emergency) phone number. I hope your preparations are going well and you are all as excited as I am to get going. I hope you have all read last year’s expedition report as part of your preparations. If not, I suggest you download this now for some light reading on your flight. It’ll help you with training and being an effective citizen scientist.

See you all soon…

Malika Fettak
Expedition leader

P.S. I have also added some videos below so that you know what’s coming

 

 

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