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August 5, 2010

Getting ready before setting sail

BY: Marta Madina

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© OCEANA / Eduardo Sorensen

 

Oceana Latitude is just about to set sail to the Gulf of Mexico waters. We’re afraid that these waters will be very cloudy, dirty and thick because of the oil; we’ll try in fact to analyze them to determine the impact this toxic fluid is causing on the rich biodiversity of the area.

But that will happen from Sunday on. Today we celebrated the arrival to Fort Lauderdale of a whole crew of Oceana International that traveled thousands of miles from Chile, Spain and other areas of the U.S. to gather up onboard the Oceana Latitude.

The boat welcomed us with intense work activity of sailors, engineers and technicians on board tuning up and settling all the last-minute details.

While the Oceana photographers, cameramen, communications and scientific teams had a meeting on security and protocol matters aboard the research vessel, we could see the workers flow bringing on board supplies, food, diving equipments, testing the deck tow, greasing the belt gear once more and finishing touches to one of the bow sides. The organized, meticulous and professional work of each member of the crew was kept up non-top until the unceasing Florida sunshine decided to give up by hiding behind the horizon, while the breeze, still humid, let us walk trough the deck without having to run for shade.

Tomorrow the day starts really early, it’s going to be a long one but extremely interesting, many journalists from Miami and Fort Lauderdale will come aboard to interview Xavier Pastor, Expedition Leader, and Mike Hirshfield, Expedition Science Director, to learn more about our research plan in the Gulf of Mexico. But all those exciting things will happen tomorrow.