New sea, new species and new habitats, but threats are common and easily recognizable. My week joining the Life Bahar Malta Expedition onboard the Oceana Ranger is almost done. It has been very exciting being sailing and conducting surveys on this beautiful catamaran. The biodiversity in the Mediterranean is far different from the Baltic´s, the … Read more
Today, July 10th, Mother Nature halted some of our work, due to high winds and swell. Nevertheless, we performed some dives next to shore in a calmer area of Gozo. Today´s divers were Jesus, Helena, Kike and Minguell. Discoveries were slim, but the exercise went very smoothly, followed by an early return to port. As … Read more
Five weeks ago we began this at-sea campaign. Days pass by, immersed deep in the environments of the continental shelf and the dark slopes surrounding the islands of Malta. For several months, the graphic information obtained will be carefully analyzed to produce a detailed report. This is how Oceana contributes – providing important data that … Read more
The first immersion is made by the divers, and we document the caves to see what we can find. We are at the exact same spot as the last dive. This is a crack visible from the surface, a cut in the wall 200m deep that splits into two paths; during the last dive we … Read more
Jesus gets up really early to go running before we all start working at 7:30. Cris sometimes has a swim in the morning in a small cove nearby. Pisha drinks a cup of coffee for breakfast (with plenty of condensed milk). Kike hates onions. Tomas is a vegetarian. Yaiza just returned from the Caribbean and … Read more
Since in these diaries we find nautical terms of certain complexity that may result in a lack of understanding from the readers about the events taking place during the expedition, and also driven by the conviction that telling various at-sea events in a “journal” could be an arduous task for both the author and the … Read more
Since the Ranger has an American flag and today is America´s Independence day, the campaign´s Director granted us the day off and a roasted suckling pig along with some “Rivera del Duero” wine. Ah, such a nice time we had… No, just kidding. I think today we have “eaten” more mud than in the whole … Read more
Today is a quiet day, so I would like to speak of what is not seen, of what no pictures are taken or shown. It takes several months from both the Logistics and Science department to prepare the Ranger for an expedition like this. A lot of people work from the office making our every … Read more
Is it a turtle? Nope. A turtle in trouble! The ROV found a turtle at a depth of 8 meters with a sack caught on its fin. Somebody help! Poor little thing! An environmental expedition encounters a turtle that gives the impression of being ready for a sack race. Jesús—in charge of logistics, captain and … Read more
This is the 2nd day of our overnight research expedition. My watch starts early with the alarm going off at 02:00. A quick cup of joe (coffee) and away we go. Thomas had the watch before mine so he fills me in on his findings of the big fishing trawler two miles off our port … Read more
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We have already protected nearly 4 million square miles of ocean and innumerable sea life - but there is still more to be done.
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