Sunnye Dreyfus, South Africa Expedition

Cederberg, World Heritage Site

Blazing sun, broken arm, raging allergies, brightly colored clothing, a bad attitude and inappropriate footwear. I was so not prepared for the Cederberg and the cape leopards she was hiding.

I was dreaming of the ocean surrounded by at least 20 species of shark and schools of juvenile pufferfish. Thankfully, there is no law that regulates the scientific feasibility of dream content. Instead, I was being jostled around cape leopard habitat. No, not leopard seal or leopard shark habitat, but the 4-legged, furry land kind.

Rather than kelp forests, I was shepherded through bone-jarring rocks experienced via foot or 4-wheel drive. I had to hold my arm in the air every time we hit a huge bump in the road (which was all the time for 2 hours). I was sneezing in sets of 7 as the dust & pollen of the Cederberg found a cozy nook in my nasal passages.


Looking for cape leopards is really quite fantastic because it gives you a lot of time to reflect and meditate. I was sitting (awkwardly) on a rock (there were many) wondering (as always) how I got there. I was struck by the quiet peacefulness and unwavering patience of those around me. There were six of us with binoculars, telemetry and GPS gear, cameras, camping chairs, coolers, two vehicles, water, backpacks, food, hushed whispers and a ration of hope.
All of this...for a girl.

I never saw her, but I know she saw me. She saw all of us. How could she not?


And humans? Well, we stick out like sore thumbs. We yap, trap, laugh, graph, huff, puff, develop, envelop, dig, rig, mine, whine, drive, dive, fly, cry, screech, bleach, travel, unravel. If it's out there, we do it...and often loudly, quickly and on an enormous scale. And the rest of the animal world goes on and does their best to stay out of our way.

Cape leopards, like sharks, are still mysteries to us and so it is understandably unnerving to hear about our interactions with them. Some farmers, like some fishermen, hunt, exterminate, trap, and/or dispose of these apex predators and send a message in the process:
Stop eating my sheep.
Stop getting caught in my nets.
And most of all, stop threatening me.

So, what if we just blended in?

Dr. Randi Rotjan, Saudi Arabia Expedition

Getting back to reality is always a difficult transition for me, since I'd rather be working on/in the ocean than be anywhere else. Even though field work is difficult, intense, and exhausting, the field is where science comes alive. Salty breezes, blue oceans, and more science than I can possibly handle is definitely my preferred M.O.


photos by Randi Rotjan

However, if you have to be on dry land, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are a fascinating place to be. I posted earlier about KAUST - the new Saudi university that opened in September - and it's terrific to spend a few more days exploring this fascinating new world where East meets West. The transition from boat to abaya was a bit abrupt, though we were used to it because the women on-board had to don our abayas whenever we interacted with the Coast Guard. Abayas (aka burqas, chadors, or hijab) are required by Saudi Arabian law whenever women are in public, enforced by the muttawwa (religious police). They are surprisingly comfortable, though a bit impractical on a boat (too breezy!).



Upon returning to KAUST, the abayas again came off, and the work began. Sorting samples, preserving samples, entering data, sorting permits, cleaning dive gear, beginning data analysis... the hectic flurry of post-boat, pre-flight madness. Amazingly, we got everything all set with enough time to explore the KAUST Grand Mosque, accompanied by some helpful students.


photos by Randi Rotjan
To get a taste of life off-campus, we donned our abayas again and headed out for a fish dinner in Thuwal (the city surrounding KAUST). It's very strange to eat the organisms we are studying, but we found a way to use the fish for both food and science. At the dinner table (all dressed up and clean), we dissected the fish to collect additional tissue samples. Waste not, want not! Seems that you can take the scientist away from the sea, but you can't take the sea away from the scientist.


photos by Randi Rotjan
On our way to the airport, we stopped at the Souq to purchase some souveniers and get a taste of the real Jeddah. After purchasing pashminas and spices, it was close to midnight and time for me to run (literally, abaya and all) to catch my 1:00 am flight.


photos by Randi Rotjan
So. Back in Boston now, it's hard for me to face the cold (though I'm sure it will feel balmy to Brian, who's been in Antarctica all this time!). This trip will stay with me for a long time. Travel is usually solely about the science for me, but this trip had a magical combination of great science, fascinating culture, wonderful collaborators, and unfamiliar landscape (both above and below water).



As the sun set over the Red Sea on my last day, I looked out at the KAUST Beacon and wondered whether the KAUST experiment will work. To quote Robert Lacey (the author of the most recent book on Saudi):

"Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz is eighty-six, and is an old man in a hurry. For more than thirty years his most cherished ambition has been the creation of an internationally prestigious college that will bear his name, the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST), a graduate-only, Arabian equivalent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The world's leading scientists and scholars will gather and mingle freely on its campus, dreams the king - men and women, East and West, all united in their pursuit of learning."

I hope so. Insha'Allah!



-Randi-

Sunnye Dreyfus, South Africa Expedition

• White sharks are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
• White sharks are apex predators.
• White sharks are usually offshore to Seal Island in the winter and are closer to shore in the summer months.
• False Bay has recently been experiencing a spike in white shark sightings.
• False Bay is a hub for large schools of fish.
• 70% of shark/human encounters are not predatory.
• the longest journey of a fish ever recorded was of a great white making a round trip from South Africa to Australia.
• The last shark bite fatality in False Bay was in 2004.
• There is still so much we don't know about white sharks.

1. Steppe Eagle
2. Black eagle
3. Sacred ibis
4. Spectacled dormouse (it was licking cheese off the bread knife at our campsite)
5. Baboons, baboons, baboons
6. Dog piles of African penguins

Brian Skerry, Antarctica Expedition

Over the last week or so I have made several dives in locations throughout the Antarctic Peninsula. Water temperatures have ranged from 28.5-degrees Fahrenheit to 33-degrees. Visibility in most locations I've dived has not been great, generally averaging between five and ten feet. I did make a couple of dives however, that were wonderful, the first being a wall dive at a location called Cape Well-met on the north side of Vega Island and also very close to a place called Devil's Island (always comforting when making a dive where the water is deep, you're on a sheer wall and you are praying your drysuit zipper doesn't fail!).


Gentoo penguin with chick. Photo credit: Brian Skerry

Cape Well-met was named by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904 and it was here that the relief party under Dr. J. Gunnar Anderson and the winter party under Dr. Otto Nordenskjold rendezvoused after 20 months of forced separation (reference Below Freezing by Lisa Eareckson Trotter). I was diving with Lisa and Lindblad undersea specialist David Cochtran and our plan was to slip off the Zodiac near a cliff face and descend to the bottom in about 15 feet of water. The bottom here was covered with hand-sized volcanic rocks and no marine life could be seen, as icebergs scour this shallow region removing all life. We swam about 100-meters offshore and came to a dramatic drop off -- a wall that was sheer and disappeared into the inky blackness below. I hit the inflator button on my drysuit pumping in more air and swam head first over the wall.


Wall at Cape Well-met, photo credit: Brian Skerry

I descended to 30 feet, then 40, then 50, but saw only bare wall. At 70 feet however, the wall came alive! Leveling off at about 80 feet I looked left, then right and saw color and life in all directions. It was an explosion of invertebrate marine life in a rainbow of colors from yellow and pink to reds and orange. There were brittle stars clustered amongst tunicates and sponges and every few feet giant anemones reached into the frigid sea feeding in the nutrient-rich waters. I adjusted the settings on my camera and began shooting. At one point it became especially dark and I looked up to see the shadowy shape of a giant iceberg drifting overhead, blocking out the sunlight for a few moments.

I fired a few frames aiming up towards the surface to capture some of the ambient light above and lighting the foreground with my strobes. At a depth of 106 feet, I framed a lovely scene of one of these anemones in the middle of all the surrounding life. I cruised along the wall, moving with the current until it was time to ascend. I was using a 10-liter tank and was limited as to bottom time. I slowly drifted upward stopping every so often to look at these strange animals living in this hidden corner of a frozen continent and wondering if another camera's flash had ever illuminated them before.

At about 30 minutes into the dive I crested the top of the wall and was back amongst the rocky scour zone in a depth of 20 feet. I was slowly kicking into the current now, just trying to hold position, studying the anchor ice that was frozen to the bottom when I looked up to see a massive iceberg coming straight for me. I looked to my left and saw Lisa about 15 feet away and yelled through my regulator to get her attention. She heard me and we both scrambled to get out of the way. With only about 700 psi of air left in my tank, I hoped the berg wasn't too large and that I had enough air to safely make it out of harm's way. I did and the iceberg sailed by, just clearing the bottom by about a foot.

Another memorable dive was made at Deception Island along another bluff face though here the bottom was not a sheer wall, but more like a staircase that gradually stepped downward. Though not as prolific as the wall at Cape Well-met, it was still very impressive with a bounty of life clinging to undersea rocks. Also here I came across whalebones scattered on the bottom, remnants of the whaling days in the early part of the 20th century.


Whale bones, photo credit: Brian Skerry

Diving in cold water takes a lot more work than tropical diving; layers of undergarments, drysuits with thick gloves attaching limiting dexterity and lots more weight needed to descend. And the cold is harsh on equipment, not to mention your body, with lips swelling up like you've had an over dose of botox injections and fingers and toes getting numb and hurting from the cold. But there is a stunning beauty in these waters that is unique. I especially love the remoteness of Antarctica and exploring places that few have ever seen and having penguins diving around the boat as you're suiting up is rather special. Cruising back to the ship aboard the Zodiac, with that frigid wind in my face after a dive always gives me a peaceful, albeit cold, feeling.

With the gentle rocking of the ship steaming to our next location, I will sleep well tonight.

- Brian