Enric Sala
Explorer-in-Residence
National Geographic

Waitt Expeditions
Gabon (2012)
Chile No-Take Marine Reserve

Biography
Marine ecologist Dr. Enric Sala is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence who combines science, exploration and media to help restore marine life. Sala’s scientific publications are used for conservation efforts such as the creation of marine protected areas. 2005 Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow, 2006 Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation, 2008 Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum. (Source:  National Geographic)

Waitt Expeditions
Gabon (2012)

Biography
Mike Fay has spent his life as a naturalist—from the Sierra Nevadas and the Maine woods as a boy, to Alaska and Central America in college, to North Africa and the depths of the central African forest and savannas for the last 25 years.

Fay has worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society of the Bronx since 1991. He received a B.S. in 1978 from the University of Arizona and spent six years in the Peace Corps as a botanist in national parks in Tunisia and the savannas of the Central African Republic. He joined the staff of the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1984 to do a floristic study on a mountain range on Sudan’s western border, but ended up doing his Ph.D. on the western lowland gorilla. It was at this time that Fay first entered the forests of central Africa, surveying large forest blocks and creating and managing the Dzanga-Sangha and Nouabale-Ndoki parks in the Central African Republic and Congo.

In 1996, Fay flew over the forests of Congo and Gabon and realized there was a vast, intact forest corridor spanning the two countries from the Oubangui to the Atlantic Ocean. In 1997, he walked the entire corridor, over 2,000 miles, surveying trees, wildlife, and human impacts on 12 uninhabited forest blocks. Called Megatransect, the project had the objective of bringing to the world’s attention the last pristine forest in central Africa and the need for protection. This work led to a historic initiative by the Gabonese government to create a system of 13 national parks in Gabon, making up some 11,000 square miles (28,500 square kilometers). (Source:  National Geographic Society)

While searching what seemed to be a desolate seafloor, ROV operators found a solitary shell. Curious as to its presence, it was retrieved and yielded a surprising discovery. (video credit: Neil Gelinas)

Sometimes you just need to see it for yourself. This is often the case when it comes to inspiring others to take action. We all hear the warnings about the dire state of the oceans… the fisheries collapse, acidification, coral loss, oil spills… The warnings are now commonplace. Therefore it has become just as important, if not more so, to communicate without saying a word, to have the urgency expressed through images rather than words. This was the case on our recent expedition to the waters off the coast of Gabon, Africa.

The country of Gabon has been leading the way for environmental conservation in Africa since 2002. This was thanks in large part to the work of ecologist, Michael Fay, who performed the landmark Megatransect of central Africa, which in turn motivated the leaders of Gabon to move with urgency and declare 11% of Gabon’s land be developed into National Parks. Just to put that level of commitment into perspective… the total holdings of the United States National Parks Department is 3.6%.¹ This success inspired Enric Sala to attempt a similar transect, however this transect would be done in the waters off the coast of Gabon.

Enric is no stranger to the Waitt Institute. As for Michael Fay, his work has inspired us for years, he is a true hero for the planet and we were excited to have the opportunity to work with him. Preparations with the ship’s crew and WI dive safety officer, Joe Lepore, began right away and soon the team, including the Wildlife Conservation Society and Gabon’s Agence Nationale de Parcs Nationaux, were exploring the waters in search of life.

Joe Lepore assists Enric Sala and other divers as they prepare to dive an oil platform. (photo credit: Mike Fay)

While so much of the waters off the coast of Western Africa have been stripped of life, Gabon has been more cautious when it comes to exploiting the ocean for resources. Obviously, oil drilling and commercial fishing (both legal and illegal) have been taking place in the area for years. Yet robust humpback whale and sea turtle populations and pristine beaches dotted with elephants and surfing hippos, were strong indications that Gabon’s waters were healthy and teeming with life. The goal of the expedition was to explore, document and report to the President what was found, and the team did just that.

Everyone on the team was hoping to see humpback whales, and did, hundreds of them as they migrated south. While that was an amazing sight to behold, Mike and Enric wanted to see sharks. Sharks are one of the best indicators of a thriving ecosystem since they tend to swim in areas with healthy populations of big fish. Big fish hang around smaller fish, and smaller fish seek cover in coral and vegetation. What was surprising though was that no sharks were spotted for nearly two weeks. In the places where sharks were expected, they were not found; and then, in areas that they were not expected, there they were. This seemed to be the status quo for the expedition. Take for example the lone shell on the seafloor.

One day while diving the ROV in an area they expected to find abundant life, they found what appeared to be no more than a desolate seafloor, containing nothing but a solitary shell. While most of us would likely move on, the guys running the ROV are innately curious. They decided that with nothing else in sight to investigate, they would bring the shell onboard and check it out. Why was it there, alone? What type of shell was it? Well, what they found was nothing short of amazing! Once on board, the shell was placed in a bucket of seawater… and an octopus crawled out! Before they knew it, thousands of babies came trailing behind. Here, in this place that appeared to be devoid of life, was actually a sanctuary for thousands of tiny living octopuses. After cataloging and recording what was found, the shell, mom and babies were returned to the ocean. And to think, most would have labeled the area as desolate. Thank goodness for those born naturally curious.

Then there were the oil rigs and super tankers, areas in which one would expect to find tainted water devoid of life. Wrong again. The team had the chance to dive four oil rigs and found them to be havens of biodiversity. Since the seafloor in the area is covered with sand and provides little in the way of cover, the oil rigs stand out as safe havens for fish of all kinds, the stable metal construction providing an ideal place for coral to grab on and proliferate. In fact, the rigs had such diversity of life that they could easily play a major role in replenishing the fisheries of western Africa.

After two weeks, sharks were finally spotted. (photo credit: Enric Sala)

While the waters were found to be in amazing condition and holding an outstanding array of life, there were some reasons for concern as well. A leatherback turtle was found dead, wrapped in fishing nets. There were areas where life should have been thriving, yet were not, and illegal fishing was clearly taking place. While the oil rigs appeared to be a haven for life, Gabon’s leaders would need to find a way to make it a safe haven by working with oil companies to ensure the waters continue to thrive. Normally all of this information would be compiled into a lengthy document and given to those back on land waiting for word. However, Enric and Mike invited President Ali Bongo Ondimba and First Lady Sylvia Bongo Ondimba to spend a day aboard the ship exploring the waters for themselves, discussing what the expedition had uncovered and the unique challenges and opportunities that lay before them.

While the visit was brief, only lasting a few hours, the impact of the visit will last for generations to come. After sharing the images and videos the team had taken, explaining to them how the waters of Gabon were serving as one of the few gathering places in the waters of western Africa for marine life to feed and find cover, and even letting the President drive the ROV for himself; these were the words the team was left with…

“We are going to do this… We will protect Gabon’s oceans for future generations and as an example in Central Africa.” ― President Ali Bongo Ondimba

Read More
― For more details, check out all of Mike and Enric’s blog posts
― Learn more about Enric Sala and his “Pristine Seas” initiative with the National Geographic Society
― Take a virtual tour of Gabon’s National Parks
― Go back in time and follow along with Michael Fay on his landmark Megatransect of Central Africa

¹According to the National Parks Conservation Association

Award-winning director Michael Haussman partnered with The Captain Morgan® brand and Sundance Channel to make a documentary film about Captain Henry Morgan, the stories, myths and legends surrounding him. Much of the field footage is from the archaeology team that included Waitt Institute’s Dominique Rissolo. That team surveyed, mapped and documented the sites along the mouth of Panama’s Rio Chagres.

Hosted on YouTube, the film is shared here according to the terms of the Standard YouTube License.

For those of you following us in October of last year as we worked Peter Auster and the NRDC looking for hard corals, we apologize for the abrupt and unexplained blackout. The truth is that the expedition came under significant difficulty and, at that time, keeping up the journal disappeared as a priority; since then we’ve really just been coming to grips with it. Here’s the unvarnished end of the Waitt Institute’s most recent AUV effort at sea.

by Michael Dessner

Last October, the Waitt Institute was at sea doing research on seamounts from the Boston flagged ship Scarlett Isabella. New color cameras had been integrated onto both of our Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) and they were working in the waters over Physalia Seamount, roughly 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod. The expedition plan to fine tune the search for hard corals on this and one other seamount before attempting to do the same in nearer shore submerged canyons was proceeding apace. We had made several successful mapping runs of the seamount and the mission objectives were being met. We had developed data sets and maps of Physalia that resembled a wheel: the center (top) of the underwater mountain had been covered by sidescan with spokes running down the sides to the bottom which were also connected by subsequent evolutions. Photo runs had been made along most of these segments. We had discovered the hard corals we were seeking; had confirmed their presence in multiple color photographs. We were planning just two more vehicle runs, about a day’s worth of work, to fill out the last gap in our wagon wheel map. Then we ran into trouble.

At sunup on October 6th, the Waitt Institute AUV Ginger was put into the water. About two hours later her sister vehicle Mary Ann was deployed; they were both working on the western flank of Physalia Seamount performing high frequency side scan sonar and photo runs. As Mary Ann was just beginning her tasks Ginger was closing in on 90% complete of her mission profile, both vehicles had been programmed for short runs. We had hopes to be on the new seamount (Mytilus) by dawn of the next day. Planning for cleanup of the three Deep Ocean Transponders we were using to assist vehicle navigation were interrupted by the watch keeper announcing that vehicle B, Ginger, had “aborted her mission due to a timeout”. One of the vehicle fail-safes had been enacted: failure to reach an objective within a delineated time span aborts the mission to the surface, a self preservation stratagem to keep the vehicle from driving itself up under a ledge or continuing to bang up against an obstruction or entanglement that is keeping it from progressing. In this situation the vehicle drops a 50 pound lead ascent weight from its nose and hopefully the flotation assists it in its escape of the dilemma, whatever that may be.

These events (timeout aborts) are usually caused by the vehicle hitting a wall or rock ledge that is perfectly aligned to beat its robot mind. While the system is configured with a Doppler Velocity Logger, Pencil Beam Sonar in the nose and some of the world’s most sophisticated navigation instrumentation, these collision avoidance systems may be overwhelmed by certain conditions. In one very serious incident this same vehicle had become entangled while working on the most famous shipwreck in the world. Back in 2010, Ginger was working on Titanic when she aborted her mission due to not finishing a survey line in the allotted time. She dropped her ascent weight and floated up the 10,000 feet comprising the water column. She surfaced at night and when the lights were shined on her we were astounded to see that she was trailing a length of line from her propeller. After we were able to recover her successfully, Greg Packard and I hauled aboard a huge knot of reeking, slimy, blue ¼ inch polypropylene line. As soon as we began bringing it up, we knew there was something attached to the line. Everyone on deck was flabbergasted to find the other end secured to a clump weight of some kind as well as a few red plastic chain links. As mysterious as this post modern artifact of some previous expedition was, we were even more astonished by the fact that the vehicle had been able to drag the whole snarl to the surface.  When we later weighed the slippery and stinking pile, it came to roughly 44 lbs, just six lbs under the buoyancy the vehicle enjoys when it releases its ascent weight. It was this difference, the extra six lbs of lift the vehicle provided itself by dropping its ascent weight, which allowed it to bring the lead clump and line to the surface.

Back to the narrative aboard the Scarlett Isabella where we have just received word that Ginger has not made the end of her line and is breaking off her mission…

The next sign of trouble is right there for all of us to see: Ginger has not dropped her ascent weight. There is a proximity sensor where this weight is installed and when it drops out the indicator goes red, something we would actually like to experience at this moment. This did not happen and was confirmed by the Visual Interface Program (VIP) that we use to monitor the vehicle. Among the reams of information constantly sent to us is the vehicle’s orientation in the water. If she had dropped the ascent weight secured in her nose she would go vertical for the trip to the surface, naturally positioned to help swim herself using remaining battery power to drive the stern mounted propeller. This also did not happen; the computer screen was showing us a vehicle still lying down, still horizontal.

Something was Very Wrong. The system had suffered two strikes.

The third was not long in coming.

It took a couple hours for the Ginger to rise through the water column while still encumbered by her ascent weight; this was certainly a concerning time for the team but we were still confident at this point was she would come to the surface and we would recover her normally. When Ginger came up to a depth of 50 meters she encountered a layer of very warm water, this layer was characterized by a significantly lower salinity as well. This blanket of hot, less saline water on the surface was our Rubicon, that line which the vehicle could not cross. The layer effectively robbed the vehicle of the slight buoyancy it was enjoying and it simply stopped rising. It stalled at 50 meters. Even though we tried countless times to drive it up through this thermocline, the vehicle just did not enjoy enough buoyancy to penetrate the lower density water. Now, caught in the Gulf Stream (which had brought the warm water this far north in the first place), Ginger began to drift away from the seamount at anywhere from one to three miles an hour.

Even then, we had a reasonable expectation that we would recover her. The ascent weight also has a fallback safety; the system is filled with overlapping and redundant fail-safes. In the case of the ascent weight: when it is locked into the vehicle it has a link made out of magnesium that is used when securing the weight into the release mechanism. This link begins dissolving immediately upon submersion in salt water. We had every expectation that within 24 to 30 hours the weight would simply fall out when this link disintegrated and failed. All we had to do was chase the vehicle and wait.

Water temperatures at the time of Ginger's loss

In the interim we broke off the chase of Ginger to recover Mary Ann, when she came to the surface her data confirmed what we pretty much already knew, there was distinct thermocline in the water at 50 meters, it was much warmer and less saline than the water below it; we had our confirmation as to the reason Ginger couldn’t make it to the surface. We resumed trailing her, keeping a safe distance such that if she should drop her weight she would not come up underneath the ship. We did this for a day during which we kept trying to drive her to the surface, kept sending commands to drop her weight. Every hour saw us move more miles from our site and from shore, first drifting across the 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States and then even further out to sea.

When the 30 hour maximum failure time of the magnesium links came and went with no change, we finally knew the full import of the situation. For whatever reason the vehicle had not dropped its ascent weight, indeed at this point it seemed apparent that it could not drop it, somehow the weight was fouled. This was dire news; we had nothing aboard that could safely reach her. She was drifting at 50 meters deep, over 150 feet, well below the recreational dive depth. Even if we had the proper gear, gasses and a diver qualified to go below that depth how would he find the vehicle drifting at two miles per hour with only minutes at depth to search? In the end all we could do was try to fish it up using grappling hooks. For hours a team worked from the ship’s small launch trying to get grappling hooks deep enough to grab onto the vehicle, a long shot at best since the girls were designed specifically to avoid this very type of entanglement. It was a desperate measure and predictably failed. An apt comparison might be to try, with your eyes closed, to throw a pea into a moving soda can some distance away; the only information you can use to help yourself is range your target. Not gonna happen.

October 9th at 6 AM, fully three days after Ginger had been launched into the water, the captain of the ship informed us that we had to give up the chase due to an impending storm, the effects of which we were already very obviously experiencing. We had chased Ginger for 135 miles, she was heading southeast from us at two knots and she was still almost exactly 50 meters below the water. It was a brutal letdown to the team and, needless to say, will severely impact the Waitt Institute AUV program.

This chart illustrates the path of the chase after Ginger

Since we left our AUV in the northern Atlantic, we sponsored a rescue mission to go out and find her. Original team members from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution took a fishing boat equipped with special nets and transducers to seek out and try and fish up Ginger. They covered an area of roughly 3,000 square miles and had no luck. By Thanksgiving Day, the emergency batteries that would allow the vehicle to phone home with her location if she surfaced had almost certainly failed. A week after that, the Waitt Institute declared Ginger lost at sea.

It should be noted that we may never know what it was that happened to Ginger. She may have run into the bottom and damaged herself in such a way that the ascent weight could no longer fall out, somehow her frame deformed to prevent this. We find this highly unlikely. Ginger and her sister Mary Ann are tough, titanium strongback frames surrounded by concrete like syntactic foam, and had both survived several such encounters in her past. Perhaps she took on some sediment in a contact with the bottom that prevented the weight from falling out once the magnesium link decayed. Or perhaps she met with the most dangerous thing on the ocean floor today aside from radioactive waste, Ghost Fishing Gear. An old crab or lobster pot, a pile of net on the floor of the ocean, something that wrapped itself around the vehicle and prevented the loss of the weight. Aside from the terrible toll such gear can take on sea life as it continually fishes until it decays beyond structural viability, such snarls of lost gear are hugely dangerous to underwater equipment, most especially autonomous vehicles. Again, we may never know-the facts are few; she timed out, aborted, did not release her ascent weight and did not float through the warm thermocline at the surface. That’s what we know now. It may indeed be all we ever have to content ourselves with.

The loss of Ginger is a body blow to be sure. The team who work with her feel the loss keenly and most all of us still hold out hope that she will float to the surface eventually, and someone will call the phone number she carries. Until then, the Institute remains committed to acting as a catalyst to ocean research. We took a hit but we’re not down and we’re darn sure not out of the game when it comes to helping to understand and protect the world’s oceans.

Until next time…

<< Out of the Green and Into the Blue

“If only I had thought of a Kodak! I could have flashed that glimpse of the Under-world in a second, and examined it at leisure.”  – H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

“Cuba has one of the most sophisticated marine protected area systems in the Americas. Though challenged by access to much-needed resources, Cuba also has an extraordinarily informed, engaged, and enlightened marine science community,” Dr. Dominique Rissolo, Waitt Institute (Photo Credit: Ian Shive, The Nature Conservancy)

Imagine being given the opportunity to travel through time and dive the coral reefs of the Caribbean a half century ago? What would you see? Or perhaps more importantly, what actions could you take to preserve this essential marine environment? Well that is the opportunity the Waitt Institute was given in early May, 2012 when we partnered with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). While the Waitt Institute has some pretty amazing technology at our disposal, a time machine is NOT a part of our gear kit. We would be traveling back in time by visiting one of the few places on earth where the marine environment has remained relatively untouched by pollution, overfishing, and tourism: Cuba. The Waitt Institute was invited to offer logistical support through the use of the Institute’s research vessel and the expertise of our dive safety officer, Joe Lepore and our executive director, Dr. Dominique Rissolo. Our journey through time would happen on the first leg of an ongoing effort to explore and protect Cuba’s marine environments starting in the Jardines de la Reina, which translates to “The Gardens of the Queen”.

Most people see sharks as a bad thing when diving, however sharks (and lots of them) are a sign of a healthy reef and thriving ecosystem! (Photo Credit: Ian Shive, The Nature Conservancy)

With US-imposed, and strictly enforced, trade and travel restrictions in place since the early 1960s, Cuba has not experienced the tourism boom or the economic growth that has filled the coffers of many nations in the western hemisphere. While this has impacted Cuba’s economic growth, it has also preserved the diverse ecosystems that call the island and its waters home. This is most evident in the Jardines de la Reina where its remote location has kept it largely untouched by humans. However, this “Eden” is not entirely “accidental.” According to Rissolo,“Cuba has one of the most sophisticated marine protected area systems in the Americas. Though challenged by access to much-needed resources, Cuba also has an extraordinarily informed, engaged, and enlightened marine science community.”

Groupers like this Black Grouper flock to Cuba’s waters to spawn in its clean and protected waters. The Black Grouper actually starts it’s life as a female, only to turn into a male as it ages! (Photo Credit: Fausto De Nevi Herrera)

Today Cuba finds itself at a critical point in time. Half of the commercially important fish stocks are believed to be fully exploited, as indicated through declining catches. Pollution is also on the rise as more tourists from around the globe are being drawn to the island for its outstanding coral reefs and beautiful beaches. The combination of dwindling fisheries and increasing pollution can quickly equate to devastation for the delicate marine ecosystems that thrive in and around Cuba’s waters. With their close proximity to the United States, Cuba’s marine ecosystems have direct bearing on our very own, along with much of the Caribbean. So, how do we work more collaboratively with Cuba to avoid or manage impacts and in turn prevent further losses in our shared marine environments?

This species of a Gramma fish, the Gramma dejongi was identified in 2010 and appears to be endemic to the coral reefs of Cuba. Discovering new species in the waters around Cuba and on land is not all that unusual, this is a place teeming with life!

TNC and EDF have been working with their Cuban partners and colleagues for some time now; but they felt it was critical to gather baseline scientific data on the habitats and fisheries that play a paramount role in Cuba’s economy and marine conservation efforts. A team of scientists, conservationists, and economists spent three weeks identifying and cataloging coral reefs, mangroves, key spawning sites and habitats of reef fish along with shark populations. This was the first step of a multi-year project. These data will be utilized for a myriad of applications, the first of which will be prioritizing the zones that face the greatest risks and identifying the species that rely on them. In time, these data will also be used for the development of future marine conservation and fisheries management strategies, and putting in place guidelines for the development of eco-tourism among others.

We were honored to have hosted such an important expedition aboard our ship and look forward to returning in the coming years. We were truly amazed at the teamwork of the diverse group of experts and the way that every member seemed to understand the precious opportunity they had been offered to explore and protect this environment that until recent years had remained untouched by time.

Read More

- Visit EDF’s blog for a day to day report of the expedition
- Watch PBS’s Accidental Eden for a breathtaking tour of Cuba
- Learn about The Nature Conservancy’s work in Cuba, and around the world

During one of their voyages to the bottom of the Bering Sea, Waitt Institute’s Joe Lepore and Greenpeace’s John Hocevar captured this footage of hermit crab and a jellyfish, locked in battle, outcome unknown.

Point Hope, AK - July, 2012
The expedition aboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza included Waitt Institute’s Dual Deepworker submersible.  News coverage include Nightline from ABC News, Deep Sea News.  >>Read More>>

3D sonar image of the bow of the RMS Titanic

Rediscovery of the RMS Titanic

North Atlantic Ocean - August-September, 2011
A joint research team from Waitt Institute and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution completed a six-week long expedition to the the north Atlantic Ocean. While there, the Waitt Institute’s AUV’s were used to map the entirety of the RMS Titanic and her wreck site, creating a shockingly vivid three dimensional image based on the sonar images captured by the AUVs.  News coverage was extensive, including New York Times, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Fox News as well as more scientific pieces from ASME, The Tech Journal, Archaeology Magazine, and International Ocean Systems. >>Read More>>

Sonar image of Air France 447 Wreckage

Discovery of Air France 447 Wreckage

Atlantic Ocean - March-April, 2011
Working jointly with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Air France and aircraft manufacturer, BEA, Waitt Institute’s AUV package helped to locate the missing wreckage of Air France 447.  The flight had disappeared two years earlier during a flight from Brazil to France.  Coverage included Popular Mechanics. >>Read More>>

A 17th century cannon, found near the Lajas reef near Fort San Lorenzo, Colon. The cannons are in conservation at the Patronato Panama Viejo laboratory in Panama City, Panama. The cannon most likely belonged to Captain Henry Morgan's lost fleet of 1671.

Recovery of the Lost Cannons of Captain Morgan

Panama City, Panama - 2008-2011
In January, 2008, the Waitt Institute partnered with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) and the Instituto Nacional de Cultura de Panama (INAC) for this exploratory survey on the Rio Chagres in Panama. Leading the expedition as Principal Investigators were Dr. James P. “Jim” Delgado and Frederick “Fritz” Hanselmann.  Discovered during the expedition were the remains of what are thought to be the ships of the privateer, Captain Henry Morgan.

News coverage has come from CNN, National Geographic, Fox News and more.  >>Read More>>