Oceanographic Magazine / Issue 22 by Oceanographic Magazine

ISSUE

Conservation • Exploration • Adventure

THE

WILD ISLES L I F E A N D D E AT H OFF THE SHETLAND ISLANDS

C OLLE C T I O N

Fifty Fathoms

©Photograph: Laurent Ballesta/Gombessa Project

The Fifty Fathoms collection embodies Blancpain’s passion for the underwater universe that was originally expressed in 1953 with the creation of the first modern diver’s watch. With its almost 70-year legacy of the Fifty Fathoms, the Brand has woven close ties with explorers, photographers, scientists, and environmentalists. With that affinity has come a determination to support important activities dedicated to ocean exploration and conservation. These initiatives are united under the label Blancpain Ocean Commitment.

RAISE AWARENESS, TRANSMIT OUR PASSION, HELP PROTECT THE OCEAN www.blancpain-ocean-commitment.com

BEIJING · DUBAI · GENEVA · KUALA LUMPUR · LAS VEGAS · LONDON · MACAU · MADRID MUNICH · NEW YORK · PARIS · SEOUL · SHANGHAI · SHENZHEN · SINGAPORE · TAIPEI · TOKYO · ZURICH

#WHEREVERYOUGO

BAJA CALIFORNIA Photo : Knox Kronenberg

Learn more about the SEAHOLM® Offshore Dive Watch at www.seaholmautomatic.com

Oceanographic Issue 22

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WELCOME

Editor’s Letter H u g h Fra n c i s Anderson t ra n s p o r t s u s n o r t h t h ro u g h t h e Norwegian Sea to t h e re m o t e i s l a n d o f Ja n M ay a n a n d its domineering volcano, Mount B e e re n b e r g

The Wild Isles. While this edition’s coverline relates specifically to the Shetland Islands and Henley Spiers’ beautiful lead story, it is also a rather fitting summary for this edition as a whole. Following on from Henley’s visually striking and editorially immersive tale of life and death off Scotland's subarctic archipelago, Hugh Francis Anderson transports us north through the Norwegian Sea to the remote island of Jan Mayan and its domineering volcano, Mount Beerenberg. His is a story full of personal challenge, history and scientific endeavour. Returning south and into the North Atlantic Ocean, we find editorial harbour in the Azores. Nuno Vasco Rodrigues offers a fascinating insight into turtle life cycles across the Atlantic, from Florida to the Portuguese archipelago. History and science once again intertwine for an illuminating read. The volcanic Revillagigedo Islands in the Pacific Ocean are our final island stop. Steve Backshall reveals the remote beauty of life in the waters around these Mexican islands and how, despite being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a marine reserve and a national park, there is still much conservation work to be done. Our final article takes us not to an island, but a continent, Australia, specifically Western Australia and its colourful Indian Ocean coastline, where we meet an inspiring ocean photographer and revel in his work. Bon voyage!

Will Harrison Editor @waj.harrison @og_editor Oceanographicmag

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Contents O N T H E C OV E R

FEATURE S

T HE W IL D IS L E S

A northern gannet pierces the water, hunting for mackerel off the Isle of Noss, Shetland. Photograph by Henley Spiers.

Shetland’s nutrient rich waters are home to a wealth of marine wildlife. Here, underwater photographer Henley Spiers meets charismatic orcas, clumsy puffins and courageous gannets.

Get in touch ED I TO R

Will Harrison

CR EAT I V E D I R E C TO R

Amelia Costley

D I G I TA L E D I TO R

Nane Steinhoff

CO N T R I B U T I N G E D I TO R

Hugh Francis Anderson

D ES I G N A S S I S TA N T

Joanna Kilgour

PA RT N E R S H I P S D I R E C TO R

Chris Anson

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YO U R O C E A N IMAGES

@oceanographic_mag @oceano_mag Oceanographicmag

A S S TO C K E D I N

For all enquiries regarding stockists, submissions, or just to say hello, please email info@oceanographicmagazine.com or call (+44) 20 3637 8680. Published in the UK by CXD MEDIA Ltd. © 2021 CXD MEDIA Ltd. All rights reserved. Nothing in whole or in part may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.

A collection of some of the most captivating ocean photography shared on social media, both beautiful and arresting. Tag us or use #MYOCEAN for the opportunity to be featured within these pages.

ISSN: 2516-5941

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CONTENTS

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ARC TIC FO OTSTEPS

A Z O R EA N TAG S

PR O FIT-S HA R ING CO M MITM ENT TO O CEA N CO N SERVAT IO N . A PR O M IS E WE'R E PR O UD O F.

C L A R IO N L IF E

S KY ' S T HE L IMIT

One hundred years after explorers first summited the world's northernmost volcano, Mount Beerenberg, on a speck of land in the North Atlantic Ocean, a set of adventurers and scientists follow in their footsteps.

Insights into the past, present and future of the North Atlantic loggerhead sea turtle population.

As part of the ‘Expedition’ project, presenter and naturalist Steve Backshall has spent the last four years exploring unknown parts of our planet. One of these expeditions led him to the Eastern Pacific, in search of a fabled shark nursery.

Jaimen Hudson’s stunning drone footage of marine life is known around the world. Having been confined to a wheelchair since a motorbike accident, his story is one of overcoming adversity and reconnecting with the ocean.

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B E H IN D TH E L E N S

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EDITOR'S CUT

THE SOCIAL ECOLOGIST

T HE MA R IN E B IO L O G IS T

In a special edition of Behind the lens, we feature some of our favourite finalist imagery from this year's Ocean Photography Awards. (All winning imagery was featured in Issue 21, available in the Oceanographic shop.)

Big wave surf champion, environmentalist and social change advocate Dr Easkey Britton discusses her 'blue heritage' and the power of the ocean to be a positive and healing presence in our lives.

Marine biologist, photographer and writer, Dr Lou Luddington, shares a beautiful experience while anchored alongside a colony of Cory's shearwaters off La Gomera.

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Ellen Cuylaerts Canada A harp seal pup in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Quebec. "To reach these breeding grounds and see the pups this stage of their life is not easy," says photographer Cuylaerts, "but to be able to share these images is very rewarding. Nature at its best." S U B M I T T E D TO

#MYOCEAN

Scott Portelli Western Australia "The Ningaloo Coast is recognised as one of the most important nesting grounds for green turtles," says photographer Portelli. "The sandy shores and steep sand dunes provide the perfect environment for the turtles to nest." S U B M I T T E D TO

#MYOCEAN

Shirachai Arunrugstichai Thailand In a nursery pond, green sea turtle hatchlings gorge on food pellets given by a marine biologist at the Phuket Marine Biological Center. S U B M I T T E D TO

#MYOCEAN

Thien Nguyen Vietnam "This is an aerial view of the lobster farming area in Hon Yen, Tuy An district, at sunrise," says photographer Nguyen. "Lobster farming is a rapidly growing industry in Vietnam." S U B M I T T E D TO

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Barren paradise

L I F E , D E AT H A N D WILD WONDER IN SHETLAND Shetland’s nutrient rich waters are home to a wealth of marine wildlife. Here, underwater photographer Henley Spiers meets charismatic orcas, clumsy puffins and courageous gannets.

Wo rd s a n d p h o t o g ra p h s b y H e n l e y S p i e r s

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eaving along the coastal road, we scan the sea for signs of orca. Today we are in luck, spotting their distinctive, dark fins and tracking their path until they disappear behind a headland. Our car screeches to a halt, we scramble down to the shore, anticipation building as we collectively wish for the pod to turn into the bay in which we are stood. Picking my way across the slippery rocks, I try to predict the best vantage point should the orca grant us a visit. Cool water laps at my feet, gently swaying the fronds of golden kelp. The atmosphere is highly charged as we watch the mouth of the bay for activity. The tip of a black fin breaks the surface, rising high. A harbour seal emerges close to where I am sitting, its eyes wide with worry as the looming shape of the orca heads straight for us. I do not envy the seal’s predicament. Butterflies dance in my stomach as the dark fin draws ever closer. A moment later, the orca is within a few metres, turning on its side, scanning my presence, its eye hidden amongst jet black markings. The meeting is far more intimate than I dared to hope, and zoom lens now futile, I drop the camera and soak up the moment. The magnificence of nature pours over me – elation, awe, wonder – and a powerful dose of emotions courses through me. Turning back towards my open-mouthed friends, stood further back on the ridge – we all raise our arms in celebration. A second orca surfaces alongside the first, they cruise past with a grace that belies their violent intentions. Moving into the shallowest part of the bay, these expert oceanic hunters corner a seal underwater. The kill is made with ruthless efficiency, without any great commotion visible from the surface. Seabirds dive down to secure scraps from the defeated seal, pulling away long strands of flesh. Although it counts as one of my most memorable wildlife encounters, for the orca it is as commonplace as eating lunch. Each of these impressive mammals consumes the equivalent of one seal per day, or 200kg of meat. Their attack on this bay now complete, the pod regroups and continues along the coast in search of further sustenance. The Isles of Shetland are part of a popular orca highway, regularly visited by various pods throughout the year. For residents, there’s always a chance a tall black fin will meet your eye when looking out to sea. Technology has tied the community of orca fans together, and a dedicated Facebook group delivers real-time updates of sightings around the isles. Shetland offers the unique opportunity to go on an orca safari from land, following the roads and social media updates on a thrilling ride to see the ocean’s greatest predators. Lying at the northern tip of the United Kingdom, on the same latitude as Norway, Shetland feels like a world apart from the mainland. Razed by powerful winds, the landscape is bleak, with barely a tree in sight. The human population is far outnumbered by seabirds and other wildlife, and with the coast never more than a few miles away, the sea is essential to the fabric of life for the friendly Shetlanders. Shetland’s bounty lies not on land but in the sea, where a thriving ecosystem is driven by

PREVIOUS: A Northern Gannet flies over the turbid waters at Hermaness National Park. THIS PAGE: An orca pod patrols the coastline in pursuit of prey.

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The magnificence of nature pours over me – elation, awe, wonder – and a powerful dose of emotions courses through me. Turning back towards my open-mouthed friends, stood further back on the ridge – we all raise our arms in celebration.”

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“Moments later, with wings tucked in tightly, the gannet shape-shifts into a pointed torpedo, diving into the water at speeds of up to 86 km/ph.

”

the meeting of great ocean currents. Cool, arctic water, pushed down from the north is met by the warmer water of the Gulf Stream and the slope current coming from the bay of Biscay. Heavy winds churn these diverse waters together, like an ocean smoothie, and once sunlight is added to the mix, an explosion of life occurs, starting with the humble yet essential plankton. One night, I come face to face with plankton on a scale unlike anything I have experienced before, snorkelling amidst a plankton bloom so thick that at times I am unable to see through it. To the naked eye, it looks like a million peach-coloured spheres, as if the contents of a bean bag had spilt into the sea, but my macro lens reveals a mass of tiny organisms. Plankton takes two forms: the first is phytoplankton, which is made up of plants and forms the base of the food chain; zooplankton, which is made up of animals, sits on the next rung up. I am in the midst of the zoo here – a rich tapestry of tiny animals pulsating all around. Some are too microscopic to recognise, but others I can discern: larval stage crustaceans abound, some of them swimming through the darkness, others clinging to the life rafts offered by broken-off seaweed. This plankton soup has attracted an army of jellyfish, who feast upon the buffet of miniature life. In some cases, the jellyfish turn protector, with juvenile fish taking shelter between their tentacles. The fish must swim with precision to avoid being stung themselves, but the shielding on offer is deemed worth the effort at this vulnerable stage of life. Although we have moved from the apex predator to the bottom of the food chain, this spectacle offers the same exhilaration as my encounter with the orca. Three hours later, I crawl out of the water, hands so numb I can barely remove my fins before trudging to bed. The plankton blooms sustain large shoals of smaller fish, such as sandeels and herring, and these are vital to the charismatic seabird colonies who populate Shetland’s shores. Many are transient, visiting the isles through spring and summer to mate and care for their hatchlings, with the rich supplies of food an essential attraction. Hiking out to the cliffs of Hermaness, we hear the bird shrieks long before we can look down at the gannetry below, where 30,000 nesting pairs have turned the black cliffs white. The nests are tightly packed, leaving just enough room to prevent hostile ingressions from an angry neighbour. In the skies, a hierarchy operates too, and although the gannets may be here in greater numbers, it is the great skua (locally known as a bonxie) that rules over this avian community. In breeding season, Shetland hosts 40% of the world’s great skua population, and their nesting grounds are carefully protected. However, the behaviour of these aerial pirates evokes mixed feelings, as they specialise in stealing prey from smaller birds, and killing other birds for food. The latter is likely a dietary adaptation to the dwindling fish supplies, but it has played a hand in diminishing the local arctic skua and kittiwake populations. Puffins are another frequent target for their attacks, and bonxies have even been observed hunting birds as large as adult gannets. The handsome northern gannets lead a dualistic existence. In the nest, their newborn is carefully nurtured, and a couple’s bond is reinforced by pointing sharp beaks to the sky as they tenderly stroke their white necks together. In flight, hunting mode takes over, and piercing yellow eyes, fringed with blue circles, scour the sea for prey. Their long wingspan and streamlined bodies make flying look effortless, gliding along with just the occasional pulse of their wings. When fish are spotted, the gannets fly into the wind and stretch out their wings as brakes, precisely adjusting their position in relation to their quarry. Moments later, with wings tucked in tightly, the gannet shape-shifts into a pointed torpedo, diving into the water at speeds of up to 86 km/ph. Even Olympic divers will not exceed 60 km/ph, and these seabirds are specially adapted for the impact: muscles along the neck Oceanographic Issue 22

Perfectly evolved to hunt beneath the waves, gannets perform agile fishing dives in pursuit of mackerel.

A lone plumose anemone stands tall amidst a seabed carpeted with brittle stars.

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Heavy winds churn these diverse waters together, like an ocean smoothie, and once sunlight is added to the mix, an explosion of life occurs.”

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One night, I come face to face with plankton on a scale unlike anything I have experienced before, snorkelling amidst a plankton bloom so thick that at times I am unable to see through it.”

“

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A midnight swim in a zooplankton soup uncovers sights which I had only previously seen in scientific textbooks.

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An anglerfish lies in wait for something tasty to swim by.

“ Shetland’s bounty lies not on land but in the sea, where a thriving ecosystem is driven by the meeting of great ocean currents. Cool, arctic water, pushed down from the north is met by the warmer water of the Gulf Stream and the slope current coming from the bay of Biscayne.”

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Puffins mate for life, and these individuals will maintain a long-distance relationship for many years, reuniting each spring to reaffirm bonds before laying a single white egg.”

lock their vertebrae into place and air sacs in the face and chest act as airbags. Even their nostrils are evolved for this aquatic existence, located internally to prevent water ingress during fishing dives. Underwater, the scene is electric, pointed beaks pierce through the surface, and a stream of bubbles trails behind arrowed white bodies. The eyes of the gannet remain open throughout this dramatic entry, impassively surveying the scene. Wings are brought out again, initially as brakes and then as paddles as they smoothly transition from air to sea, able to dive down 20m deep if needed. When prey is bountiful, gannets will gather en masse and a barrage of diving birds will follow. The thuds as they hit the water sound like bombs when submerged, and as with the orca, I count myself lucky not to be the animal in their sights. Although the scene looks chaotic, the attacks are carefully orchestrated, and the birds exhibit sharp reactions, adjusting course to avoid one another in a fraction of a second. Back on the cliffs, a disturbing scene is unfolding. The gannets use discarded fishing line to build their nests. At first, it seems like an industrious act of recycling, but it is one which can easily turn deadly if the bird gets ensnared. In these cases, their nest will become a prison, and we bear witness to the hanging body of one gannet who had suffered such a grisly fate. Amongst the world’s most beloved and well-known birds, the puffin comes in a surprisingly compact package. Lilliputian in comparison to the gannets and great skuas with whom they share the sky, the puffins are endearingly comical. Buzzing through the air with an effortful whirring of the wings, they land awkwardly, stumbling back to ground with the clumsiness of a novice pilot. Visiting Shetland in the warmer months to breed, they emit a distinctive guttural call from within their burrows. Wait long enough, and an unforgettable orange beak will eventually emerge from hiding, followed by the rest of their tuxedoed body. Whereas gannets seem like one of nature’s most well considered creations, puffins come across as one of its oddest, and yet, whilst I am in awe of the gannets, it is the puffins who tug harder at the heartstrings. If their physical gifts are modest in comparison to other seabirds, the puffins demonstrate both admirable resilience, and loyalty. Puffins mate for life, and these individuals will maintain a long-distance relationship for many years, reuniting each spring to reaffirm bonds before laying a single white egg. Sandeels are the most important food source for a growing chick, and both parents will take it in turn to go fishing for them, often returning with several of the small baitfish drooping from their bill. Unfortunately, the sandeel stocks have been in decline since the 1980s and bird populations are suffering as a result. It’s not just the puffins who have been impacted, but kittiwakes, arctic terns, guillemots, and razorbills too. Recent research suggests the sandeel decline may be due to climate change, with a slight increase in sea temperature having a cascading effect. As we sail home out of Lerwick harbour, I am reminded that just hours earlier we were exploring the seabed beneath, uncovering an 18th century shipwreck and a dense field of writhing brittle stars. A testament to their durability, the brittle star family can trace its origins back to the time of the dinosaurs. Here in Shetland, where they carpet the floor, a predator is in their midst, a large, vibrant orange sunstar catches my eye, but its friendlysounding name and appearance are misleading. The sunstar is here to hunt brittle stars, and as it moves into their territory, a battle in slow motion takes place as the brittle stars writhe and wriggle away from the preying sunstar. From sky to sea, life abounds. Truly, this is a place of wild wonder.

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TOP: A coquettish look from a puffin as it walks through sea pink flowers. MIDDLE: The coast plays a fundamental role in the existence of Shetlanders. BOTTOM: A perfect day in the water as the sun lights up golden kelp fronds and a beautifully clear sea.

Oceanographic Issue 22

Column

By Dr Easkey Britton

The social ecologist BLUE HERITAGE

"For me, it’s about letting go any need to perform and instead listening to our body, and how it responds to the natural, living world around us."

Photograph by Kalie Reid.

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@easkeysurf

www.easkeybritton.com

orn into a surfing way of life on the northwest coast of Ireland, to surfing parents with the beach on my doorstep, I was gifted a ‘blue heritage’. I grew up with family stories of our connection to the sea, standing on a surfboard since the age of four. My father and uncles were among the country’s first surfers, after they ‘liberated’ two surfboards that their mother, my grandmother Mary Britton, brought back to Donegal after a trip to America promoting tourism in the 1960s. The boards were intended for guests at the family hotel. Instead, my dad and his brothers kicked off a surf culture that thrives in Ireland today. My mum surfed all through her teens as well and said it was a lifeline for her growing up. My name, Easkey, has its origins in ancient Gaelic for fish. I’m named after an important salmon river in Ireland that creates a wave where it flows into the sea; it is my father’s favourite surf spot. My name reminds me that my identity is tied to the health of the water, the salmon and the sea. All of our identities are inextricably linked to the sea. We have all been shaped and formed by the ocean. My life is lived by the tides and the cycle of the moon. From my home, I can hear the storms arriving from the Atlantic in the night. I plan my day around tide charts and predicted swell heights so that I can always make myself available to the ocean. It means my schedule often goes against linear notions of time which can sometimes cause problems in a society hooked on hyperproductivity, but my ocean connection gives me balance and keeps me grounded. Writing Saltwater in the Blood was my way to explore these cyclical connections more deeply, through my surfing. I wanted to present a new take on surfing – about immersion, about surrender to a force that is physical, emotional and messy. In the book, I translate some of those lessons learned from the sea and surf into our land-life back ashore. For me, it’s about letting go any need to perform and instead listening to our body, and how it responds to the natural, living world around us. My ocean connection and surfing experiences have taught me to embrace imperfections as we reconnect with ourselves and nature. Biologically speaking and from an evolutionary perspective, all life came from the sea. I’m a huge fan of environmentalist and marine biologist Rachel Carson who wrote The Sea Around Us in the 1950s (and later the ground-breaking Silent Spring, which altered our relationship with chemical use and led to the banning of DDT). Her pioneering work, weaving her passion for the sea into her scientific studies and how powerfully she wrote about our sea connection definitely inspired me. According to Carson, the sea remains in the saltwater of our blood, our cells, our DNA, from when the first animals came ashore and took up a land life – we are all linked with this watery origin in the ancient sea. This entanglement also means we can’t be well in a sick sea. This is at the heart of Saltwater in the Blood – understanding our relationship with the ocean. If we could better protect and restore the ocean, then we would also have healthier people and communities. The wellbeing benefits to be gained from a healthy marine environment are just beginning to be understood. There is strong evidence now for the tremendous therapeutic potential of water, greater even than other types of natural environments. The healing potential of water is nothing new, it’s been known and practiced for millennia and is integral to indigenous cultures, but western science is finally catching up. For example, a recent review myself and my colleagues completed of studies investigating the healing effect of being in, on, near water found it especially beneficial for mental health, psychological wellbeing and social connection. An element of risk and unpredictability, inherent to surfing and the sea, can actually be an important part of building resilience and confidence for people if they experience it in an enabling and supportive setting. My research with the INCLUSEA project highlights how the movement of the waves and the sense of freedom and weightlessness when immersed in saltwater can be incredibly empowering and restorative, especially for people with injuries or disabilities. We are only just beginning to understand what it is about water that makes it so healing. EB About Easkey Dr Easkey Britton is a surfer and blue health researcher with the INCLUSEA project. Her work explores the relationship between people and the sea, using her passion for the ocean to create social change and connection across cultures. She currently resides in Donegal, Ireland. For information or to get involved visit: www.inclusea.eu

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Against THE wind A R E S E A R C H VOYAG E TO A R E M OT E A R C T I C O U T P O S T One hundred years after explorers first summited the world's northernmost volcano, Mount Beerenberg, on a speck of land in the North Atlantic Ocean, a set of adventurers and scientists follow in their footsteps.

Wo rd s b y H u g h Fra n c i s A n d e r s o n P h o t o g ra p h s b y H u g h Pe t t i t

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LEFT: A fin whale surfaces at the mouth of Isfjorden, Svalbard. In total, the crew encountered 50 individuals. ABOVE: Heide enjoying a rare moment of rest whilst awaiting a favourable weather window to land on Jan Mayen. PREVIOUS PAGE: Anderson and Heide cross the now-drained South Lagoon of Jan Mayen.

“I write this now at the captain’s desk. It’s 5am. Andreas sleeps on the sofa in the saloon dressed in foul weather gear, ready to leap into action should Barba lose her anchor in the violent-storm-force 57-knot gusts. Red light warms the saloon as the boat tremors, as if shaken by the hand of Thor. The first light of day hints on the horizon. A vast half-moon illuminates the Arctic sky. Stars, the like I have never seen before, glimmer above our vessel as dark clouds spread either side. I peer out of the portside window and see the snow-capped summit of Mount Beerenberg glisten above the cliffs of Nordbukta. Clouds whirl atop the peak in the raging gale.

JAN MAYEN EXPEDITION JOURNAL DAY 11 30TH AUGUST 2021

“Dark, foaming, white-capped waves soar across the bay. The light of dawn now delicately paints the vista of Jan Mayen and its domineering volcano Beerenberg. Later today, we sail south to Båtvika. In 24 hours, we will begin our ascent of Beerenberg. Nervous anticipation fills me. The time is nearing. The story about to unfold.”

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n early 2020, in the Members’ Room of the Royal Geographical Society, I came across the March 1922 issue of The Geographical Journal. I flicked through the worn pages with intrigue until I came to a report titled Jan Mayen Island by JM Wordie. I had recently returned from the Arctic with captain Andreas B Heide aboard the research yacht Barba, where he first told me about this remote outpost, an island he had sailed to in 2012. I read the report with fervour and discovered that the first British expedition to Jan Mayen took place in August 1921. Led by Sir James Mann Wordie, who achieved renown as the geologist and chief of scientific staff aboard Endurance during Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Arctic Expedition, 19141917, the expedition’s goal was twofold: to undertake the first geological study of the island and claim the first ascent of the unconquered peak of Mount Beerenberg. I called Heide. With the centenary in just 18 months, an anniversary expedition was born. Look on a map and you’ll likely miss the remote island of Jan Mayen. With a landmass of just 377 km2, it lies on the southern edge of the Arctic Ocean, between the Greenland and Norwegian Seas. A volcanic growth sprouted from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) as recently as 500,000 years ago, it sits alone in more than two million km2 of open ocean. A short isthmus separates the low-lying south from the dominating north, where the world’s northernmost volcano, Mount Beerenberg, rises more than two kilometres out of the ocean. Beerenberg itself is comprised of 20 glaciers and topped by a onekilometre crater-rim. Today, it is a Norwegian military outpost with meteorological and satellite navigation stations. The island’s north is a protected nature reserve with significant restrictions in place to maintain its fragile ecosystems. It is thus seldom visited. As an inhospitable, unrelenting place, Jan Mayen’s history is nonetheless varied and deeply intertwined with the ocean and its inhabitants. At the dawn of European Arctic whaling in the early 17th century, the battle between the British and the Dutch for territorial hunting grounds raged. While some believe Henry Hudson discovered Jan Mayen in 1607, the first verifiable account was in 1614 by Englishman John Clarke. At the same time, three Dutch whaling ships arrived, one of them captained by Jan Jacobsz May, after whom the island is named. “The market for whale products was large in Europe and once the Dutch discovered Jan Mayen with the numbers of whales nearby, it was natural for Dutch whaling companies to occupy the bays there with their train oil (bowhead blubber) boilers,” says Dr Susan Barr, former cultural heritage advisor for Jan Mayen 1979-2016. “The whaling started very successfully, but occurrences around the island diminished and the Dutch whaling there petered out around 1642.” Indeed, whaling logbooks of the time indicate the presence of thousands The ventral grooves of a feeding fin whale at the mouth of the Norwegian Sea.

“The market for whale products was large in Europe and once the Dutch discovered Jan Mayen with the numbers of whales nearby, it was natural for Dutch whaling companies to occupy the bays there with their train oil (bowhead blubber) boilers,' says Dr Susan Barr, former cultural heritage advisor for Jan Mayen 1979-2016.”

Heide and Falch prepare the towed hydrophone array as the Barba approaches the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

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“I felt the onset of autumn in the air, but the winds were gentle and the water calm as we sailed out of Isfjorden and into the Norwegian Sea.”

of bowhead whales. Due to the abundance of phyto- and zooplankton caused by nutrient-rich meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet, alongside upwelling, the number of bowhead whales in the Arctic is thought to have once numbered 46,000. “The bowheads are slow swimming whales that could be caught with rowing boats,” says Professor Louwrens Hacquebord, former Director of the Arctic Centre of the University of Groningen and of the Willem Barentsz Polar Institute. “After being killed, the animals floated in the water because of the thick blubber layer and the decomposition gasses and could be relatively easily transported to the ships or to land.” According to Hacquebord and the whalers’ logbooks, approximately 1,000 bowheads, alongside a number of northern bottlenose whales, sperm whales, fin (or sei) whales, narwhals and belugas were hunted around Jan Mayen. In just 22 years, the bowhead stocks were so depleted that Jan Mayen became unprofitable for the Dutch, and by 1850 bowheads in the Arctic had been hunted to near extinction. While the subpopulation around Greenland remains endangered, according to the IUCN, the global population has rebounded to an estimated 10,000 individuals. Heide uses Barba as a research and storytelling platform, with a message of conservation that utilises whales as ambassadors of the ocean. In 2019, I joined him as part of his Arctic Whale expedition to study the effects of microplastics on Atlantic whale species in the coastal waters of Iceland, which I wrote about in Issue 08. This year, 2021, marked the next evolution of the platform with the Arctic Sense expedition, a collaborative four-month, 3,000 nautical-mile scientific and communications voyage to the polar Atlantic with a rotating team of scientists and storytellers. “Marine research has a great importance for the general life support function of the ocean, and for using the ocean in a sustainable way to feed an ever-growing population,” says Heide. “Marine research in the Arctic is of special importance as the ecosystem is undergoing rapid change with retreating ice as a result of global warming. The retreating ice also brings with it an increased opportunity for commercial exploitation of the region, making it even more important to document what we are at risk to lose.” In partnership with the research group Whale Wise, and with the support of the University of Stavanger and the University of Iceland, a comprehensive and innovative research plan was established to gather as much information on Arctic and sub-Arctic cetaceans as possible. “Our aim was to monitor Arctic ecosystems, focusing on whales, in an unobtrusive way. In other words, we wanted to provide an Arctic Sense,” says Whale Wise cofounder Tom Grove. “Due to its innate hostility, Arctic ecosystems remain poorly characterised. Across large parts of the Arctic Sense route, the occurrence, distribution, and diversity of cetaceans is virtually unknown.” Jan Mayen would form an integral part of the wider project. And so, photographer and filmmaker Hugo Pettit and I met Heide in Longyearbyen after his successful circumnavigation of Svalbard. Our five-person crew was completed by sailors Jaap van Rijckevorsel and Annik Saxegaard Falch, and we set off on the 1,200 nautical mile journey from Svalbard, across the Greenland and Norwegian seas to Jan Mayen, and onwards to Shetland. I felt the onset of autumn in the air, but the winds were gentle and the water calm as we sailed out of Isfjorden and into the Norwegian Sea. White-beaked dolphins soon appeared, and within just a few minutes began playing off the bow. A lone walrus approached the stern and spent five minutes investigating our small sailboat. And then Rijckevorsel spotted a large blow (whale breath) on the horizon. Estimated at up to five metres high, it was likely a fin whale. We changed course and sailed in its direction. More blows appeared. Groups of 10 to 20 fin whales surfaced beside us. The deep exhalation and inhalation resounded in the air like a symphony, and their movements at the surface were slow, betraying their great size. Heide and Pettit readied themselves and entered the water with the world’s second-largest whale. From the boat, I witnessed large pockets of bubbles rise to the surface around the bait ball on which the fin whales were feeding. “Fin whales are hard to observe underwater, as they are shy and fast moving, and I have not seen any underwater footage of feeding behaviour,” says Heide. “A combination of luck and experience gave us the opportunity to study one, and then two individuals, while they were feeding on a school of fish.” This encounter, recorded and later analysed by the Whale Wise team, offered invaluable data. “Whilst the use of bubbles during foraging has been documented for fin whales, few descriptions of feeding behaviours of this species exist in scientific literature, particularly those from underwater observations,” notes Alyssa Stoller, cofounder of Whale Wise.

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“With the centenary climb firmly in our minds from the outset, two questions were raised. Firstly, due to climate change and associated glacier degradation, would it still be possible to summit using the 1921 route? And secondly, could we collect glaciological data for analysis?”

Barba passes the foot of the Weyprecht glacier, Jan Mayen.

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“As such, any description of underwater behaviour improves our understanding of fin whale ecology.” We remained with the fin whales for several hours before we began our 600 nauticalmile crossing to Jan Mayen. With the wind building but manageable, we passed over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 80 nautical miles off the coast of Svalbard. An underwater mountain chain that runs the entire latitudinal length of the Atlantic, its numerous peaks and trenches are hotspots for deep-diving cetaceans. While studied in detail to the south of Iceland, much less is known about the remote northern portion leading to Jan Mayen and beyond. “This region consists of a series of ridges, troughs, canyons and seamounts,” says Grove. “Such extreme topography is likely to result in upwelling and we might expect the northern part of the ridge, a complex network of topographic features ranging from 1,000 to 3,000m deep, to show a similarly high diversity and occurrence of cetaceans.” Here, Heide deployed the towed hydrophone array, which is specifically designed to pick up both low and high frequency vocalisations. When interfaced with the PAMGuard system and visualised on the spectrogram, the detection of cetaceans can be documented in real-time. Within minutes, Heide heard and saw the familiar click of sperm whales. The hydrophone remained in the water recording for more than 48 hours. Once processed by the Whale Wise team, we hope to learn more about cetacean occurrence and distribution in the region. With the centenary climb firmly in our minds from the outset, two questions were raised. Firstly, due to climate change and associated glacier degradation, would it still be possible to summit using the 1921 route? And secondly, could we collect glaciological data for analysis? When the Wordie party summited in August 1921, the route began at the basecamp near Eldste Metten, the weather station built by the Norwegian Hagbard Ekerold in the same year. They travelled west up Ekerold Valley to an advance camp at the base of the frontal moraines of South Glacier. The summit was achieved by travelling up South Glacier to the crater rim. By combining 3D mapping software, which was used to plot the 1921 route as accurately as possible, alongside current satellite imagery, we were able to plot a provisional route. So, after five days at sea, it was with bated breath that we awaited the clouds to rise from the peak. At our anchorage in the north, we studied the mountain, and our first question was quickly answered. The crevasses towards the summit of South Glacier, which we estimated to be between eight to 12m wide, would be impassable: it would not be possible to summit using the same route as the Wordie party in 1921. Whilst deflated, this came as little surprise. Globally, glaciers are losing over 30% more ice and snow per year compared to 15 years ago, with human-caused climate change widely believed to be the primary reason. On Jan Mayen, our observation of the increase in crevasses on South Glacier is further evidence of this. South Glacier also offered an opportunity to collect samples to further help understand what may be contributing to its degradation. Biological darkening is one of the causes of glacier melt, and the Deep Purple research project aims to discover more about the growth and causes of algal blooms on the Dark Zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Due to the darkened pigmentation of snow and ice algae, these blooms absorb solar radiation, which subsequently causes it to melt at an increased rate. “The amount of meltwater the GrIS is producing has accelerated over the last 20 years, and that’s coincided with the growth of a dark band along the western margin of the ice sheet called the Dark Zone, which is formed by the annual growth and blooming of purple pigmented glacier ice algae,” says principal investigator Professor Martyn Tranter. “Deep Purple is trying to get all the data to determine just how much the Dark Zone will expand over the coming decades.” Yet data from other regions is valuable to determine whether similar melting effects are taking place elsewhere. On Jan Mayen, testing for snow and ice algae had never been undertaken. So, with protocols and equipment compiled, we aimed to collect samples from South Glacier to learn more. Whilst the original route would be impossible for us, Wordie had proposed a secondary

A view over Haugenstranda (left) and Kvalrossbutka (right). The volcanic island of Jan Mayen is just 500,000 years old.

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TOP: Heide and Anderson stand on the summit of Mount Beerenberg, 100 years after its first ascent. MIDDLE: Anderson and Heide begin the climb up South Glacier shortly after dawn. BOTTOM: Anderson removes a fishing net. The volcanic beaches are littered with plastic debris.

route in 1921 which followed the southwest buttress to the crater rim, and one that we observed as being achievable. Due to its status as a nature reserve, our approach began from the south, across the isthmus, some 20km away from Eldste Metten. Even here, on this remote Arctic outpost, the onyx sand is littered with plastic and fishing debris. And such is the remoteness of the island that we came across the skeletal remains of a bowhead whale hunted more than 400 years ago. The ruins of Eldste Metten appeared between the volcanic outcrops, its structure a shell of the building erected exactly 100 years ago. We began our ascent during the encroaching night and by daybreak, we had reached the base of South Glacier and broken above the low-lying cloud. Our favourable weather window shifted rapidly and a blizzard with winds of more than 40 knots hammered us as we approached the final ascent to the crater. The conditions were so poor that we only knew we had reached the summit thanks to our GPS. As the blizzard eased and the clouds lifted, the late afternoon light shone off South Glacier. Large, darkened patches of snow appeared. Some pink, some red, some green. They were what we thought to be patches of snow algae, which we collected on our descent. These have since been examined by Professor Alexandre Anesio, a principal investigator of the Deep Purple team. With samples put under the microscope, Anesio discovered a large amount of red snow algae, alongside green snow algae, cryoconite material, cyanobacteria and flagellates. But what surprised him most was the lack of ice algae. “Very interestingly, I could not see any ice algae in any of the samples,” he says. “But, because of the biomass of snow algae that you have in some of the samples, that is going to melt some of the snow, expose the bare ice, which will then be colonised by the ice algae, and which is then going to generate the further darkening of the ice. These samples are important because it just shows how widespread the colonisation of snow algae is across different glaciers worldwide.” Evidence of cryoconite material, which is commonly where carbon deposits are found, means that the samples will be sent to Potsdam University where Professor Liane G. Benning can analyse them under an electron microscope. This will determine whether black carbon (soot) is present on the glaciers of Jan Mayen. According to a report published by the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions, black carbon could be second only to CO2 as the major contributor to climate change. In total, the gruelling approach and ascent took 37 hours, in which we travelled almost 70km. Such is the hostility of this Arctic outpost that just hours after returning to Barba, an incoming weather front forced us to set sail or risk being stranded at anchor for the coming week. But first we travelled towards the unexplored underwater canyon at the north of the island. As the northernmost island on the MAR, the underwater topography around Jan Mayen indicates the likelihood of deep-diving cetaceans. “The bathymetry of the waters surrounding Jan Mayen is stunning in its variety,” says Stoller. “A vicious canyon, more than 3,500m deep in places, passes just a few kilometres from the island’s northern edge. To the west, a chain of seamounts stretches still unexplored towards Greenland. The south is dominated by a very shallow shelf, breaking suddenly into abyssal plain.” Upwelling here increases phytoplankton blooms and subsequently prey and cetaceans. Yet Jan Mayen is an area of little research. Some contemporary investigation into northern bottlenose whales, one of the deepest-diving beaked whales, has taken place in the waters surrounding the island, but due to its remoteness, little other data exists. And it is here that the acoustic monitoring and recordings will help determine the presence of deep-diving whales once analysed in the months to come. With the weather changing rapidly, we began the long journey to Shetland. Seven days later, we sailed into Lerwick harbour, exhausted from the unrelenting seas and headwinds that pushed us so far off course we almost reached mainland Norway. Yet it offered a time for reflection and a discussion on the nature of contemporary exploration. In a modern interpretation of a 100-year-old expedition, our journey collected data to help better understand the state of Arctic ecosystems, but it also highlighted our personal search for adventure, alongside the motivators that unites our expedition with the Wordie party 100 years ago. It is curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge that drives us to seek adventure. And while the context has certainly changed, these elements bond us across time. Our own desire for adventure was the catalyst for this journey. The greater purpose behind it, in our case, was fuelled by citizen science and storytelling. The ability and desire to access incredibly remote locations, the opportunity to collect scientific data, share an unknown tale of polar exploration and communicate all to a global audience was the foundation of our voyage. In fuelling our desire for adventure, we can help share stories and research that can better inform scientists and the public about our rapidly changing world.

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Behind the lens I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H

20 21 EDITOR´S CUT Behind the lens places a spotlight on the world’s foremost ocean conservation photographers. Each edition focusses on the work of an individual who continues to shape global public opinion through powerful imagery and compelling storytelling.

BEHIND THE LENS

EDITOR'S CUT

2021

2nd place: Adventure Photographer of the Year

2nd place: Conservation Photographer of the Year

Winner: Collective Portfolio Award

BE N THOUARD F RE NC H POLYNE SIA The wave of Teahupo’o, as seen from below. “I’m so amazed by what is happening below this wave – a different world!" says Thouard.

G A LICE HOA R AU NO RWAY The gull and the ghost fishing line. “Saltstraumen is a biodiversity hotspot and a marine protected area, but dive sites are littered with fishing lines," says Hoarau.

S TEFA N CHR IS TMA NN A NTA R CTICA Two emperor penguins mating. The male is climbing onto the female.

3rd place: Exploration Photographer of the Year

Winner: Collective Portfolio Award

Finalist: Conservation Photographer of the Year

Winner: Female Fifty Fathoms Award

M AT T Y S M I T H AUSTRALIA Squid portrait. “Lying on the seabed and shooting from below almost anthropomorphises the squid and reveals a character rarely seen,” says Smith.

STE FAN C HRISTMANN ANTARC TIC A Two emperor penguin fathers meet on the sea ice, showing their offspring.

G A LICE HOA R AU US A A shark with a fishing hook and line protruding from its mouth. Hoarau has also seen sharks with "broken jaws and bullet wounds".

R ENEE CA PO Z Z O LA HAWA II A split shot of two mating green sea turtles at the ocean’s surface.

Winner: Female Fifty Fathoms Award

Finalist: Exploration Photographer of the Year

Finalist: Collective Portfolio Award

3rd place: Collective Portfolio Award

R EN EE C A P O Z Z O L A F R EN C H P O LY N E S I A A split shot of a stingray in shallow water, a late afternoon sunburst illuminating the sky behind it.

MATTY SMITH AUSTRALIA A southern bobtail squid puts on a performance. “When I came across this squid it seemed to take interest in its reflection in my camera lens port and began to dance," says Smith.

G A LICE HOA R AU INDO NES IA A juvenile trevally inside a box jellyfish.

A LEX KYDD WES TER N AUS TR A LIA A whale shark swimming in the blue.

3rd place: Community Choice Award

2nd place: Community Choice Award

2nd place: Collective Portfolio Award

Finalist: Exploration Photographer of the Year

M I CHA E L H A L U WA N A W ES T E R N AU S T R A L I A A pod of dolphins catches a wave. “This image depicts the power of the ocean, its colour, vibrancy, life and its diverse and dynamic energy,” says Haluwana.

FABRICE GUERIN ME XIC O A sea lion hunts mackerel off the coast of Baja California Sur. "It is no wonder Captain Cousteau called this area ‘the aquarium of the world’,” says Guerin.

M ATTY S M ITH AUSTRALIA Pacific man o’ war, a colourful marine invader under an apocalyptic red sky.

MA RTIN B R O EN MEXICO “Tannic acid created by the decomposition of organic matter modifies the colour of light, giving the surreal feeling of flying in a rainbow,” says Broen.

Behind the lens This issue's Behind the lens showcases 15 images from this year's Ocean Photography Awards. You can see more than 100 of our finalist images at www.oceanphotographyawards.com. The limited edition hard-back coffee table book 'Ocean Photography Awards: Edition 2021' w i l l a l s o b e a va i l a b l e v i a the Oc eanog rap hic w eb s ite s hop s oon. 82

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F E AT U R E

UNVEILING THE

“lost years” Insights into the past, present and future of the North Atlantic loggerhead sea turtle population. Wo rd s a n d p h o t o g ra p h s b y N u n o Va s c o R o d r i g u e s

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“A

"'DEAD INDIVIDUALS ARE ANALYSED IN SITU, REMOVED FROM THE SITE, AND LATER SAMPLED IN THE LABORATORY.' MANY, HOWEVER, ARE JUVENILES THAT ARE STILL ALIVE AND OFTEN MALNOURISHED, DEHYDRATED AND INJURED."

nother one!” someone shouts, pointing at a dark dot on the sea's surface a couple hundred metres ahead of our boat. As we approach, a sea turtle unravels on the surface. The animal, apparently resting, is completely unaware of our presence. “It’s the third loggerhead today,” says Frederic Vandeperre, a researcher from the University of the Azores who has dedicated his research to sea turtles. Before we can say anything else, the turtle realises it is not alone and vanishes down into the deep blue, flapping its powerful fins. “That was a large one,” says Vandeperre. “Shouldn’t take much longer until it goes back to Florida,” replies Christopher Pham, another researcher from the University of the Azores. An estimated 50-70,000 spawnings of loggerhead sea turtles take place in the southeastern United States of America every year, particularly on the beaches of Florida. These numbers translate to approximately 6-8 million eggs, assuming an average of 115 eggs per laying adult, making the region the largest nesting area in the Atlantic, and possibly the world. After approximately two months of incubation in a nest dug by the mother, a few centimetres below the surface of beaches, the small and restless turtles, not exceeding five cm of shell, emerge from the sand and make for the sea. The journey from nest to ocean is fraught with danger and proves lethal for most hatchlings, unable to avoid preying sea birds, crabs, reptiles and small mammals, which do not hesitate to grab an easy meal. The fastest – or luckiest – ones manage to reach the water where they have to overcome the surf zone through vigorous (and rather uncoordinated) flapping of their small fins. They then disappear into the immense blue without looking back, but programmed to return one day. The moment the hatchlings enter the sea marks the beginning of a phase of oceanic life for these animals. A phase that lasts until adulthood, and which, for many decades, remained something of a scientific mystery. Nobody knew for sure where the turtles went, what they were eating, how they interacted with their surroundings and what dangers they faced. It was as if they disappeared without a trace. The scientific community have called this period "the lost years". Faithful to their biologically programmed promise, the hatchlings eventually return to their original beaches as adults, settling in the coastal waters of the region they had left behind several years before. In the 18th and 19th centuries, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, scientists struggled with another mystery involving the same species of turtle: its great abundance, particularly in the waters around the Azores archipelago. Reports date back to 1595, when the Dutch captain Van Linschoten, wrote in his navigation notes: "...when passing from 36° to 39 1/3°, you will spot the Island of Flores, with many turtles floating in the water". During PREVIOUS: Juvenile loggerhead sea turtles are frequently seen in the waters around the Azores islands. LEFT: When found injured, loggerheads are rescued, rehabilitated and released back to the sea by organisations in the RACA network.

A turtle shell up close, its beautiful detail revealed.

"THAT YEAR, A FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH STEP WAS TAKEN WHEN MARTINS SHARED TURTLE SHELL LENGTH DATA WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WHERE ARCHIE CARR, THE CREATOR OF THE EXPRESSION "LOST YEARS", WAS WORKING."

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"BRONGERSMA CHAMPIONED THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A TAGGING PROGRAMME THAT WOULD ALLOW SCIENTISTS TO TRACK THE MOVEMENTS OF INDIVIDUAL TURTLES. THE PROGRAMME STARTED IN THE AZORES IN 1982."

TOP: A tag is carefully placed on the carapace of a rescued turtle. BOTTOM: Frederic Vandeperre, from COSTA Project, releases a tagged turtle back to the ocean.

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oceanographic campaigns in the Azores region aboard the ships Hirondelle and Princess Alice in the 19th century, Prince Albert I of Monaco also published some observations of these animals in the region. In his notes, the prince suggested that their origin might be the West Indies or Florida and that the turtles travelled all the way from the western Atlantic through the Gulf Stream. In 1972, the Dutch zoologist Leo Brongersma published a remarkable study on European sea turtles, mentioning the large number of small individuals around the Azores and suggesting, for the first time, that the animals found in European waters originated from the nesting beaches of the western Atlantic. This theory had the potential to explain part of the mystery that had for so long puzzled scientists. However, evidence was needed to support the claim. Brongersma championed the implementation of a tagging programme that would allow scientists to track the movements of individual turtles. The programme started in the Azores in 1982, promoted by researcher Helen Rost Martins, from the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries (DOP) of the University of the Azores and the naturalist Dalberto Pombo. "One day, in a café on Pico Island, I noticed a flyer from Pombo asking local fishers to look for tagged turtles," says Martins. "I contacted him straight away.” Pombo had been in contact with American scientists for more than a decade in order to obtain turtle tags, while attempting to locate animals he had already tagged, with the help of the fishers. This contact between Martins and Pombo turned out to be decisive for the start of the tagging programme: "With the support of the University of Florida, we were able to compensate local fishers to bring us turtles for tagging," explains Martins. "And so, the programme began.” That year, a fundamental research step was taken when Martins shared turtle shell length data with the Department of Biology at the American University, where Archie Carr, a professor at the University of Florida, and the creator of the expression "lost years", was working. When analysing the shell lengths of turtles in the Azores, Carr found they fell into size classes not represented in American waters. As there were no known nesting colonies of loggerhead turtles in the eastern Atlantic that could create such an abundance of juveniles, Carr concluded that the ‘Azorean’ turtles belonged to the population that hatched on the beaches of the American southeast and that they were swept away as hatchlings by the Gulf Stream. Integrating into the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, the turtles were taken across the Atlantic, passing through the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands, before later returning as near-adults to their place of origin, leaving the oceanic environment (pelagic phase) and settling on the coast (neritic phase). This idea, published in 1986, provided a potential answer to the mystery of Carr's so-called "lost years". The scientist died the following year, but two of his students, Karen Bjorndal and Alan Bolten, continued his work.

Continuing their collaboration with the University of the Azores, Bjorndal, Bolten and Martins not only found that the Azorean size classes precisely filled the missing classes in the western Atlantic, but also that the turtles moved from the Azores to Madeira. The remaining route proposed by Carr (that suggested the animals moved from Madeira to the Canaries and then started their journey back to the western Atlantic) was later confirmed by the tagging programme. Definitive confirmation came in 1997, in a publication involving the same authors and using genetic tools, at a time when such science was in its infancy. The study concluded that practically all turtles found in the Azores were from the USA's southeastern coast. The continuation of this collaboration allowed for a full and detailed characterisation of their life cycle, specifically regarding the duration and geographical distribution of the species during the oceanic phase, something that had long remained unclear. It was now known that the animals hatched on the beaches of the southeast USA between the end of June and the beginning of November and embarked on their oceanic lives aboard the Gulf Stream. They could reach the Azores in less than a year, measuring around 10cm. One individual, for example, arrived in 220 days. They remained there or drifted in a unidirectional clockwise migration to Madeira, Canary Islands and Cape Verde, for nine to 12 years. After that, with an average carapace length of 55cm, they started the migration that would take them back to the southeast of the USA, marking the end of the oceanic phase and the start of their life cycle’s coastal phase. Analysis of variables that could influence the survival rate of turtles in the oceanic phase, whether environmental or anthropogenic, was carried in the following years, resulting in a remarkable increase in knowledge in this area. It was recognised that the beginning of the oceanic phase was critical for the survival of this species, a period characterised by a high mortality rate. Poor swimming capacity makes the hatchlings passive swimmers, and therefore easy prey, but also allows them to be swept into oceanic waters by the Gulf Stream, where predators are less abundant than near the coast. Others, however, are carried further north by different currents, spreading along the USA's Atlantic coast, all the way north to New England. During summer months, these nutrient rich coastal habitats can lead to substantial and rapid growth. Yet, they can only benefit from this for a relatively short period of time each year. During the autumn, these turtles must migrate south early enough, or they can be cold-stunned by rapidly dropping water temperatures and food scarcity during the winter months. Periodic cold fronts that lead to rapidly dropping air temperatures and strong northeast winds are a common feature of the transition from summer to autumn in New England. Along with the cold air temperatures and high winds, these storms trigger

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the dropping of sea surface temperatures, especially in shallow coastal bays that are inhabited by juvenile sea turtles. All these factors combined contribute to the annual occurrence of juvenile sea turtle cold-stunning events along the shores of Cape Cod Bay during the months of November and December. As for those that reach the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, they live between currents and floating Sargassum communities where they find food and refuge from predators (though it still remains an extremely long, winding and threatening voyage, lethal for many). Marco Aurélio Santos, Senior Technician of the Azores Regional Directorate for Sea Affairs, explains that "RACA (Azores Cetacean Stranding Network) registers several dozen strandings of sea turtles every year. Dead individuals are analysed in situ, removed from the site, and later sampled in the laboratory." Many, however, are juveniles that are still alive and often malnourished, dehydrated and injured. In these cases, says Santos, "RACA has an action plan which, together with other local institutions, ensures the transportation of these animals to the facilities at the Porto Pim Aquarium (Faial island) where they are kept, monitored and rehabilitated by biologists, and then returned to the sea. This combination of efforts and the new infrastructure (Porto Pim Aquarium) have allowed many sea turtles to be saved and helped to fill important gaps in the knowledge of these endangered animals." The ‘Endangered’ status (according to the IUCN Red List) of the loggerhead ‘justifies’ this effort. The overall impact of these actions on the total population, however, is difficult to evaluate. The entire process of rescue and rehabilitation of these animals is closely monitored by the COSTA (Consolidating Sea Turtle Conservation in the Azores) project team. Launched in 2015, this project uses several tools to better understand the biology of turtles, such as genetics, tagging, telemetry and the use of fisheries observers. It also assesses the impact of marine pollution, particularly plastic. Knowing the abundance and demography of a species is fundamental for studying populations and implementing efficient conservation measures. However, the inherent characteristics of the life cycle of this species, namely the large migrations they undergo, as well as changes between different stages throughout their lives, make this extremely challenging. One contemporary method of estimating population size and makeup is based on nest counts, assuming the survival

rate during the oceanic phase has minimal variation and, consequently, that there is stable recruitment for the coastal phase. This method, however, is contested, because it disregards the highly variable influence of environmental factors, which can significantly influence survival rates, especially in hatchlings. Members of the COSTA project, together with Bjorndal and Bolten, attempted to assess recruitment dynamics by establishing the relationship between the abundance of ocean juveniles to nest productivity on the source beaches. The results, published in Scientific Reports (by Nature) in 2019, were surprising. According to the authors, data collected by Azores fisheries observers over 15 years (2001-2015) suggest that the relative abundance of juveniles in the Azores matched the abundance of nests recorded on Florida's beaches with a time lag of three years. In other words, a year with an abundance of nests in Florida was reflected three years later in a high abundance of juveniles off the Azores. In turn, a year with fewer nests was reflected in low abundance of juveniles in the Azores three years later. This indicates that the recruitment in the oceanic phase is much more dependent on successful egg-laying than on random processes derived from short-term climatic variations, as was previously widely assumed. This justifies "the large investment, made so far and in the future, in the protection and rehabilitation of the nesting beaches of these animals," says Vandeperre, one of the authors of the study. "Azorean waters are undoubtedly of great importance for the life cycle of this population of loggerhead turtles – the second largest in the world. The data obtained also confirms the great relevance of the monitoring undertaken in the Azores, and the potential to use this monitoring as an earlywarning system, to detect anomalies in the oceanic recruitment of the population. This is because the only monitoring done until now took place on beaches, which are only used after several decades and only by females." Environmental factors will, of course, continue to play a decisive role in the success (or failure) of the recruitment of these animals. But with a better understanding of life cycle processes, and with an ability to more effectively monitor (and react and protect) the species as a result of these advancements, science can now play an even bigger role in helping to sustain the North Atlantic loggerhead turtle population. The great question of the “lost years” has been answered. We must now ensure that we don’t lose this incredible species.

A turtle returns to its natural habitat, a tag collecting important data about the species’ ecology.

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"THIS PROJECT USES SEVERAL TOOLS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE BIOLOGY OF TURTLES, SUCH AS GENETICS, TAGGING, TELEMETRY AND THE USE OF FISHERIES OBSERVERS. IT ALSO ASSESSES THE IMPACT OF MARINE POLLUTION,"

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Column

By Lou Luddington

The marine biologist WONDROUS SHEARWATERS

nchored for the night in a secluded bay on the island of La Gomera, we are winding down for an evening of star gazing when a raucous, disembodied voice squawks out from the darkness. One call becomes two, then a crescendo as the air fills with a rowdy gathering of feathered seafarers about to make landfall for the night. Some are growly, others higher pitched and cackling, building in volume then fading away. Occasionally I catch sight of a ghostly outline and hear the whooshing whisper of strong wings as one passes close overhead - Cory’s shearwaters returning from a day at sea in the hundreds. Having dropped anchor in daylight we were unaware we had settled beside a breeding colony in peak season. What a wonder! In the coming months this would become our evening soundtrack wherever we settled for the night. We’d seen them at sea in the daytime, skimming the ocean surface or bobbing in rafts snoozing with heads tucked beneath a wing. Before first light they head to sea, dividing their time between resting, preening, socialising and plying the clear waters for bait balls and squid to hunt. Adept swimmers both at the surface and underwater, they are able to dive to 15m depth or more in search of prey using both wings and feet to power the pursuit. On several occasions we’d watched them follow pods of foraging bottlenose dolphins, picking off fish driven to the surface by the underwater chase. Apart from the occasional squabble over scavenged food, during the day they are mostly quiet, saving their peculiar vocalisations for night time revelry. Their return to the cliffs at night provides cover from predatory gulls that would otherwise ambush and eat them. They arrive with bellies full of fish to feed their young or take over egg incubation duties from their partners secreted in a dusty cave or nest hole in the cliffs. It’s strange to think that a bird highly adapted to a life spent roaming the open ocean, begins life entombed in the earth, born among volcanic rock and ash. Drawn to the land by carnal urges, their instinct to breed turns their gaze from open ocean to the parched cliffs of the Macaronesian islands that are a strong-hold for these birds. The entire south, east and west coasts of La Gomera are alive with huge colonies by night. Protected by European law under the Birds Directive, the cliffs are part of the La Gomera-Teno marine area that encompasses the whole coast of La Gomera and offshore across the water to the far west coast of Tenerife. This area includes nest sites and foraging habitat for not only Cory’s shearwaters but other seabird species as well. The law forbids hunting during migration and at nesting areas, protecting them from poaching that historically caused major declines, but it misses the other more impactful threats. Introduced species such as black rats and feral cats can wreak havoc at colonies, picking off juveniles and eggs, whilst at sea accidental death in hook-based fishing gear is hugely damaging to populations. From the moment of hatching the chicks spend around 90 days in the ground, building bones and feathers for a life at sea from a diet of regurgitated fish paste. Once the chicks have grown fat and feathered in their nest holes (50 days), the parents take their leave, abandoning them to fledge alone. A few weeks later the chicks emerge, hungry and with an epic journey ahead of them, not to mention having to learn how to catch fish. Getting airborne is their first challenge, requiring a daring launch from the cliff. They then embark on a long-distance, figure-eight migration that curves and loops to the four corners of the Atlantic ocean; a maiden voyage of thousands of miles. Guided by an innate navigation system, they are endowed with avian super powers that steer them along routes they've never travelled before, the same sea paths taken by their kin. Highly adapted to this pelagic existence, their long, stiff wings allow them to glide and soar great distances with little effort. As members of the Procellariiformes or tubenoses alongside petrels and albatrosses, they are able to desalinate seawater, extracting fresh water from the brine then sneezing out the salt. By side-stepping the need to drink freshwater they are free to live a life at sea, soaring, swimming and fishing. Our premier shearwater matinee was in early April. By October the cliffs were quiet at nightfall, the parents having left for the high seas. Yet I knew hidden in the cliffs were hundreds of chicks on the cusp of venturing out to sea for the first time. LL

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@lou_luddington

@louluddington

@louluddingtonphotography

About Lou Dr Lou Luddington is a marine biologist, nature photographer and writer living aboard a sailboat, the Noctiluca, on the move and travelling the ocean in search of stories and adventure.

Noctiluca at anchor off La Gomera, a shearwater chorus about to begin.

“They are endowed with avian super powers that steer them along routes they've never travelled before, the same sea paths taken by their kin.”

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territories As part of the ‘Expedition’ project, British presenter and naturalist Steve Backshall has spent the last four years exploring unknown parts of our planet. One of these expeditions led him to the Eastern Pacific, in search of a fabled shark nursery that could be the key to protecting the region.

Wo rd s b y S t eve B a c k s h a l l P h o t o g ra p h s b y L u ke I n m a n a n d M a r i a E u g e n i a B r i t o P é re z

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“We cling close to the sanctuary of the rock; an ill-judged swim stroke could have you out in the current and swept off into the Pacific.”

PREVIOUS PAGE: A lone silky shark cruises the pinnacle of Roca Partida. OPPOSITE: Steve Backshall explores underwater using a DPV.

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large shadow looms from the blue, barging me aside with her freckled maw. The bus-sized whale shark was oblivious to my gnat-like presence in her world. Two dozen suckerfish that hitchhike on her freckled sides flicker around me for a second to see if I might be an enticing new host, before reattaching to their swimming buffet. The seamount-scape around me is a world turned upside down; a submerged volcanic pinnacle with its summit just cresting the swell. Above me silhouettes of barracuda and sailfish glide like vultures round the soaring cliff face. Alpine storm clouds are replaced by foamy crashing waves, for mountain gales substitute the torrential currents that toss us around like pantyhose on a washing line. Below my fins the vertical rock wall appears to drop to infinity. Just a short swim away is the abyssal plain at 3,600m in depth. We cling close to the sanctuary of the rock; an ill-judged swim stroke could have you out in the current and swept off into the Pacific. At the edge of our gaze a shiver of silky sharks a hundred animals strong floats with arrogant ease. They look like tiny sperm in a Petri dish, but each is longer than me, and a precious predator our planet can ill afford to lose. Mexico’s Revillagigedo archipelago is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the biggest marine reserve and no take zone in all of North America at 150,000 km2. The park - which consists of just four small islands - sits astride two tectonic plates, and at the intersection of two ocean currents. From the north flows the cold California current, and from the east the warm North Equatorial current. Its remoteness, protection and peculiar oceanography makes it one of the most biodiverse and exciting marine destinations on earth. Spring of 2020 and my team was being afforded a rare privilege - to map and survey underwater areas previously unexplored in the region. Our expedition had two missions: pure exploration and tagging and tracking pelagic sharks, working out as much as possible about their lives. This was critical, as 40% of the shark species here are threatened with extinction. Tagging pregnant females could give vital information as to their potential pupping sites and nurseries, which could then become important places for conservation protection. While I was ostensibly team leader, in reality Mauricio Hoyos - or 'Doctor Shark' - was in charge. Hoyos is the most active shark scientist in Mexico, and has tagged more than 300 sharks in the Revillagigedo national park alone. Together with Frida Lara who completed her PhD on the movements of sharks in the archipelago, and Alejandro Gonzalez, the director of the National Park, we had a formidable team. For the first 20 hours of our journey out to Revillagigedo, the seas were high and heavy. Most of the crew lay out on the deck wrapped up in towels, faces drained of blood and a Dulux colour chart of greens and yellows. Over the third night though the seas dropped, and we woke to a gently undulating quilt of blue. Flying fish startled by our prow leapt from the water and

powered themselves over the surface using wing-like pectoral fins. Tiny black storm petrels fluttered around the surface with their bat-like flight pattern, tapping on the water with their feet to bring plankton up to feed on. Perhaps the most abundant shark species here is the silvertip. It’s a handsome shark, sleek lines, extremely hydrodynamic, and with clean silver or white lines running down the dorsal and pectoral fins. The silvertip is pugnacious in personality. They swim directly at you, before banking away at the last second. They are a large, slow-growing species, but here, most were youngsters, not much more than pups. It turns out that this is a silvertip nursery, and further out in the big blue the adults congregate. As youngsters, silvertips mostly feed on benthic (bottom-dwelling) prey like skates, rays and octopus, but as they get bigger, they’ll feast on other predators, like scad, jacks, trevally, tuna, wahoo and other sharks. These in turn have been feeding on smaller fish that may have themselves fed on plankton, and that plankton bioaccumulates poisons like mercury. Every step of the chain results in higher concentration of these lethal pollutants. Even though we are 720km from the Mexican coastline, the silvertips here are still laden with the industrial pollutants we flush out to sea. When I asked Hoyos what would happen if you ate the silvertip sharks here, he explained that it would be “really bad” as his “studies showed that levels of mercury are really high”. “If you are a pregnant woman, you can’t eat predatory fish, and eating one of these silvertips could kill you,” he added. Our main expedition goal is exploration of the undersea features around the distant island of Clarion. The furthest west island of the archipelago, it is 24 hours steaming from the nearest tiny seamount. With Gonzalez on our team, we have been given unique permission to explore the undived sections of the coastline, and to use diver propelled vehicles (DPVs). At the same time, we had to confront the issue that had brought us here. Sat offshore was a sport fishing boat, fishing for tuna right there inside the no take zone. Behind the boat two kites hung up high, taking hooks out behind the stern in order to get as many fishermen chances on the sport fish as possible. For the entire time we were on location the boat anchored in the same sheltered bay as us, and spent its days pulling out critically endangered fish from the national park waters; one of many that openly advertise online sport fishing safaris into this marine protected area. This is surely the equivalent of someone brazenly advertising trips to go and shoot a mountain gorilla in the Rwenzori Mountains. Fact is, this is the high seas, a wild frontier. The temptation is sky high. Pacific bluefin tuna are the most valuable wild food on Earth. In these seas the Mexican navy is too busy dealing with the drug, gun and people trafficking of the murderous Sinaloa cartel, they simply cannot commit resources to illegal fishing. The one thing we had on our side was Gonzalez. As the director of the

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TOP: A giant manta ray gracefully flies through the ocean while being cleaned by clarion angelfish. BOTTOM: Roca Partida is a breeding ground for several shark species.

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national park, he is the man with the power to make big change. What Hoyos needed to do on our few days here was present evidence to him that Clarion was vital, and that it was under threat. Our plan was to run transects off into the blue, hoping to find something of significance. What we found was dolphins. Loads of them. Clarion has more bottlenose dolphins than anywhere I’ve ever been. They’d never seen DPVs before and couldn’t resist them. One dolphin surfed along at the front of mine for about five minutes, his tail fin flapping in my face. Everything we saw, we logged and charted. The most sublime geography was to the northwest of Clarion; dark pinnacles and shards being smashed by rolling white spume. The landscape was giant volcanic blocks, tossed into the sea during an ancient eruption. Between them ran gullies filled with reef sharks, trumpetfish and countless green and olive ridley turtles. Under the power of our scooters, it felt like being a peregrine falcon, coursing through Alpine valleys while hunting. Giant shoals of colourful tropical reef fish, parrotfish and butterflyfish flitted amongst the silver chub and bream of the temperate current; two distinct fauna co-existing in this unique place - the marine equivalent of finding polar bears and lions drinking at the same waterhole. It was jaw-dropping. All the more so because we were the first recorded divers to see it. As such, it was our privilege to name the site. We called it Roca Fregata, after the clusters of frigate birds perched on a black rock where we exited the water. Hoyos suggested we move even further west, to an area where he had caught and tagged sharks in the past. Here we found a cloud of yellow and black striped wrasse, and they were spawning. A female would rise up from the reef and drop her eggs in the water column, then five or six males would rocket up and eject their sperm. Alongside them the wrasse, hogfish, Clarion angelfish and barberfish were all hanging out at one prominent rock, and several triggerfish, like colourful flattened rugby balls were hanging, tails down and heads high to be plucked clean of fish lice. This new site we named Easter Island, for the rock that loomed over it and resembled one of the famous edifices. Hoyos decided to cover our cleaning station with BRUVs or Baited Remote Underwater Video; essentially a camera stuck on a bait box. Like camera traps on land, you can watch remotely with no humans present to freak out the fish. Many of the images showed inquisitive dolphins sticking their smiling beaks into shot. One time, an octopus billowed its skirts up and sat there for fifteen minutes. But then Hoyos and Lara started to pick out sharks, and they were all set apart by one thing. “Galapagos shark,” Hoyos exclaimed. “And it’s a baby, look!” He counted about ten of them. All tiny, no more than a few weeks old. This combined with the data from his acoustic tags left him in no doubt. “This area is a nursery,” he said and explained that the Galapagos sharks travel long distances to get here. Some of them, he suspects, travel up to 2,200 nautical miles from

“Giant shoals of colourful tropical reef fish, parrotfish and butterflyfish flitted amongst the silver chub and bream of the temperate current; two distinct fauna co-existing in this unique place - the marine equivalent of finding polar bears and lions drinking at the same waterhole.”

Galapagos via Clipperton Atoll. The species commits to this fascinating journey to give birth, according to Hoyos, before the young sharks stay in the southern parts of Clarion for around two years before moving up to the north. For highly migratory species like the Galapagos shark, nurseries are vital. While Hoyos and his team previously suspected that the sharks head to the mainland to give birth in the mangroves like hammerheads or that they swim to deeper waters like whale sharks, he is now certain he has found the answer. “We did not know where they give birth before,” he says. “But now we know. They come here.” He then looked across to the illegal fishing boat just a stone’s throw away. “Thing is, nature is very smart. These are top predators, they develop slowly, they reproduce slowly, they have low fecundity - some species have to wait 20 years before they can reproduce. They are not adapted to being fished like this.” Hoyos argues that the people fishing in the area will not only kill some of the shark pups, but also take vital food sources away from the species. The only hope for sharks in the area would be the upkeep of the sanctuary, he says, and continues: “We saw baby silky sharks to the north too. Maybe they have nurseries here. This place is the key to their survival.” When Hoyos presented his findings to Gonzalez, the director of the park made a promise. He decreed that he would find budget for a full-time boat to patrol the waters around Clarion. Offenders found fishing within the park's limits would have their boats and equipment impounded. Repeat offenders could face prison. This may seem extreme to some. After all, a tuna is not a snow leopard, right? But tough times require tough measures. Less than 3% of the ocean enjoys any level of protection. The more our industrial fishing fleets strip our seas in a short-sighted search for short-term economic gain, the emptier the ocean will become, and the more tempting these no take zones will become in turn. Soon it will not just be bluefin tuna that cost as much as sports cars, but yellowfin tuna and billfish. This will lead to total annihilation of our marine ecosystems for fun and profit. It can’t happen. We need to expand marine protected areas and we need to police them, for the benefit of everyone, including fishermen.

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adversity Jaimen Hudson’s stunning drone footage of marine life is known around the world. Having been confined to a wheelchair since a motorbike accident, his story is one of overcoming adversity and reconnecting with the ocean. Wo rd s b y N a n e S t e i n h o ff P h o t o g ra p h s b y Ja i m e n H u d s o n

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soon as my lips touched the saltwater, all the memories of being in the ocean came flooding back to me. I felt at ease almost instantly.”

Turqouise, crystal-clear waters teeming with life, rugged coastlines and lonely beaches, raw deserts and empty dirt roads – Western Australia is a dramatic place with unprecedented natural beauty; a dream for divers, surfers, beach lovers and nature enthusiasts alike. While seeing the region from the ground is a visual treat that leaves most speechless, experiencing it from the air goes far beyond that. Jaimen Hudson, a pioneering drone cinematographer from Esperance in Western Australia, is doing exactly that. He is showing the region from above to millions of people around the world, communicating its beauty in a very special way. Known as one of the first professional drone operators showcasing whales, dolphins, surfers and Western Australia from the air, Jaimen’s stunning images and videos sport vivid colours and rare and intimate wildlife sightings. Since he started operating drones, he has accumulated more than 250 million views on his social media channels by capturing breathtaking drone footage of the region’s beaches and remote, crystalclear seascapes. Constantly patrolling the coastline near Esperance, he searches for seasonal whale populations, dolphins and many other species from above, while seeking to connect people through the power of photography and videography. “I love to capture magical moments that not many people get to see, especially those from landlocked countries. It makes you realise how lucky you are having all of this on your doorstep. I want to bring the ocean to everyone,” Jaimen says with a smile. What millions of viewers of his content might not immediately realise is that Jaimen has been quadriplegic since a motorbike accident in 2008. He has been confined to a wheelchair since the age of 17. On 27 January, 2008, like so many times before, Jaimen set out on his Honda dirt bike to drive and jump around the sand dunes of Wylie Bay east of Esperance with his friends. But when he tried to jump over a dune, he fell awkwardly on his head. He remembers: “When I was lying on the sand, part of me knew that my life was never going to be the same again.” Jaimen was in intensive care for 17 days, after which he slowly learned to come to terms with his new reality. “I tried to focus on the good. Obviously, I had damned days but I wanted to make something out of my life. I kept saying to myself that what is done is done, it can’t be changed no matter how much you feel sorry for yourself. You just have to try to move forward, and I did that with the help of my friends and family.” After the accident, the once passionate surfer and scuba diver was looking for an activity that would bring him close to the ocean again. Little did he know that he would soon soar to new heights. “People know me as the ocean guy. It’s in my blood,” he says. “Aerial photography came in my life by chance. I was at work one day and a guy came into our shop – we own a retail store doing

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PREVIOUS: Jaimen at Rossiter Beach, Cape Le Grand. THIS PAGE: Lake Hillier, a saline lake in Western Australia.

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“I love to capture magical moments that not many people get to see. I want to bring the ocean to everyone.”

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“That was probably the first time a drone ever captured something like that. The sheer size difference between the whale and the paddle board really astounded people.”

Dolphin jumping with sunset. Jaimen remembers: “This is one of those magic moments where everything comes together perfectly.”

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“Being back in the water was amazing. Floating around, I had that special feeling of weightlessness again that I'd lost for so long.”

TOP: A rare sight – whales and dolphins swimming together. BOTTOM: The sun setting over magnificent Wharton Beach, Esperance.

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island cruises and charters – and the guy wanted to go to Lake Hillier, that beautiful pink lake you may have seen in some of my footage. It turned out he was the chief marketing officer for DJI and he was getting some promotional footage for the soon-to-be-released Phantom 3 drone. That was before many people had drones; they were really rare. He sent me some of the footage and, immediately upon seeing it, I was hooked.” Unsure of whether he would be able to control the drone’s remote with his reduced hand function, Jaimen took the plunge. “The first video I created was basically a 360-video, turning the drone around in circles. When I uploaded it to Instagram, I got 90 likes – a big amount back then. People connected with it. I kept practising, taught myself how to fly the drone properly, how to edit the videos and was forever in search of wildlife,” he says. One of his most popular videos shows a man on a paddle board being followed by two southern right whales. “That was probably the first time a drone ever captured something like that. The sheer size difference between the whale and the paddle board really astounded people,” he recalls. Some of his favourite footage catches dolphins playing in waves, seemingly wanting to fly. “Dolphins are the most playful creatures; they seem to have such a great time. Capturing scenes and magical moments like these makes me happy.” Asked about his favourite wildlife encounter, he mentions filming a juvenile great white shark swimming through a pod of dolphins. “The dolphins almost part like Moses parts the sea when he swims through the middle. They keep an eye on him at all times and two of the bigger dolphins follow him to make sure that he’s not going to cause any harm. That’s probably the rarest moment I’ve ever captured.” Technical advances in drone technology mean that operating a drone has become much easier and intuitive. Only a couple of years back, drones had GoPros attached to the bottom of them and you would either set it to do a timed shot or it would take a photo every ten seconds. “The latest drones are amazing. You are able to change camera and video settings while they're in the sky. A touch-screen tablet can do everything for you; that’s why drones are so great for me. I don’t have any dexterity in my hands which means I can’t open and close my fingers. The tablet therefore allows me to change all settings very easily, including the aperture and shutter speed. And in a sense, the rest is history really,” Jaimen explains. While Jaimen does depend on help in many areas of his life, he has managed to get some of his independence back by getting a specifically designed car that enables him to drive independently for the first time in 13 years. “I went out there the other day, tried to get the drone out the backseat and get out the car. It was a real struggle. I thought if people could see all the stuff that I go through just to get these videos for them, they might appreciate them a bit more,” he laughs. Undeterred by the hand that fate has dealt him, Jaimen’s stunning footage reaches millions of people across the

world, advocates for the protection of the natural world and catches media attention from the likes of National Geographic, BBC and Discovery. With growing media interest came a growing interest in his life story, one that is ultimately tied in with an undeterred love for nature, the overcoming of adversity and a breath-taking ability to showcase the natural beauty of Western Australia. Alongside underwater filmmaker and director Leighton De Barros, a documentary about his life story soon came to life. Called From Sky to Sea, it touches on Jaimen’s childhood, the family days spent on the water, his love for the ocean and his accident. The central narrative and ultimate aim of the film is to get Jaimen back into the water for the first time since his accident. From Sky to Sea is a love letter to the Western Australia coastline impressing with spectacular footage of natural beauty and special wildlife encounters. “We went up north for the documentary to try to dive with whales off a boat. On the first day, I was suddenly in 40m-deep water, 5km off the coast. Spotter planes circled above and told us where the whales were. There was a bit of adrenaline going and I thought to myself ‘wow, we should’ve probably practised this in a lagoon first before heading out to the middle of nowhere’,” he laughs. “They pushed me off the back of the boat in my dive gear and I couldn’t wait to spot the wildlife. When you share the water with these impressive 30 to 40 tonne humpback whales and you’re eye to eye with them, it’s out of this world. Being back in the water was amazing. Floating around, I had that special feeling of weightlessness again that I'd lost for so long.” Jaimen has come full circle, he has managed to get back into his happy place, the ocean. His story shows us what unconditional love for the sea and a determination to make a difference in people’s lives can achieve. While drone photography has changed the face of wildlife conservation and has given researchers new insights and exciting possibilities, Jaimen’s images and videos show a different dimension of drone photography. They reconnect people from all over the world to the ocean, they advocate for the protection of Western Australia’s coastlines and speak for the many charismatic species that live in this region of the world. And it seems to work: The comments under his popular ‘Dolphin Haze’ video seem to speak for themselves – "I think this is one of the most beautiful videos I’ve ever seen in my life", "this was so incredibly beautiful, it brought tears to my eyes", "I got goosebumps watching this", "nature at its best", as well as "everything was all right in the world there for a moment". And these are just a few examples. “I’ve been very lucky to have a great life, one that I would have never imagined possible. I’m married, have a son, run a business and do wildlife photography,” Jaimen says. “I think the mind is the most powerful tool any of us own and if we use it to our advantage, we can achieve great things.”

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“People protect what they love” Jacques Cousteau

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Photo by Henley Spiers.

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