April 26, 2012
If you took a quick look on Google Earth at the northern San Andres Archipelago, specifically at the three banks the team visited on this latest mission, you’d think they looked pretty similar. But we found instead that each has its own unique, and important character.
Golden Shadow at sunset
April 22, 2012
Happily, some minds were in fact blown on today’s first dive. The groundtruthing team had promised they found an incredible reef and they did not lie.
We were on the farthest side of the bank from where the Golden Shadow is anchored, the more eastern of two main lagoons. From where we hit the water we had our best view yet of a rusty old cargo ship that ran aground here sometime in the 1990s.
Sonia Bejarano running a transect through the star coral mounds
On the bottom we found a classic reef rising up from a sandy bottom about 12 meters down almost to the surface. We kicked past mound after mound of large star coral colonies. The fish were plentiful and of more species than any but the fish experts among us could count.
April 21, 2012
Late last night, as the research team slept, the crew was moving the Golden Shadow east. By dawn, we were back at Bajo Nuevo with weather conditions dramatically improved.
The crew bringing in the Calcutta to the moon pool loading platform
Scuba diving might seem the most essential activity on a coral reef expedition, but just getting to all these reefs and diving them safely is no simple task. It takes expert seamanship and countless hours making sure engines and other systems are running properly. A healthy supply of Twix bars doesn’t hurt either.
The Golden Shadow’s crew really is the first essential element in making this Colombia mission and the multi-year expedition a success. Everything else stops without them. It has been truly impressive watching these people, who hail from countries like South Africa, the U.K., and Indonesia, do their work–especially earlier in the trip when the winds and seas were so challenging.
April 20, 2012
Each day, as the bulk of the team’s divers head out to the reefs aboard the Calcutta, a group of four divers from Colombia hops in a smaller boat to go looking for queen conch. It’s a continuation of work that’s been underway since 2003 to study conch populations in the archipelago here.
Heins Best getting a heading for a survey site
That was when the Colombian government first closed their conch fishery, except for limited collections by those with special licenses for subsistence fishing. They took this drastic step because the conch populations had plummeted, especially around the archipelago’s inhabited islands, San Andres, Old Providence, and Santa Catalina, about 250 kilometers south of us.
You can find queen conch in at least 36 countries, and they’ve been so overfished in many places that the species is now listed as a threatened fishery on Appendix II for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
April 19, 2012
Today, for the first time, we’re not alone. We are anchored in the lee of Cayo Serranilla, the largest of the few islets at Serranilla Bank. There’s a lighthouse on the island that doubles as an outpost for the Colombian Navy, and once a month a Coast Guard ship comes to trade out personnel. That ship is anchored just across the lagoon from us.
Our temporary neighbor, a Colombian Coast Guard vessel
We have an observer from the Colombian Navy aboard and he went ashore this morning with team member Judy Pacheco, who is along to study the region’s birds. On most days, she goes out on the main dive boat and while everyone else is on the bottom, she’s topside with her binoculars out. She’s seen seven species, like royal terns, frigate birds, and the snowy egret that landed on the ship and took a stroll down one of the hallways.
April 18, 2012
“The area was swarming with large sharks—or ‘gobblers,’ as we called them…The gobblers were a constant problem. At times there were as many as twenty nearby. They were of all species and sizes.”
That’s what underwater archaeologist and treasure hunter Robert Marx said of the waters surrounding Serranilla Bank after an expedition here in 1964. Marx was looking for the remains of the 15 gold-laden Spanish galleons that sunk here during a hurricane in 1665.
Hendra Agusman runs a tender past the lighthouse at Serranilla
April 17, 2012
Our afternoon dive today was more surreal than most. We were on the far side of Bajo Nuevo’s lagoon and instead of a large, defined reef mound, we were wandering through what looked like a field of monuments. They were coral pillars, some two or three meters high.
Coral pillar at Bajo Nuevo
April 16, 2012
One of the most exciting aspects of this expedition is that every morning we get in the water having no idea what we’re about to find. There’s always something interesting to see, but sometimes the reefs we find are a little on the bland side. But what we saw on today’s second dive, chosen almost at random from the several large dark spots we could see around the lagoon, was something to travel for.
A view of Bajo Nuevo light and the lagoon from the Calcutta
April 15, 2012
Suffice it to say there will be no more photos of a mirror-like sea surface anytime soon. This morning we fought high winds and 1.5-meter swells in the channel that runs between Bajo Nuevo’s two main reefs, but still managed to get in one regular and two conch survey dives. There was a nearly 2-meter nurse shark waiting for us as soon as we hit the bottom. And, as expected, we found a place very different from Alice Shoal.
A peacock flounder
April 14, 2012
We made it to Bajo Nuevo this afternoon after a final productive day diving Alice Shoal. Though we didn’t find as much coral at Alice as we might have expected, there is positive news to report here, and chief scientist Andy Bruckner solved one last Alice riddle just before we left.
We didn't see many grouper at Alice Shoal but did find one lonely goliath grouper
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