9 posts tagged “mediterranean”
Entry for September 26, 2006: Suddenly there are dolphins all over the place.
We were all up and making preparations for our final day.
Breakfast was gobbled down, and the Toftevaag was soon cruising out from behind the breakwater.
It was like a choreographed finale. The dolphin sightings started rolling in.
At one point I spent four hours piloting the boat as we followed a pod of Bottlenose dolphins as they fed.
The Mediterranean was as flat as a pond, and dolphin sightings were coming in every half hour or so.
It was a good day.
The sun was setting, and the volunteers were thinking about the booking we had at a Chinese restaurant back at the port. We were taking the couple that ran the expedition out for dinner to thank them for the experience.
I spotted a container ship off on the horizon. This patch of ocean has ALOT of shipping cruising though it.
I’d never seen colours quite like these before. Reality looked like it was being pumped through an Eighties image synthesiser. Or maybe that god had got hold of Photoshop, and was playing around with all the adjustment sliders.
We sailed home into a brilliant sunset after a totally satisfying day.
This is the end of this little series.
I’ve signed up for a whale watching expedition in August so hopefully I’ll have some more stories to tell.
Entry for September 24, 2006: god it’s good to be standing on a solid surface again.
We were desperate to get out and find some dolphins today, so we ventured out into pretty high seas.
We got hit in the face as soon as we rounded the breakwater.
I didn’t make use of the biggest toilet in the world, but others on board did.
In an effort not to repeat the entertainment of my first day out, I sat in the stern and moaned a bit.
I was eventually discovered, and half the women on board formed a queue to ply me with remedies.
It was a really sweet idea, but I felt like I’d been cornered by Macbeth's witches. I was wrapped in wet towels, fluffy ´pressure point´ bands encircled both wrists, chunks of ginger floated about in a mug of water in one hand, and a can of Coke bubbled in the other.
A patch had been applied to my sweat soaked neck, and I had swallowed a couple of pills of unknown origin.
I wish I could have been together enough to have enjoyed the attention.
There was a diesel spill on deck, followed by a crash from below decks. A large bottle of cooking oil had spilled in the kitchen. I was rostered on clean up.
Took me all afternoon to clean up the mess.
Upside was that today was when the dolphins chose to appear and we cruised amongst a pod of fifty dolphins for most of the afternoon, before being forced back to port to avoid damaging the ancient old ship.
When we got back to port, we all piled into the expeditions van. A message had been received by the captain that a baby Risso dolphin had been washed ashore by the weather.
It was dead when we arrived, despite the efforts of local volunteers who had been looking after the little chap all night.
.Ana took a biopsy sample.
Entry for September 23, 2006: Day off.
OK, I’m committed to getting this lot out of the way so that I can move on.
The previous entry is here…
My skin is tight from sun and salt.
While I'm writing this, I'm pondering the boring bits, which get left out of stories. Especially the waiting, such as for transport to take me somewhere else.
Last night the storm blew in from out in the Med, and we were warned ‘that those who chose to sleep out on deck’ should be prepared to quickly decamp to the cabins if the rains came.
As we climbed into our bags big winds whipping at the canvas and rigging. It wasn’t long before the two girls who were sleeping either side of the mast escaped the weather down below decks.
I slept through most of it, and at one point woke up and watched the clouds speeding across the black sky, and felt a few random drops on my face.
A couple of big waves washed over the sea wall. The boat was rolling a bit more then usual in the relatively calm waters of the marina.
We’re all waiting to see if we can go out this afternoon.
I've been sleeping out on the deck, and as we have worked our way through our stay on the boat, the night dew has been getting heavier.
The water is pooling on the vinyl mats during the evenings. I need to swab down the mat down before I layout my sleeping bag. Waking in the morning, I’m finding the outside of my sleeping bag is dripping. Must be a good bag though cause I’m quite dry inside.
Today was our ‘day off’ so we all piled into a hired van and drove to Granada to visit the Alhambra castle.
An American drove, which is good cause they’re used to driving on that side of the road.
We got there early, but we found a huge queue.
We took it in turns to visit toilets and the coffee shop.
Eventually we got our tickets and strolled off to find lunch. Our entry time wasn’t until late in the afternoon.
The country side is really dry in this part of Spain. Reminds me of Oz.
Entry for September 22, 2006: Back again.
We’re back in Almaria, and the weather has trapped us in port again. We all decided to splash out and have lunch in a Spanish restaurant on shore. We made ourself comfortable round a big table in the shade. I must be getting my sea legs cause I’m noticing the absence of movement when I step on land (sitting on the loo in the enclosed cubical of the shower block amplifies the sensation.)
The local drink isn’t Sangria. It’s a mixture of red wine and lemonade. Really nice on a hot Mediterranean day, accompanying a big black pan of Paella.
We all take a turn preparing meals on the boat. No one is taking the task of ‘feeding the crew’ lightly, and I’ve had some great dinners.
Lunch is usually served out at sea. A selection of cold meats, salad vegi´s, bread, cheese, tinned tuna, and assorted cold leftovers are spread out over the section of cabin that I have been sleeping on.
We all build salad plates or sandwiches for ourselves and sit round the boat chatting.
We are sailing a vintage Norwegian fishing boat, so all the guard rails are thick wooden planks, like on a pirate boat, so we can sit on the rails and eat, or peer down into the water looking for dolphins and turtles.
I had been one of the last to be rostered to prepare the evening meal. Most of our amateur chefs bolt onto shore, soon after landing and are neglecting the onboard supplies, so I felt that I should use up some of the stocks that had been persistently lurking in the back of the pantry.
I found six tins of hot dogs in the galley, some rolls, and recruited some volunteer kitchen hands help with whipping up three different types of salad (just to make sure the lone Vegi had a good feed.)
Since we’ve been land bound, we’ve been skipping out after dinner to have a night cap in a local café.
The Spanish really know how to pour a drink. The waiter appears with a wide thick walled glass and pours a really decent slug (at least two or three fingers) of spirit at the table.
None of this ‘dribble squeezed out of a bottle suspended upside down behind the bar, chocked off with a tight arsed measuring device,’ that I’m used to back home.
I’ve been alternating Calvados, with a nice Chivas.
As mentioned in an earlier entry, the hotel I was staying in when I first arrived, neglected to wash the bag of clothes I left out for housekeeping.
I started hand washing a few t-shirts and boxer shorts in the bathroom sink a few days back, and it looked like I was going to spend the next couple of nights working my way through a bag of clothes that were stiff from sweat.
Lucky, the Mexican girl on board specks Spanish (she tells me that Mexican Spanish is quite different from the ´mother tongue´) and she helped me find a laundry, and negotiated to have all our soiled clothes cleaned and pressed.
Entry for September 21, 2006: Knowing the way to San José isn’t the problem. It’s getting away!
Continuing the series of blog entries. The previous entry was here…
Abandoned boat.
This is our second day moored to the dock.
There has been a storm warning out in the Med. Despite the alert we set out early this morning. We were all tired of hanging around the port.
Once outside the breakwater, the swell was pretty choppy and I enquired of the captain, as to whether we would use the possible evacuation of my stomach as an indication that we should head back?
His reply was that ‘a decent percentage’ of the crew hanging over the railing would be more persuasive then just my discomfort.
Once out there, the captain cruised around a bit, and got concerned
that the ship was going to suffer some damage, when she slid into the
troughs, and slammed through the oncoming waves, so we headed back to
port.
Rather then mooching around the boat and surrounding harbour, we all were appointed Boat maintenance jobs. Some people bitched a bit, but I was hanging (note: 'hanging' means highten expectation) to lay my hands on this beautiful old vessel.
I got to wield an angle grinder with a sanding disk bolted to the shaft, and I stripped a century worth of layered varnish off the forward hatch and the rear railings.
We stripped off, and re-caulked the gaps between the decking planks and brushed on a protective coating of modern lacquer, bringing all the wood up to a high gloss.
Very satisfying.
This was ‘Dolphin by committee.’ The four people assigned to the job spent more time talking about what they should do, then the actual instillation.
The figure head looks good though.
Continuing the series of blog entries. The previous entry was here…
Entry for September 19 2006: Back in the Port Almaria
On leaving San Jose, a buzz worked it’s way though the crew. Something had been sighted out in the Mediterranean and it wasn’t dolphins.
We soon drew up to an abandoned boat. A small aluminium dinghy. The sort that weekend fishermen use back home.
As we approached the rolling tub, the scuttlebutt amongst the crew was that the boat could have been used by drug runners or refugees.
The boat was empty but for a pile of orange life jackets. It’s hard to believe that people set out across the Mediterranean in craft that should be punting about on a quiet lake.
Something must have caught someone’s eye cause the boat was hooked, and bought along side.
Intrepid Carlos (the one whose snoring, I reckon has been scaring away anything with ears for a few hundred kilometres) leapt aboard the wildly pitching dingy and after working away with a wrench, retrieved a compass of surprisingly good quality.
As we pulled away, the sad little vessel was drawn under our Zodiac, and sunk. All that was left was a few life jackets floating on the surface.
This was one of two abandoned boat we had found that day, but the only one that we sank.
We were told that the life jackets are left behind on the boat, which is abandoned close to shore, as the refugees don’t want to leave a trail of evidence of their arrival on shore.
As I am prone to creating back stories for everything, I reckon a group of individuals decided to escape North Africa.
They pooled resources and acquired a boat. One of them knew what he was doing and insisted that they spend decent money on life jackets and a good compass.
After braving the open sea, they abandoned the boat and swam to the Spanish shore.
A comedian reckoned that if they dressed like American tourists, no one would question any strange behaviour.
I reckon the person who knew what he was doing, might possibly do this a lot, and he was at that time making his way back to North Africa to find the next set of desperate individuals.
I'm finding my sea legs and feel much better as we headed out to sea.
As to daily life on the boat…
There was no swimming with dolphins cause we were trying to be non-invasive, but I did pilot the ship for four hours while we tracked a pod as they chased down their lunch, in a huge triangle around the Mediterranean.
Non-invasive isn’t strictly true cause at one point we sent a team out in the Zodiac to get DNA samples, by jabbing a couple of mammals with a ‘core sample knife’ attached to a long pole.
We all have a roster of jobs assigned, such as helping take samples from the dolphins, or keeping watch, or noting down environmental data, or steering the boat.
There are also the domestic chores of cooking and cleaning the tolet.
The most boring job was ‘lookout’ and I had problems maintaining attention while staring out at kilometres of rolling ocean.
The ID process is known as ‘Photo tagging’ where a photo is snapped of the animals fin. The marks, nicks, and gouges are used to identify each animal.
This used to be really expensive and time consuming process back in the days, when the researchers had to wait for the exposed film to be developed on land.
Now Ana spends an hour at the end of the day, downloading the memories from the digital cameras into laptops.
We all take a turn cooking dinner, and people have been putting in a bit of effort, which includes bolting off to the supermarket when we hit land at the end of the day.
We all sit round on the shadowy bare dangling light bulb lit deck, scoffing and chatting about the day, or trips made in the past.
I have discovered that one must never speak of ex lovers, or about previous groups of volunteers
Ric told us that in the past, the permanent crew cooked all the meals for the volunteers, there used to be luxuries such as pillows provided.
We also heard that one group in the past spotted a sperm whale.
Considering how rough we were living, and the lack of sightings, these stories tarnished a bit of the shine from our adventure.
Entry for September 18 2006: Port of San Jose
The original one…
You know, 'do you know the way?'
Our new mooring is stunning. The water is so clear, it’s like wobbly solidified air. The tiny town that hugs the port beautiful too.
As soon as we docked yesterday afternoon, the captain disappeared to have a shower.
We all de-boated and swarmed into a bar that sat right on the docks.
Up till now, Ricardo had been grabbing a quick sluicing under a hose on the pier in the mornings, before for starting the engines.
He reappeared next to our table freshly scrubbed and sporting pants that had been ironed. He disappeared off into the Spanish countryside with an American fisheries researcher who had been hitching a lift with us, to attend a meeting with some political big wigs.
We still haven’t spotted much dolphin activity.
We finished our afternoon drinks and all decided to take advantage of these 'decent' amenities.
The girls managed to lose the key to the women’s showers.
To the rescue was the young air stewardess from Hong Kong, who shimmied through one of the small round windows to let them all in.
The key turned up later in someone’s toiletry bag.
I’ve felt very rough the first couple of days which could be a problem as the weather has been pretty good.
I’m the only one to chunder, and I did it on the first day out.
I'm beginning to think that a holiday on a boat wasn't such a good idea.
Over dinner, we heard a story about the ‘one time past’ when Toftevaag was caught out at sea during an unusually violent electrical storm.
Ana was freaked out cause they where sitting under the only tree for hundreds of kilometres.
The mast!
Now that the rash of local street festivals has passed, I'll get back to detailing my Spanish adventures.
Previous entries can be revised to here...
I’ve been meaning to get to visit Spain for a long time.
Entry for September 16 2006: Aguadulce.
Yesterday, we left Almirima at the crack of dawn. Our wake up call was the sound of the Toftevaag’s engines firing up.
Our first day was spent getting to know the rhythm of life on the boat, as we sailed up the coast to this mooring in Aguadulce. Not allot of dolphin action yesterday.
We were all a bit groggy today for a variety of reasons.
This morning our wake up call was again the sounds of marine diesels coughing to life deep below decks.
Most of us were kept awake last night by the disco music, rolling out over the marina from the clubs on shore.
I would have slept well if not for Carlos (one of the regular crew who was sleeping on the other side of the deck from me) who snored so loudly that the ear plugs I inserted to block out the disco beat were rendered useless. His snoring resonated through the wooden deck, and travelling up into my head, thorough the thin pillow I was using.
The sensation of the wind moving over the outside surface of the bag while I was warm inside was a bit weird.
Two of the girls have positioned themselves back near the captain’s cabin, either side of the secondary mast. The American lighting rigger has wedged himself somewhere up in the bow.
A bit of background on the research:
The mission started in 1992, after the Toftevaag had been restored and refitted
The first project was the study of a mass die-off of the striped dolphin off the coast of Spain.
Recently they have focused on monitoring of cetacean populations that have been suffering a regression in the Mediterranean over the last few decades.
The research site chosen is the Alboran Sea, the transition zone between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
They have a dream!
That one day the more critical habitats for the conservation of Mediterranean cetaceans will become a network of marine protected areas.
The project also focuses on raising public awareness in local communities and liaising between those with conservation aims and commercial interests.
Entry for September 16 2006: Waiting for the boat.
The hotel managed to not wash the bag of clothes that I dropped off to 'housekeeping' yesterday, so I board the boat with a bag full of stinky clothes.
I exit the hotel and find the other volunteers out the front of the hotel, and we all meet Ricardo, our captain.
We pile into a van, and were driven to the resort town and marina of Almirama.
I’m spending the next two weeks on a dolphin research vessel which is a restored historic Norwegian fishing ship called the Toftevaag.
Ricardo told us a story of when they were stripping the boat down. They pulled up some old flooring and found some old maritime charts.
One of which had a swastika stamped in the corner (they reckon the fishing boat had been requisitioned.) Another had what looked like an annotation of an island that the crew had discovered.
Our mission is a long term study of Mediterranean cetaceans which will hopefully crystallise into a network of marine protected areas.
This little adventure is a volunteer program run by EarthWatch.
Here is their website if you want to check it out...
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