"Cetacean soup at two o'clock!" was the traditional
call to action-stations from spotters in the crow's nest of the Toftevaag. It
would signify that the sea was 'boiling' with a herd of anything up to eight
hundred dolphins.
Then a group of researchers from North Carolina
came onboard to work and the cry was never heard again. Like overly-sensitive
nurses, the Toftevaag lookouts seemed to understand that people who were
struggling to save endangered marine turtles might not appreciate gratuitous use
of the word 'soup.'
Few of the yachtsmen who sail the busy waters around
the Straits of Gibraltar are even aware that giant marine turtles exist here.
For local fishermen, however, they are a constant irritant; every day a hundred
loggerhead turtles are accidentally caught in the long-lines of the Spanish
fishing fleet.
Dr Scott Eckert of Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation
Network (WIDECAST) believes that this area may be the meeting place of
long-ranging seafarers from the Caribbean loggerhead population and that of
Greece and Cyprus.
"A loggerhead turtle has to dodge the fishing fleet
for at least twenty years before it can return to breed," he explains. "We need
to develop safer fishing methods and a protected zone where marine animals can
mature in safety. If we can't help Spain's next generation of breeding turtles
to survive now, we might never get a second opportunity."
So WIDECAST has
come to the Alboran Sea - where Mediterranean mixes with Atlantic - to begin a
programme of satellite tracking that Dr Eckert's assistant Stacey Kubis
describes as "teenage turtle alien abduction."
Aboard the Toftevaag they
have found the perfect mobile laboratory and a crew that has an unmatched
knowledge of what is now recognised as the most productive region in the
Mediterranean. Ana Cañada and her husband Ric Sagarminaga (skipper) have
renovated this hundred year-old classic timber sailing ship and have fitted her
out with all the high-tech paraphernalia of a modern research vessel.
Ric and Ana have spent the last decade studying Alboran's wealth of
marine life that includes dolphins (striped, common, bottlenose and Risso's),
pilot whales, fin whales, beaked whales, sperm whales, orcas, great whites and
three types of marine turtles. The data that the Toftevaag is collecting on all
these populations will finally be used to establish the boundaries of Spain's
most important marine reserve.
As the Toftevaag eased her way out of
Sotogrande marina one morning last summer she was carrying a typically
international crew: 2 Spanish, 1 Dutchman, 3 Americans, 1 Swede, 2 Germans, 1
French and 3 Brits. Ric and Ana's daughters, Claudia and Carolina (already
impressively tri-lingual at only 10 and 7 years old) scrambled through the
rigging with the same casual deftness with which other kids field their text
messages.
With a few exceptions we were mostly confirmed land-lubbers but
during the couple of days we needed to get our sea legs the Mediterranean
treated us gently. We had come as volunteers, 'recruited' through the charity
organisation Earthwatch Institute, to spend eleven days living on the Toftevaag
and providing the extra man-power which is vital if the marine park is to become
a reality in the near future.
This was no lazy, Andalusian beach-break.
Dawn to dusk was spent at sea in a rolling roster of helm-duty, deck-watch,
analysing water salinity and temperature, listening for 'submarine
conversations' on the hydrophone and recording changes on the depth-sounder as
it builds up the first complete underwater map of the Alboran Sea. 'Extreme
lookout-duty' in a swaying crow's-nest (12 metres above the waves) was
optional.
Not all was routine. We stopped for swims on the open sea -
occasionally sharing the water with dolphins, but making sure to put some
distance between us and any neighbourhood sharks. Several times we were buffeted
by sudden squalls that made spotting impossible (and turned the crow's-nest seat
into a rollercoaster ride).
It was unusual to sail for more than two
hours without seeing dolphins or pilot whales and once we were joined by two fin
whales (which fall short of the title for 'world's biggest animal' by barely two
metres). Striped dolphins, with their sleek hourglass patterns, jumped alongside
as we travelled and common dolphins surfed the Toftevaag's bow wave.
Speeding dolphins can swim at up to 25mph and a splinter group of
volunteers would often have to scramble into the Zodiac to get close enough to
collect data. Notes are taken on behaviour (travelling or hunting), on what
animals are in the group (cows, calves) and painless skin swabs are taken with a
'harpoon' tipped with a brillo-pad (for DNA analysis).
Up on the
Toftevaag's bow Ana was permanently busy adding to the thousands upon thousands
of photographs of dorsal fins that she is taking for the Europhlukes database.
The marks on a dolphin's or whale's fins are as individual as our fingerprints
and Europhlukes (which is modelled on the FBI's list of most-wanted criminals)
will soon be able to provide detailed knowledge of the movements of hundreds of
individual marine mammals.
Several times we got to see what 'cetacean
soup' really means. A herd of six hundred leaping dolphins is one of the most
incredible natural sights in the world. All around the ship, and seemingly all
the way to the horizon, the water was full of splashing dolphins.
Turtle
spotting is not so easy. In fact it takes a seriously practised eye to discern
the subtle spec of olive-brown that betrays a basking turtle.
"Turtle!
200 meters at 2 o'clock!" comes Stacey's shout from the crow's-nest. We scramble
into the Zodiac and within a minute ease up behind the giant reptile. Ric leaps
into the water and grabs hold of the front and back of the turtle's shell. It
might sound like too much fun to be seriously scientific but experience has
shown that what the team calls 'turtle rodeo' is the only effective way of
subduing the animal before it can dive.
The turtles were measured,
weighed, checked for parasites and scanned for hooks. Then a sliver of flipper
would be taken for analysis and a microchip and a satellite-tracking device
fitted. By the time the captive goes back overboard after its 'alien abduction'
Dr Eckert estimates that it has roughly $10,000 of WIDECAST's precious budget
riding on its back.
A lot of hopes are also riding on the crew and
volunteers of the Toftevaag. Well-known in every port and marina between Almería
and Tarifa she has become, quite literally, the flagship in the fight to
establish a new Marine Protected Area (MPA) on the edge of one of the world's
busiest shipping channels.
The Toftevaag's classic good looks have helped
the scientists to win support from a section of the community that might have
been expected to be against the foundation of a marine park. But Andalusian
fishermen are not blind to the decline in catches and many are in favour of the
establishment of a protected area that would become the spawning grounds for the
catches of the future.
Ana has already secured assurance from the Spanish
Navy that they will refrain from manoeuvres in areas that are frequented by
sensitive beaked and pilot whales, which suffer internal haemorrhaging caused by
the fleet's sonar equipment. Although the Toftevaag has the full backing of the
government they are now entangled in a web of red-tape as the national
government and the Junta of Andalucía squabble over who should actually pick up
the final bill for the running of the park.
This can be frustrating but
while the politicians haggle, the Toftevaag continues her long hours at sea. As
Ana points out: "we have to act now because with each year that passes there
will be less marine-life to
protect."
