Deep Sea News

Globo is one of the major television networks in Brazil and they are airing this week a special segment on the Darwin and the Adventure expedition aboard the Tocorimé. It is very exciting to see how the production came out. It is all in portuguese except for the English speakers’ interviews. I don’t know how long this embedded video will play, but you can also see it on Globo’s website. Does this mean I am big in Brazil?

For more on Darwin and the Adventure, visit the media page on The Beagle Project.

These are the slides from a talk I gave last Friday to the Duke University Marine Lab on the Darwin and the Adventure project in Brazil. I don’t read off of slides, so alot of info is lacking but you get the drift. Darwin and the Adventure: Sailing, Science and Outreach in South America

Monday, Sept. 21, was a big day as it was the workshop that we had been preparing for. The goal of the workshop as stated on The Beagle Project’s website was to

“… join scientists from South America, UK and USA to identify key opportunities for using sailing vessels for modern research with a focus on marine biology, the Barcode of Life and Earth monitoring. As part of the British Council-supported workshop, participants will embark on two short scientific voyages aboard the Brazilian tall ship Tocorimé into coastal waters to coincide with passes of the International Space Station, and local schoolchildren will experience a real-time Q&A session with astronauts aboard the station.”

The workshop participants came from Brazil, Venezuela, Chilé and Argentina. Representatives from other countries were invited too, but were unable to come and unable to find replacements on short notice. It was a great group and each person had a lot to offer.

Workshop delegates, left to right standing - Gini, Fabio*, Dan, Simon, David, Karen, Markus*, Leonardo*; sitting - me, Sandra*, Patricia*, Ciro*, Juan*, Eulogio*, Adriana* (* denotes a South American representative)

The morning started with introductions Markus Lehmann and Michal Nesvara of the Tocorimé. Unfortunately, I had to miss Markus’ presentation because I needed to set up and test out equipment for linking up to astronaut Mike Barrett in the International Space Station (lame excuse I know ;p). I managed to catch most of Michal’s talk though and it was very fascinating and inspiring. He and some colleagues rebuilt Magellan’s Victoria and retraced his route around the world. If you can understand Czech you can read about it here, there are also some pictures of the boat. The video was great and there is a wonderful book about the expedition. Unfortunately it is in Czech and only a small number of copies came off the press. I hope he translates it though as I think it could sell more copies in English speaking countries as a fun travel narrative.

Afterward we went around the room and heard small presentations about everyone and what their research interests were. Lots of specialties and taxa were represented. Some were ecologists, some were purely taxonomists, some were both. Some did not do any molecular biology or DNA barcoding, some did mostly population genetics, some did a little of everything. Organizations, besides the universities where people worked, represented were NASA, Census of Marine Life and Consortium for the Barcoding of Life. It was a nice amalgamation where everyone had something unique to bring to table. Much of the discussion was focused on how sailing ships could be used in the research or educational programs, focused on the Tocorimé.

The outcomes of the meeting will hopefully be published in a peer-reviewed journal as an editorial or perspective. We agreed that a network of South American marine scientists was needed and they would seek funding and more collaborators to use the Tocorimé as a science and educational flagship. A theme along the lines of “biodiversity without borders” was chosen as a unifying research framework. The participants were very enthusiastic and are doing great research that really compliments each other. It will be exciting to see how it all will unfold in the coming months as we work out the details!

Tocorime

Tocorimé shipboard molecular lab.

Sunday was a big day. We had our first sail, set up the molecular lab on board, did a practice plankton tow, and met the rest of the workshop participants (more on the workshop in the next post). We were picked up early in the morning and taken out to the pier to board a transfer boat to the Tocorimé. At 120 feet, she is a bit too big to dock there during low tide so they keep her parked by a picturesque island just offshore.  She is a beautiful ship, made by hand in the Amazon by Markus Lehmann and colleagues. The story of the Tocorimé is absolutely fantastic and I encourage visiting their website and learning more.

After enjoying ourselves for on deck for a while and talking with the crew and several local persons who were invited to come along, Karen and I went below deck to set up our little molecular lab. It is quite simple and can take up very little space aboard the ship. A thermocycler that can hold 20 samples is used to control the temperature of the samples. It heats, then cools, then heats, then cools, etc for many cycles. A set of pipettes, with disposable pipette tips, to measure liquids. A minicentrifuge spins the samples up to 6000 rpm. This is used during the DNA extraction part of the process to separate the heavier “junk” in the mix to the bottom, leaving the DNA floating in the water above it. Other supplies include a slip mat to put equipment on to help keep things in place, several tubes and chemical reagents for DNA extraction and PCR, gloves to reduce contamination, a styrofaom box to keep samples and reagents cold, and twine to tie down equipment in case of rough weather.

Simon did a demonstration plankton tow. I was busy helping him a bit with it and forgot to take pictures. I’m sure some will show up somewhere. Plankton are easy, inexpensive and loads of fun. It is basically a net that cinches down to a small opening with a bottle at the end of it. Any small stuff will get caught in the net and forced into the bottle. After a few minutes the bottle can be teeming with life! Simon brought a small USB microscope to look at the plankton. Lots of copepods, a couple polychaetes, ostracods, a fish larvae, and one or two amphipods were in the sample. It wasn’t a great sample because of the time of day. Sampling at night is much better to get a greater diversity of small plankton and larvae.

The first sail was a success. Captain Michal (called Captain Romance by Markus) did a great job. I helped to raise sail (it is no wonder sailors are so fit!) and had a fantastic time with a very personable crew. Karen even got up and climbed the rigging!

After we got back to port, we were treated to lunch and Karen, Simon and I headed to the conference center to prepare ourselves for the arriving participants in the workshop. We have delegates from Chile, Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil in addition to us, from the UK and USA. A wide variety of taxa are studied between us all, from several different types of fish to polychaetes and worm-like snail called Caenogastropods to phytoplankton and bacteria.

As promised, here are some pictures from last Saturday. We are back in business now, held our last day of the event and will spend tomorrow collecting all of our thoughts. In my view it was a tremendous success. Our link up to the International Space Station worked and the children got to ask their questions in English to Mike Barrett. They were so nervous and excited. It was absolutely adorable! Afterwards, Karen and I extracted DNA out of another students saltwater mouth rinse using dish soap and their local spirit, Cuchaca – distilled form sugar cane. It was amazing how much impact we made on the students here. This will be for another blog post soon, but I wanted to relay how exciting it was for them, but also for Karen and I!

In short we managed to facilitate of network of South American researchers who are interested in using tall ships as a scientific and educational endeavour, set up and operate a small molecular lab on board the sailing vessel, contribute to a potent local campaign with the Tocorimé, impact the lives ~60 kids locally, connect a multibillion dollar International Space Station to a rural coastal brazilian town through 50 meter telephone line out of a rusted connection at a bar across the cobblestone and mud street, advise local teachers on how to seek funding and collaborations for scientific supplies and projects with their K-12 classes and contributed heavily to the local economy (I don’t want to know what our bar tabs were!). I can’t wait to write up each blog post in greater detail.

Here is a slideshow from Saturday’s photos. Enjoy!

On Saturday, we had logistical operations all day. We needed to finalize our plans for Monday’s workshop and discuss operations with the Tocorimé organizers. The crew of the Tocorimé have been such an amazing and invaluable resource. Their enthusiasm for the project has been spiritual at times. The lovely Adriana and Markus have a can do attitude and have promising goals of using the Tocorimé as a flagship for science, education and outreach.

After a nice lunch, we spent the afternoon hiking up to a waterfall with a natural waterslide and taking a dip in the very refreshing mountain stream. Afterwards, we had a very nice dinner and came home a bit to prepare for eventful week ahead of us, as well as the next day’s sail.

I forgot to purchase an adapter for my computer charger, so I am using a public computer right now until I can borrow Karen’s adapter. I’ll post more pictures up later.

On Friday we were picked up in the morning by a very nice, and patient, driver from Paraty Tours, who deciphered from my pidgin spanish that two of the intended party was not able to make it on time due to plane connection problems in Paris. So it was just Karen and I and the other members would be coming down the next day and more participants throughout the weekend. We picked up another passenger with a cute little maltese dog and made our way (excrucatingly slowly) out of the city. After narrowly escaping Rio (um, story for another day with a few Caipirinhas), we made it down to Paraty in 5-6 hours. The coastline is beautiful here. There are many islands, of all sizes, dotting the twisting, tortured landscape. Mountains give way to sea, lined by large cargo ships tucked away behind the islands to protect them from the open ocean’s fury, while they wait out the economic downturn and once again fill their decks with goods to deliver around the world.

Posado Parque Imperial, our home away from home.

Karen and I arrived in Paraty, Brazil’s oldest port, in mid afternoon and were met up by Simon Boxall, an oceanographer from the National Oceanography Center in Southampton, UK. Paraty is a beautiful, historic coastal town nested in a small bay surrounded by mountains and Atlantic rain forest. We walked around to find a good place to eat, eventually a great little restaurant called Camello that filled our plates to brim with all sorts of food. I had pita with hummus, babaganoush, and drained bean curd, which almost tasted like a yogurt feta hybrid, very tasty. I tried a brazilian pale ale. Although the name escapes me, it was very nice, had a very caramel overtone to its aroma and taste. I felt that it was a pale ale with a bit of nut brown ale in it.

Karen and the banner created by our hosts here!

After making our way back to the hotel, we met with Tocorimé builder and owner Markus Lehmann who took us to meet 60 students from three local schools. The students were handpicked and had spent about a month eagerly learning about Darwin, the Beagle voyage, and oceanography and had prepared astonishly well for our visit! The room was decorated in posters from the British Research Council (kindly translated to portugese by Instituto Sangari) highlighting the importance of evolution to everything ranging from medicine to music. In all honesty, I have never been so impressed with a group of young students. Karen talked Darwin and the Beagle voyage, highlighting the fact that he did all this work while he was a very young man. She also discussed the Beagle Project’s goals. Simon talked about oceanography, the importance of microscopic plankton, and some of his sailing adventures from the North Atlantic. He also discussed climate change and the point of sea level rise really resonated with the children. They wanted to know to make it go back. I told them that entire island countries are already being evacuated and looking for new homes, which received several shocked expressions.

The kids ooo’d, ahh’d and gasped as they were captivated by all tales told by Karen and Simon about doing science at sea. They were very interested in Darwin’s life and many had questions about how Darwin did the research and detailed questions about the Beagle and Beagle Project itself. The whole event lasted a little more than 2 hours. The students (and teachers) were so enthusiastic that it was never a problem to find a question. They valued their education and this experience to be able to talk to real scientists very much. It was certainly a real joy for us to speak with them! Adriana, our translator for this event, said that the students prepared for over preparing and are very excited for Monday when they will speak to an astronaut on  the international space station. In fact, Karen showed them a picture of Mike Barrett in space and they got very excited!

Kids from 3 schools enthusiastically respond to our talks with never ending supply of questions!

After the event Markus, Adriana and the crew of the Tocorimé took us out for a fabulous dinner complete with never-ending supply of Caipirinhas. The owner was a friendly, amazing host who made sure we had plenty to eat and drink. Lots of work ahead of us still! The hotel we are staying at does not have wifi, but does have a land line modem, so updates may not be exactly in real time. I am writing at the end of each day though. Much more for Day 3 and Day 4, stayed tuned!

South Rio de Janiero, looking down from Parque Nacional de Tijuca.

Thursday saw an early morning arrival of a bleary-eyed american to Rio de Janeiro. After making a somewhat easy trip through immigration and customs and picked up my bag (containing suspicious looking molecular biology contents that no one in the US or Brazil seemed to mind) Vitor, an old buddy from grad school days at Penn State, picked me up at the airport and whisked me away to Copacabana. Rio is an interesting city. The contrast between the “haves” and the “have nots” is blatantly stated. Completely run down nieghbourhoods are only separated by a police station from the nicer parts of town. In Rio, its not exactly clear where the tough parts of the city are. There is no distinction between the “bad” part of town and the “good” part. Run down neighbourhoods are deposited in little pockets around the sprawling city.

My hotel was in Copacabana, one of the more desirable and expensive areas to live. Though still not completely safe, I was unchallenged as I walked the main streets after dark. My brazilian friends kept teasing me that they would take me somewhere to get mugged so that I didn’t miss out on the “real Rio” experience! Needless to say, I am glad I was able to miss out on that experience…

Kevin the redeemer.

After a nice strong brazilian double expresso, Vitor took me up into the mountains to see the famous Christ the Redeemer statue and to get some amazing views of this beautiful city of contrasts. Unfortunately, the Lord did not reveal himself to me (yet again) as he prefered to shrouded in clouds. But I can attest, that is one big Jesus! We wandered around a bit lower on the mountains and found some amazing views of they city. I could see the famous futbol stadium where the Brazilian team plays, and several famous area of town, like Ipanema which made me think of the great song about a girl there…

mmmm... Caipirinhas!!

Vitor had to go back to work so I rested a little in the hotel room and walked around the streets taking in the sights, sounds and most importantly the smells. Every corner had a shop selling pastries and freshly baked goods. I decided to take in a very delicious mushroom pizza. I asked the waiter for something brazilian to drink. He did not disappoint an made me a strong Caipirinha. It is a sweet drink made from Cuchaca, a local rum, and crushed limes. It was very nice, I’ve had several more since then. Afterwords, I met up with Angelo, a brazilian deep sea colleague who had just moved to Rio a month ago from Sao Paolo for a new job as a benthic ecologist. Angelo did some cool work studying communities of animals that lived on organic matter that falls down to the deep sea, such as a wood and kelp, but also did some work on whale fall animals in Dr. Craig Smith’s lab in Hawai’i. We walked around till we found an appropriately affordable bar to sit down in. We drank giant-jesus-statue knows how much Chopp (brazilian for Budweiser in my opinion), ate some fried seasoned fishballs, and talked about science in Brazil, stable isotopes, and lots of other great discussions. By the time I got back to the hotel, Karen from the The Beagle Project was checking in and I forced a Caipirinha into her from the hotel bar before heading off to bed.

Panorama stithced together in Photoshop. Rio de Janeiro from Parque Nacional de Tijuca.