Student training in Walvis Bay

By Monica Betts - University of Pretoria MSc student.

On 25^th of January 2013 I arrived in Namibia to begin the first part of my Master’s degree under the supervision of Dr Simon Elwen. The main purpose of my visit has been to get some hands on training in order to prepare me for the field work phase of my project. I will be taking over the collection of data for the long term cetacean project currently underway in Mossel Bay, South Africa as well was conducting my Master’s project.

During my Master’s project, I will be working towards establishing some baseline data needed to apply static acoustic monitoring using CPODs  (echolocation click detectors) to studying dolphin populations on the east coast of South Africa. I will be looking into measuring the detection distance of animals and also trying to acoustically differentiate my two study two species, the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin and the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin. If we can get this right, then we’ll be able to use CPODs (which are relatively cheap compared to other types of hydrophone) to improve our understanding of the distributions and behaviour of these species by using CPODs for long term 24-hour monitoring. 

When I first arrived in Walvis Bay the terms ‘CPOD’, ‘Databases’,’ Photo-ID’ and ‘Theodolite’ were completely foreign to me. However, over the last few weeks that has changed. I now know that a CPOD is a device used to detect cetacean clicks over a long period of time, photographing and identifying dolphins involves a lot more than just a good camera, databases that are organized and detailed are essential from the start of the project and theodolite work requires patience and  attention to detail.

My experience here in Walvis Bay has been incredible. I found I have learnt so much in a very short space of time. The most important lesson I have learnt that is although working with dolphins involves a lot of hard work, if it is done properly it can yield satisfying and sometime very surprising results.  I am very grateful to have the opportunity to work with these lovely creatures and look forward to learning more and more about them.

Monica.

 MONICA HAULING HER FIRST CPOD

  HANNAH (RATHER CASUALLY) ASSISTING

 SOME RATHER IMPRESSIVE DOLPHIN JUMPS SEEN AT THE POINT

SKY DOLPHIN

Mission: Hopefully Possible – recovering an (almost) lost C-Pod

By Aurora Nastasi:

In early July this year, we put a CPOD hydrophone down at Sandwich Harbour – the goal being to investigate how frequently bottlenose dolphins go into the lagoon there, compared to Walvis Bay where there are far more human impacts.  However, it’s a really challenging environment to put in a mooring for this type of instrument, as it’s very shallow, with a sandy bottom and lots of tidal movement.

Two weeks ago when we went back to recover the instrument (a mighty trip in it’s own right – taking 8 hours on the boat and >80L of fuel to cover the ~150km there and back) we discovered the buoy barely peeping above the surface. Over the 2.5 months that we left it down there, the entire mooring had become buried by the flood of sand that is moved every day by the tides. The power of Nanuuq’s 120 horsesbarely managed to pull the rope free, but couldn’t move even a centimeter of the weight or its blanket of sand, no matter what direction, no matter how tight the ropes were. Nanuuq had to surrender to the power of nature.

Mission impossible – Plan B. After much deliberation, we decided that the best way to rescue the CPOD was to drive to Sandwich Harbour along the beach as close as possible to the mooring, and to carry and small boat and diving equipment to dive it out. So last Friday, we (Simon, Nico and I) set off on our ‘mission impossible’ with the precious collaboration of Gert and Andries from Namib Diving and Marine Services.

Two 4x4 cars carrying all the proper equipment and a 4 m aluminum outboard with a 30 Hp engine left Walvis Bay towards the stunning dunes of Sandwich Harbor. Once there, surrounded by hundreds of birds and a couple of lazy seals, we quickly arranged our short sailing trip to the buoy to complete the mission as soon as possible in order to come back before the high tide would have obliterated any trace of the road we drove in on. Unfortunately, once on board we found out that the engine didn’t work properly (40km of bouncy beach driving isn’t great for engines it seems) and had to row all the way to the buoy. Simon dove and Nico snorkeled above him while Gert and Andries remained on board as support. In less than 5 minutes the rope was cut and the barnacle encrusted CPod was set free.

We were very happy to succeed in rescuing the CPod but a surprise which made our day even more special was about to come: on the way back to Walvis Bay, a group of at least 20 bottlenoses was slowly swimming (and maybe feeding) along shore, so close to the beach that we could have touched them if we had wished to. We grabbed the cameras and took as many photos as possible as there were many marked animals as well as moms and calves. The tide was arising fast and we had to go back very pleased for completing the C-Pod mission and to have had a further chance to meet dolphins from land…

Aurora :)

LETTING THE TYRES DOWN AT THE OLD SA-NAMIBIA BORDER 

BOAT LOOKS SMALLER THAT IT WAS! 

 PULL START ENGINES & DRY CARBURETTORS = TIRING

HOME AND DRY

 AURORA PHOTOGRAPHING THE DOLPHINS JUST NORTH OF SANDWICH

LUNCH BREAK ON WAY HOME - ENJOYING A RARE SUNNY DAY!

Giving a talk in Windhoek tomorrow about some of our work this year in the Namibian Islands Marine Protected Area which was funded by the Nedbank Go Green fund of Namibia. 17h30 - 8th Floor, Mutual Tower

Just say no to trash!

Nico and Aurora attend International Beach Clean up day for the Namibian Dolphin Project.

'Just say no to trash!': This is the first message coming from the Ocean Week that has started last Saturday. In fact, in spite of the cold and rainy morning, more than 100 Walvis Bay residents attended the Beach Cleaning Day, which was organised by the NACOMA project as the first event of the Ocean Week. In addition, there were representatives from the Army, press, the Ministry of Fishery, conservation projects (NDP, CETN) and lots of passionate school kids from elementary to high schools attending the event. It is particularly to the school childred that the message of 'Just say to no to Trash' is directed.

Under the banner of this message, Mrs. Sue Roux (CETN – Coastal Environment Trust of Namibia) welcomed all the participants in a crowded chamber at the Municipality and presented some of the terrible effects of pollution worldwide; yellow rivers, plastic seas and marine animals wrapped in nets or intoxicated by oil were some of the striking images shown. After the introductions, groups of children and adults spent their morning together cleaning the coastline of the town: from the pump station in the south to Langstrand in the north.

Each group was provided with gloves and recycling bags to sort glass, plastic, metal and paper. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) kilos and kilos of trash were collected: nets, clothes, cans, glass and plastic bottles, thousands of metal lids, cigarette' packs, tires, buoys, newspapers, toys, car windows, bricks, wires and much more were found along Walvis Bay beaches and lagoons. The very same areas used by jackals, flamingos and herons! Besides the amount of litter removed from the shores, one the most important goals of this event was to make as many people as possible aware that Namibian beaches are unfortunately not only made of sand and that trash has an high impact on everybody's life and on our Earth. Hopefully the kids who joined the event learnt that each one of us is responsible for his own trash, and that disposing of it in the proper way does make the difference... and in doing so, it won't be necessary to wake up early on Saturdays to clean beaches anymore!

A big thanks to the NACOMA project for organising this day as part of a global initiative.

Summary of our 2012 winter season in Walvis Bay

First off - a quick nod to Yamaha South Africa - who gave us a great deal on a set of 60HP four strokes this year making them (just) affordable to the project.  These new engines have allowed us to have more and longer sea days, use about 30% less fuel and range much further from home with great confidence. A good investment all round I'd say.

From 00:00 hours on the engines on 08 March 2012 to 309:00 hours today (06 Sept 2012)! All that with not a moments trouble (except for that time we kinked a fuel pipe, but that was entirely my fault, so lets not talk about that).  That's a lot of time on the water - so a big thanks to Yamaha SA for the help.

So - I'm not even going to summarise what we did in Luderitz this year just the 2 months here in Walvis Bay (perhaps next week).  This is the project's FIFTH winter here in Walvis and we have a great time series of data on Heaviside's and bottlenose dolphins and a growing body of data on humpback whales. Turning these thousands of photos, GPS points and pithy observations into scientific papers and hopefully some popular articles will be the focus of our next few months.

So,
July 2012 - 
Team: Simon, Tess, Ryan Reisinger, Meagan Gary, Julie Coffey, Alex Sasso, Jeremy Day and Georgios Cambanis

- 19 sea days
- 16 with Heaviside's
- 9 with bottlenose
- 9 with humpback whales (a record in my experience here)
- 109:06 hours on the water (at an average of 05:44 per day)
- 966.2 km at sea.
~8600 photos taken!
Strandings: 1 dessicated Heaviside only

August 2012:
Team: Simon, Tess, Nico Tonachella, Aurora Nastasi, Meagan Gary, Julie Coffey, Sam Warnock, Alice Affatati and Sabrina Ergun

- 18 sea days (lots of bad weather unfortunately, so some short days but some much longer ones to compensate)
- 15 with Heaviside's
- 11 with bottlenose
- 5 with humpback whales
- 83:57 hours on the water (at an average of 05:48)
- 986.8km at sea.
~8400 photos taken.
Strandings: none (strangely)

So - remarkably similar months all round!

Here is where we went in the last two months, including our trip to Sandwich Harbour:
Legend:
Each dot is recorded 1 min apart and so they represent what the boat was doing at any time
Yellow - Searching
Dark blue - Humpback whales
Bright blue - Heaviside's dolphins
Red - Bottlenose dolphins

Even at this level, habitat partitioning between the species is rather obvious.

You may notice that according to the marine navigation chart and Garmin chart plotter - our boat is in fact a hover craft.  Amazing how much the coastline changes down there as the sand dunes are eroded by the ocean.

A great big thank you for Tess and myself to Ryan, Nico and Aurora for helping keep things together! and especially a huge thank you to all the Oceans Research Interns for coming all the way to Namibia to help us out!

Friendly whales

By Alex Sasso. Oceans Intern July 2012.

Tuesday was my best trip out on the boat yet and I think it will be very hard to top. It was a beautiful warm morning and immediately after launching we came upon a large group of bottlenose dolphins and worked with them for photo-ID and acoustics for about an hour. Then we made our way out to the point and got a report of humpback whales out at sea. We went to go check it out and found two humpback whales with a few tour boats. The whales seemed very relaxed and were moving slow and gracefully through the area. It was actually very simple to keep track of them because they were only traveling at about 2 knots and stayed on the same course. I kept track of their breathing rate so we knew about every 4-5 minutes they would be resurfacing. We got great photo ID pictures of their dorsal fins (“Flatty” and “Hook” were how we distinguished the two animals) and one decent shot of a fluke. We stayed with the whales for a while and they soon became curious about our boat and the surrounding tour boats. They would surface in front of the tour boats repeatedly, as if to check them out and have their picture taken by the tourists. They even spy hopped a few times, which was really cool. You could see all the barnacles surrounding their mouth. Then they came to visit our boat. They swam directly in front of us. We could see them just under the water and they surfaced only 1-2 meters from our boat. It was incredible and probably only lasted about 20 seconds, but it is 20 seconds of my life I will never forget. To have the opportunity to see such graceful and giant creatures, whom I’ve loved and dreamed of studying my entire life swim within a few arm lengths from me was an experience of a lifetime. 

Once the tour boats left, we stayed with the whales to collect biopsy samples. Simon did the shooting with the biopsy crossbow, while wearing a GoPro on his head (kind of like a nerdy Rambo, still very cool though).), and we got great samples from both animals. The animals had little to no reaction to the biopsy dart, which we were happy about because they were such friendly whales and we really didn’t want to make them upset. After our work was done, I drove the boat home for the first time. It was simple because the water was calm, thankfully! Overall the day was a phenomenal experience and one I hope all future interns with have the opportunity to experience as well. 

 

SITTING THERE WITH OUR ENGINES OFF, THE WHALES CRUISED RIGHT PAST US TO CHECK US OUT

ALLOWING TO TAKE NICE ID SHOTS OF THEIR DORSAL FINS

By Julie Coffey, Oceans Intern July & Aug 2012.

This week in Walvis Bay has been full of  unique and exciting encounters at sea. I got my first good look at a Mola mola (sunfish) on Tuesday. You can spot one by its fin lifting out of the water- this one  was about a meter wide and we got some great pictures as he floated just under the surface, they're remarkably boat friendly!

In the office we've been working on photo identification, acoustics analysis, and entering new data. The acoustics data is quite interesting to explore, as you can hear the various whistles and clicks of the dolphins in addition to seeing the representation of sounds well beyond the range of human hearing. Today we were presented with a misty morning on the Namibian coast, but decided to head out despite the lower visibility. We encountered some Heaviside's dolphins by the point but were rewarded further by a humpback whale sighting. After hanging back so the tour boats could enjoy, we followed along parallel to the two adults. To determine the most probable spot of the next surfacing, we timed the intervals of their blows as they travelled. It was truly amazing to be so close to such giant, beautiful creatures! I'd only ever seen whales from a commercial whale watching boat before, but being in such close proximity on Nanuuq was a different experience entirely! I imagine that the thrill I felt as we crested swells in pursuit of the whales must have been similar to what the early whalers experienced. Sentimentality aside, Simon managed to get a good shot at one of the whales so we got our first tissue sample of the day. At some point we managed to swap whales and found ourselves a new individual, but after getting a few photos of him, he headed North along his migratory path and we were back with our original duo. We got another tissue sample from the second whale and then called it a day.