New Data From the Sea

As I mentioned, uh, I have a long-term project to retrieve buoys that drift across the open ocean.

Uh, every buoy that we've retrieved has had barnacles growing on it.

In some cases, they've already been scraped clean, but if something goes into the open ocean and drifts for any amount of time, it's going to have Lepas growing on it.

That's why they make, uh, such an incredibly valuable forensic tool.

They are omnipresent, and they, um, they grow, uh, from small to big, and so we just need to calibrate that growth.

Helping me, uh, is a volunteer, uh, from Canada, Rochelle Reynolds, who's been absolutely relentless in keeping an eye on the OSMC website that tracks that worldwide flotilla of drifter buoys.

Um, Rochelle, if it wasn't for you, this project would have f- fallen apar- fallen apart a long time ago, so I owe so much to you for that.

Thank you, Rochelle.

About two weeks ago, buoy number 4101868 started to make a beeline toward the island of Mauritius.

This is right next door to La Réunion, so the waters are essentially identical to what the flaperon floated through.

Um, I've seen this kind of thing many times before, but every time in the past, literally every single time the current carried it past or it, it curved away, it's-- These are h- hard targets for these buoys to reach.

They just kinda swirl around them without hardly ever coming ashore.

This time was different.

It was pushed by a strong southeasterly wind, and it just kept going right, uh, towards Mauritius like a beeline, went over the reef and onto the eastern shore of, of an island called Île d'Amber or Amber Island.

So I'd started watching it pretty seriously on Saturday the 17th of October when I got up at 7:00 AM.

Uh, the next morning on-- that was Sunday, I saw it had gone ashore and I started making calls.

It was early in the morning.

My wife was still trying to sleep.

She was not very happy about this.

Um, but at that point it was already mid-afternoon on Sunday, and it was... it's not easy to get ahold of people.

Have to confess, I had a moment of despair whether this was gonna work out.

But I wanna say that the Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita was extremely helpful.

So was Chris from Sea Kayak Adventures, who runs tours out to Amber Island.

But the guy who really came through was Chris Bainbridge.

Uh, he is part of a scuba club on Mauritius called the Mug Diving Group.

As I mentioned, uh, I have a long-term project to retrieve buoys that drift across the open ocean.

Uh, every buoy that we've retrieved has had barnacles growing on it.

In some cases, they've already been scraped clean, but if something goes into the open ocean and drifts for any amount of time, it's going to have Lepas growing on it.

That's why they make, uh, such an incredibly valuable forensic tool.

They are omnipresent, and they, um, they grow, uh, from small to big, and so we just need to calibrate that growth.

Helping me, uh, is a volunteer, uh, from Canada, Rochelle Reynolds, who's been absolutely relentless in keeping an eye on the OSMC website that tracks that worldwide flotilla of drifter buoys.

Um, Rochelle, if it wasn't for you, this project would have f- fallen apar- fallen apart a long time ago, so I owe so much to you for that.

Thank you, Rochelle.

About two weeks ago, buoy number 4101868 started to make a beeline toward the island of Mauritius.

This is right next door to La Réunion, so the waters are essentially identical to what the flaperon floated through.

Um, I've seen this kind of thing many times before, but every time in the past, literally every single time the current carried it past or it, it curved away, it's-- These are h- hard targets for these buoys to reach.

They just kinda swirl around them without hardly ever coming ashore.

This time was different.

It was pushed by a strong southeasterly wind, and it just kept going right, uh, towards Mauritius like a beeline, went over the reef and onto the eastern shore of, of an island called Île d'Amber or Amber Island.

So I'd started watching it pretty seriously on Saturday the 17th of October when I got up at 7:00 AM.

Uh, the next morning on-- that was Sunday, I saw it had gone ashore and I started making calls.

It was early in the morning.

My wife was still trying to sleep.

She was not very happy about this.

Um, but at that point it was already mid-afternoon on Sunday, and it was... it's not easy to get ahold of people.

Have to confess, I had a moment of despair whether this was gonna work out.

But I wanna say that the Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita was extremely helpful.

So was Chris from Sea Kayak Adventures, who runs tours out to Amber Island.

But the guy who really came through was Chris Bainbridge.

Uh, he is part of a scuba club on Mauritius called the Mug Diving Group.