Fading Into The Blue

The rough seas of the monsoon season can make it difficult to get off the Aldabra atoll but the Save Our Seas team found themselves wishing it was even harder to leave…

Standing closer to the bow than the rest of my expedition team, which sat huddled in wet t-shirts at the back, the ocean’s salty spray lashed at my eyes with each breaker that washed over us and I could see every wave that loomed ahead, magnified ten fold in my blurry vision, before we climbed it. Our Seychellois captain had many years of ocean tales to recount and I assumed he could see more sea than I. While rubbing his eyes in a futile attempt to keep them dry, however, he announced: “You never can tell which waves the boat will glide down or which ones we will fly off”, and my knuckles paled a shade whiter. We flew off quite a few, but considering the battle between the current and its opposing 35knot southeast wind staging all around us the four-hour journey from the Aldabra Atoll to Assumption Island went relatively smoothly.

During this monsoon season research scientists on Aldabra are often unable to get safely off the island for months at a time, and watching Aldabra gradually fade into the blue, I couldn’t help but wish I were one of them. How do you breath in – freeze frame the memories of an expedition to a place so far removed from most places on Earth today that it feels like another, forgotten, world? More importantly, how do you take Aldabra to the rest of the world? The Save Our Seas Foundation has joined forces with the Aldabra Foundation to do just this. Our expedition footage and photographs will be become part of an exhibition, travelling to cities worldwide in an effort to raise awareness of the extraordinary natural paradise that still exists on Aldabra and in its surrounding waters.

Back on Aldabra I realized as I watched a little blonde 4 year old, the daughter of Aldabra’s research officer, splashing in the sandy shallows with blacktip reef sharks swimming nonchalantly past her, that this is how it is meant to be. Day by day the atoll revealed more and more of its treasures to us, and with them uncovered a forgotten past that has existed here, unaffected by human influence, since the age of reptiles, millions of years ago. That existence, which once belonged to every tropical reef and mangrove forest on earth, still remains on Aldabra today. Over time these portholes back in time have been narrowed down to a few fragmented protected areas, and most people will never experience first hand planet Earth in all its glory revelling in a life undisrupted by humans.

Even though statistics show that New Yorkers bite more people than sharks, sharks have suffered terribly at the hands of man, and with more than 100 million killed each year, we are busy wiping a group of animals that has survived since before our existence to extinction. The world needs people to appreciate the intrinsic beauty of sharks and their absolute necessity for maintaining a healthy ocean, and I hope that what we found and have brought back from Aldabra will inspire people to go against the ingrained media driven perception of sharks.



We went to Aldabra to document the abundance of large shark species. What we found in a place termed ‘the most inhospitable place on earth’ was one of the most hospitable places in the sea for inshore shark species. Inside the lagoon and fringing reef the blacktip reef sharks proliferate in high numbers – they were everywhere on all our inshore dives. Given time, the sicklefin lemon and gray reef could also be counted on for an appearance, both in the lagoon channels and on the reefs, and on a couple of occasions we were graced with the presence of elegant silvertip and whitetip sharks.

Outside the protection of the reef our search for pelagic shark species revealed empty blue water, and considering the amount of bait we used, which can be detected by sharks miles down current, it looks as if they have vanished from the surrounding waters. Reports of tigers sharks in the lagoon haunted us day and night but these gray ghosts with their vibrant tiger stripes eluded us. We cannot say with certainty there are none left, perhaps those that have survived the long lines of baited hooks in the surrounding waters were hunting turtles in the more remote and inaccessible parts of the lagoon or perhaps they were further a-field; Tiger sharks have been recorded migrating between Australia and South Africa. Another explanation is that they are active more at night on Aldabra, but even if one of these possible theories is correct the numbers are still drastically low. As for the other oceanic species, such as oceanic white tip and the great hammerhead, there were none there for us to photograph.

The words of greatest naturalist George B Schaller could never be more poignant than in this day and age: ‘Pen and camera are weapons against oblivion; they can create awareness for that which may soon be lost forever.’ I hope that the images we have come away with of the magic we did find, of a land and ocean living as it is meant to be, will help to fill in and repopulate the blue voids of the places that have lost their life.

Sleepless at Dawn - with Green Turtles

This morning was one of my favourites. I crept out of bed, unclipped my pelican case quietly (which is near impossible) and crept down the veranda – between our sleeping habits on this expedition, which are far off in zombie land and the crashing of the waves against the champignons below the veranda my tip-toeing probably made no difference. It was before dawn and the beach belonged to me… and the nesting green turtles.


The tide was still high and I was hoping to photograph the late turtles, those that had not yet returned to the ocean after laying their eggs in the darkness of the early morning. Half way down the beach I spotted a turtle in the throws of completing her egg burying routine and managed to get some images of her returning to the ocean. The night had not yet relinquished its star embellished sky to the sun when I headed out camera and tripod in hand but by the time this turtle was on her way down to the water for a photo shoot it was harsh daylight, and she was in hurry to return to the safety of her wet world.


Further down at the very end of this particular beach the first clues of the last late turtle were the sand grains flying skywards in every direction. She was frantically covering her egg chamber and over an hour later was finally ready to shuffle down to the water’s edge. Her eyes were focused on the waves rolling up the beach and once they brushed against her scaly flippers she was gone – part of the sea in seconds.




Sadly, the rest of the day was not as eventful or inspiring. We were all exhausted and pre-occupied with our least favourite task - packing. It always takes longer than you think – especially with multiple strobes, camera housings, cameras, flashes and all the nuts and bolts in between that hold it all together. By midnight we were loading the boat with the final waterproofed bags – ready for an early start the next morning on our “Water World” back over the waves to the island of Assumption.

The Crabs Went Down to the Beach Today

We pulled up both bait stations out of the water today, and with them our hopes to find and photograph large shark species off Aldabra also dried. Inshore, however, we did enjoy a last dive at high tide with the black tip reef sharks, photographing them silhouetted between the champignons. Conditions were not great - a pumping current, which was dragging us and the sharks with it, combined with a rocking bottom surge made it very difficult free diving.


No sooner did we get out of our wetsuits were we rushing down the beach again with cameras in hand. On his way to get his dive equipment from the boat Dan spotted several crabs coming down to the water’s edge together – clutching a bundle of black eggs. For a split second in the flurry to grab cameras and flashes I thought perhaps we were in for the biggest crab treat of all – to see the coconut crabs spawning. They were not coconut crabs but cardiosoma crabs, a terrestrial crab that lives inland and in the mangroves. Still, witnessing these crabs crawl down to the beach en mass at this new phase of the moon specifically to release their eggs into the ocean was a memorable Aldabra surprise.

Turtle Power

Life was back in our warm blood this morning and we headed out at first light to see if we could find some life with cold blood. Aldabra is a haven for green turtles and we hoped to catch some on film making use of the morning’s hide tide and returning to the water after a long and tiresome night digging nests in the sand and laying eggs. Dan arrived just in time to film one green heaving herself down the beach and into the water. They are incredibly graceful creatures in the water – one flick of a flipper and they are off in a different direction or swimming tens of meters down below. Underwater, good photos are almost impossible unless the particular character is feeling photogenic. After the monumental effort they make to nest on beaches it must be such an incredible feeling of freedom for them to sink back into weightlessness.

Later in the day the team split. Dan went out to film on the reef while James kept a look out for sharks at the baiting station. As I have said before, it is the smaller ones you have to watch out for… and on this dive it was one of the balky potato bass that tried to swallow Rainer’s arm. He succeeded as far as his wrist and even dragged Rainer, with his SCUBA gear, along the reef a little. He wasn’t a small potato bass, but the point is he was not a shark!!

While that was going on I was working with Tom, photographing the black tip and lemon sharks inshore in the high water against the champignons. Black tips and lemon sharks swirled around us in a flurry of fins and inquisitive eyes until it was too dark to see any more and we hurried back for Pascal’s (the station’s chef) supper.

We spent the night and early morning hours looking for nesting green turtles on the beach. Each day on our travels to the dive sites we have counted dozens of turtle tracks along the beach and vowed many times to stay up to watch them lay. As expected, we found many tracks but they all had a parallel set along side, return tracks, which meant the turtle had been and gone. Near the far end of the research station beach we hit gold – a single track. Quietly following it up the beach and letting our eyes adjust to the natural light without torches we heard the shuffle and scrunching of sand mingled with heavy puffs of air. She was busy digging a pit large enough to fit her whole body in, flicking sand backwards with her fore-flippers. We watched for half an hour as she dug and shifted sand, until she hit a root and decided the position she had chosen was not suitable for her eggs and shuffled herself further up the beach only to start the process all over again. The top of the beach looks like the surface of the moon there are so many craters and pits lining it from the turtles that come up each night and sometimes dig multiple pits before actually digging the egg chamber and laying.

Moving further down the beach we found another turtle starting the same process and sat watching her for hours, until she gave up, turned around and headed down the beach back towards the water. We left her in peace and moved back to the first turtle just in time to watch her dig her egg chamber and drop her eggs neatly inside it. The precision with which they dig the chamber is amazing – one back flipper at a time they scoop a spoon sized portion of sand and earth and deposit it on the side. By one in the morning she had finally finished laying and proceeded to cover the eggs and compact the sand around it. We didn’t stay to watch her finish, but when we left the eggs were well and truly hidden and she was still busy spraying sand in all directions. By then the tide was at its lowest and I did pity the journey she would have to make across the reef before reaching the water, but at least another generation of this endangered animal was safely buried and waiting to hatch on Aldabran sand – the same sand that is now engrained in our camera lenses!

“No Holiday Camp”

Breakfast each morning in the station’s dining room, a veranda of sort that looks out over the reef flat and onto blue yonder, is usually full of banter with plans for the day being finalized according to the weather and the tides over several cups of Seychelles’ vanilla tea. This morning, there was silence and many cups of coffee. The whole team was feeling rather bleary-eyed after our mid-night unloading escapades and many days on the go in succession, on and in the water. My Dad often says to me with a smile on his face “Do you think this is a holiday camp” when referring to serious situations, and believe me our expedition is not a holiday camp. Photographers and cameramen are not afforded the luxury of going out when the conditions are perfect… to get the shots you have to try try try and try again, which means never ever giving up and going out again and again and again. No complaints though, I don’t think any of us would have it any other way.


After catching our breaths and catching up with important housework, writing, downloading, backing up etc etc. we headed back to the lagoon channel (where Dan floated around with his camera on the lilo) next to the research station and then went up one of the mangrove channels as far as the little tin boat could go. The tide was high and because the mangrove trees were submerged up to their leaves we could photograph right inside the heart of the underwater forest. Hoping that we would get some lemon sharks in the mangroves we pushed on until the sun had disappeared and we were left with little natural light. No sharks arrived, but it gave us a chance to photograph the mangroves themselves and use the light to decorate the water around them.

Back to Base

The morning sunrise over the channel was spectacular – and what a relief to have clear sky and sunshine for the day. We photographed the frigatebirds soaring over the island and the channel, waiting for the wind to die down and for the birds to drop closer to our level before catching the strong gusts and cruising to higher altitudes. In the mid-day heat, when the tide was low, we walked across the lagoon with cameras on our backs in an attempt to photograph the mangroves and the colony from the topside (not underwater). We took the wrong route at first and rather nervously held our cameras aloft as we waded through water waste deep, but soon spotted the shallow ridge and avoided almost certain disaster!


The area is vast – a shallow lagoon fringed with mangrove forest and covered in rippling layers of sand and water. Two hours later we hurried back across the lagoon before the tide turned – too late, we discovered, the strong current was already pushing against our strides. Luckily it was still only at calf level.

After packing up (what seems to be our favourite past time), beaching the tin boat and lining our equipment along the beach we waited for the boat. I sat on my pelican case photographing the frigates again – they are masters of the air and perform great aerial displays from their dizzy heights, mainly to steal something from another bird. The frigatebirds intercept boobies, the Western Indian Ocean version of the gannet, on their way back to land after the seabirds have been fishing at sea and steal their catch by chasing them relentlessly until they regurgitate all their hard earned fish. They also pick on each other, squabbling in the air for pieces of nesting material or simply for what looked like just the fun of it!

Our captain did arrive, albeit late enough to make us wish we hadn’t given the tortoise the remains of our rice or emptied the juice cartons, and we motored back to Picard, narrowly avoiding another thunderstorm, and the luxury of the research station. We arrived at high tide; we are now back in Spring Tides so the tides are at their maximum range, and there was a swell pushing onto the beach that made unloading tricky. Rather than risk the equipment Gilbert moored the boat and we piled into the small tin boat for a ride ashore – piling out on the beach before being dumped by the waves. It was the IUCN team’s last evening and after a hearty supper with a glass of wine, the last thing any of us felt like doing was unloading the boat – but at 23h30 the tide was low and we trundled across the sand flat one pelican case after another.

Black Tip Reef Sharks in the Roots

After an early morning lull the rain clouds returned and we were battered by strong winds and rain until the afternoon. The dark light made photography in the mangroves impossible and we were left at camp with the tortoise and the rail. (more on these characters later)

In the afternoon’s high incoming tide we ventured back into the mangroves. A party of black tip sharks pre-occupied Tom and I as we tried to capture images of them swimming through the roots, while Dan filmed the enchanting network of channels and overhanging branches. When the current was flowing fast and furious I hugged the roots of one tree and toyed with images of the fish flying around the corner of the channel into the main stream. Once the current subsided we finned down the main channel into an area with a cavity along the floor that forms a pool of water at low tide where fish get trapped. Even on the tail end of a high tide the pool was teaming with numerous fish species in great numbers, turtles swimming in all directions, rays cruising past and one extremely large brindle bass lurked in the shadows of a large coral outcrop.

I think our hut could have been pelted by hail and coconut crabs could have been dancing with the egrets on our roof all night and I would have slept through it all.