The Mangroves at Middle Camp

Our journey to Middle camp took longer than I expected. The southeast monsoon wind has stirred the ocean and our 30ft boat feels very small on its surface, especially riding against the swell of the waves. Our departure was delayed an hour due to last minute technical difficulties – hard drives full with thousands of expedition images crashing and frantic efforts to ensure all images were backed up twice on working devices, and we left sometime after 14h00. Two and a half hours later we, together with all our gear, were deposited on the shores of Malabar and Gilbert, our new and most accommodating captain, promised to return in two days at 16h00 to pick us up.

A small wooden hut with a corrugated tin roof, a few bunk beds and a view over the Pass Houareau channel on one side and the lagoon on the other was our new home. Large Dracula shaped shadows zigzagged across the shore cast down from the soaring frigate birds ahead and the thick mangrove forests that edge the inner lagoon beckoned us to explore – we took to the place immediately; it felt wilder – more Aldabra somehow than anywhere else we had stayed on the Atoll.

Arriving on a high incoming tide gave us the opportunity for an afternoon and evening venture into the mangrove channels across the lagoon. For the first time I was seriously torn between donning fins or balancing on the boat to photograph the raucous of the frigate bird colony in the tall (Rhizpophora) mangrove canopy, which was already speckled with the white of nesting boobies. The different hues of the blue lagoon and the emerald green of the mangrove foliage glowed under that beautiful golden light that only appears in the hour before dusk. The lure of the drowned forest and the multitude of fish sheltering amongst its labyrinth of buttress and knee roots was too strong and I joined Tom and Dan underwater.

Mangroves are essential for the health of the ocean, provide a source of income for coastal people, and protect coastlines from erosion, surge storms, and tsunamis. They support a unique ecosystem and provide a habitat for a wide spectrum of animals, from adult and juvenile fish to sponges, crabs and shrimps. Shrimps use the muddy bottom as their home, and sadly mangrove forests all over the world have been totally destroyed, cleared for intensive prawn farms. (So think again when you see prawns on the menu.) Mangroves desperately need protection – in recent times over half of the world’s mangroves have been lost. Thankfully the mangrove forests here on Aldabra are protected and snorkeling in them with the sun percolating through the leaves and between the roots is a magical experience.

We motored back as darkness started to fall, pushing and pulling the boat over the sand flats in low water. Luckily sleep wasn’t a priority as the coconut crabs, which scratched their claws across the corrugated tin roof, screeching like nails down a chalkboard, all night was followed by a cracking tropical rain storm, and just as silence fell, dimorphic egrets catching insects started banging on the guttering during the early morning hours.

Lemon Sharks Night and Day

Morning...still there


Eighteen hours of lemon sharks! Eighteen hours! … We collected R2 this afternoon and as soon as we were back James downloaded the data and sat watching R2’s recordings. A mix of characters swam past R2’s eyes: plenty of squid, a few green turtles, one swam straight into the camera and eyed it out suspiciously – giving us a full close up, but it was the sicklefin lemon sharks that stole the show, appearing on camera for most of the night and morning. Alas, not one tiger shark or any other large shark was recorded. It really does look like all the large sharks off Aldabra are no more.

On a happier note, our drift dive up the main channel this afternoon on the incoming tide yielded some good images of a couple of grey reef sharks and more lemon sharks. Dropping in on the left side of the channel I looked down and was taken by surprise to see the undulating ripples of the sand on the floor of the channel. The water was the pure royal blue that only comes with excellent visibility and filled with dancing light rays. The current didn’t leave me with time to investigate the deeper part of the channel there and we had to fin hard to get to the side of the coral reef, where it slopes down in a dramatic wall of colour. It was one of my favourite free dives, mainly because the grey reefs were extremely inquisitive, and each time I dived down below them one would turn and swim straight up to me –just to check out what I was and what I was doing there. The good visibility enabled a bird’s eye view of the channel, from the decadent coral wall to the sand and rubble floor. On the surface, however, visibility for part of the dive was down to almost nil as a thick black cloud battered the water’s surface with such heavy droplets of rain that we lost sight of the boat. Not wanting to end up separated and being swept into different parts of the inner lagoon Tom and I stuck close to James, who was dragging the bait drum attached to a very obvious red buoy, while Rainer and Dan were watching the turbulent surface from below on SCUBA.

Tomorrow we shift gears again from diving in the main channel and reef dives on our baiting stations and return to the magical mangrove forests in Pass Houareau, in between Malabar and Grande Terre islands. We will be camping in the little research hut known as Middle Camp, which will give us the opportunity to work that part of Aldabra for three days… and two nights. Mangroves are one of my favourite ecosystems and crucial for the health of oceans. There is no internet connection there so I will be left talking to the frigate birds, but look forward to sharing with you what we find, film and photograph upon our return.

R2 is Out There and the Coral is Talking

We are still in neap tides. Yesterday, like today, the low water prevented us from crossing over the reef until after lunch, but this is Aldabra and a gateway to another world. I never get bored of photographing the shore birds, such as the endemic dimorphic egret or the more common white egret. The harsh middle of the day sunlight makes good exposures almost impossible, especially when the dimorphic, which is dark brown in colour, is in the same frame as the dazzling white feathers of its cousin, but afternoon dives make morning topside photography in beautifully soft light possible.

A team of prestigious IUCN scientists arrived on the island a few days ago. They are here to do coral reef surveys and it is very exciting to be here at the same time to bounce ideas back and forth and catch up on the latest in coral reef research work across the Western Indian Ocean. After-supper discussions last long after our Creole meal and are followed by the sounds of fingers tapping on keyboards, which continue past midnight. We joined the IUCN team on a reef dive yesterday afternoon, located west of Malabar Island near Pass Gionnet (in between Polymnie and Malabar), a new site to us. Dan filmed them as they hovered over the coral, clutching plastic slates and noting factors such as coral cover, fish diversity and coral disease along each line transect. I look forward to learning more about exactly what they are doing this evening, as tonight it is their turn to give a presentation.

After leaving them we headed back towards our bait station 2 and James deployed R2D2 (the remote camera). Yes, after much consternation and determination on James’ part it is working, and as I write R2 is sitting on the reef recording anything that swims within its view. We are all very much looking forward to seeing what R2’s lights flashed in the dark last night.

By 17h30 we were skimming back over the top of the reef but the tide was already too low and we had to push the boat when it got stuck on sea grass beds in the shallows. Back on land Tom and I photographed the coral fossils in the champignons against a cloud-bellowing sunset. The distinct fossil corals decorate the limestone like a patchwork quilt, and sitting in the maze of champignon caves I feel as if I am in a true Jurassic Park. The rocks are alive, speaking of another, more prehistoric time they gurgle and crackle with water and air bubbles and shuffling crabs. These fossil corals, upon which Aldabra is built, reach down well over 1000metres.

The Hunting of the Snark, By Rupert Ormond (Save-our-Seas Foundation Chief Scientist)

We have been extremely honoured to have Dr Rupert Ormond, the Save-our-Seas Foundation’s Chief Scientist, on board as our scientific advisor. We were sad to see him leave the Atoll last week but students were waiting for him in the Red Sea. He kindly wrote a few words and took some images of us, which I have posted below.


Hard to believe my stay on Aldabra is coming to an end. I am having to leave earlier than the rest of the team to run a coral reef course in Egypt. And the past 10 days have been hectically busy, with times of high tides (when we can get out across the encircling reef) and of slack water (when we can work in the channels that connect the outer ocean to the inner lagoon dictating early starts and long days.
As the science “guru” at the Save our Seas Foundation my task was to help launch our hunt for the most impressive marine life that Aldabra has to offer, and support the task of documenting some of this fauna, both on paper and on film (or these days, even in a remote location like Aldabra, in word-processed and digital image form). We have made a good start. Underwater, Aldabra boasts an abundance of reef fish, and an impressive variety of corals, which seem to be recovering well from the high mortality caused by coral bleaching and record high sea temperatures in 1998. And during a lull while we waited outside one of the minor channels for the tidal current to slacken, watching green turtles courting and mating, and the frigate birds harrying the returning red-footed boobies for food, one could imagine that this scene had been played out, unaffected by human influence, for tens of thousands of years.
But we were particularly anxious, of course, to locate and record the very largest animals that Aldabra is believed to harbour - it’s larger sharks. After a week of baiting, chumming and drifting in the most likely places, a clear pattern is beginning to emerge. The small black-tip sharks are common almost everywhere, and given time, lemon and grey reef sharks also turn up, especially in the channels and on the outer reef. But of the tiger shark, the biggest animal haunting Aldabra, there is no sign, though twice during our stay research station rangers think they may have seen one from a boat, the only solid confirmation, short of taking a specimen, would be capturing it on camera. Considering the amounts of bait we have been using, that sharks down current can most likely detect miles away, it’s beginning to look as if there are very few, if any around.
The one possibility is that there are one or two about, but they have been busy elsewhere, hunting turtles or the like in more inaccessible parts of the lagoon (they often enter quite shallow water), or in deep water (where in some areas they prefer to spend the day). Also the home ranges of individuals may be pretty large. Tagging studies have recorded tiger sharks migrating between South Africa and Australia, so the few surviving individuals could easily encompass the other islands and atolls of the Aldabra group within their territory, meaning they could spend most of their time at a distance beyond which they can detect us, or we them.
The other possibility is that tiger sharks may only be willing to respond to our bait and chum at night, though their behaviour in this respect seems to vary between different parts of the world. This is where our remote camera system comes in. Can it document further shark species, or even provide usable footage for our documentary film? James (our science assistant) has valiantly struggled with a whole series of technical glitches, and finally, just a few days ago, got night-time shots of black-tip sharks near the shore. So it was a bitter blow when, on deploying the assemblage to deeper water on the fore reef, the camera control system refused to work. The most likely explanation seems that, now that the computer and power pack box was floating in the sea, rather than on dry land, sea-water got in somewhere and shorted connection. Doubtless it will take more frustrating days to work out. Our hunt for the tiger shark on Aldabra is becoming as convoluted as that for Lewis Carol’s “snark”!

Low Tides, Slow Day

We are back once again in our old research station rooms, bordered by champignons and black tips cruising in the shallows – home sweet home. The school kids left this morning in rough seas for Assumption and the sounds of the island have returned to full volume. The southeast wind brushes through the big broad-leafed trees and needle thick casuarinas, and the resident rail is investigating the mess area for food options.

The tides are playing games with us again… they are neap tides and are at their minimum range. This happens when the moon is in the first and third quarter and the Sun’s forces partially cancel those of the moon. The low tides slow down our work considerably as it prevents our big boat from crossing over the reef to reach the dive sites.

We spent the evening photographing the black tips’ fins in the shallows until it was too dark to shoot, and Dan took advantage of the golden evening light on the champignons, which were exposed down to their base with the low tide, to get some topside footage.

I feel we were lucky to have had the calm, flat waters for so long. We were spoiled, and even though the southeast is not blowing a storm it would make conditions for many shots better if the stillness returned. Perhaps the wind will be kind and we may get another lull before the monsoon is here to stay.

Aldabra on Chocolate and Lemons

Our fresh fruit supply has dwindled to nothing, the last extremely over-ripe banana was cooked a few days ago, the school kids have wiped out the chocolate supply from the island tuck shop (a sight I foresaw upon their arrival but was too slow to beat them to it) and the bait is smelling pretty rotten – but we are all talking big fish, photography and watching new footage every evening – so we are still full steam ahead - whenever we have a boat to steam in that is.

After an extremely frustrating down day yesterday for the team (we lent our boat to the school kids early morning and by the time it was back the tide was too low to cross the encircling reef) we were in good spirits this morning to feel the wind in our faces and wet our fins. The deadly still waters that blessed us these past few days have moved elsewhere, and in their place the ocean has been woken by southeast wind. Definitely not rough compared to the South Africa’s stormy seas - but the water was choppy and the surface speckled with white horses. We managed to time our dive in the coral gardens up the main channel perfectly, as the tide was still going in when we got in the water and the current perfectly slack for most of the dive, unfortunately the visibility was not good. Nonetheless, it was good to spend time free diving in the coral without being pulled along by the current. It gave us a chance to explore the various channels and get id photos of the impressive variety of corals.

Tom and I spent a good half hour trying to get the perfect composition of damsel fish above a beautiful acropora coral head, but the fish insisted on corralling in one particular section. The first time we were there Dan caught a fleeting glimpse of a hammerhead, but today all that came in was a very large lemon and a few black tips. Tom and I were last back to the boat and the lemon surprised us both by appearing out of nowhere to check us out. He was so large at first glance I didn’t even recognize him for a lemon shark. Sadly we didn’t have time to stay on the reef and photograph him, as once again we had to rush back to beat the tides.

I completely forgot to mention that the other day James pulled an all nighter on us. We have all been wondering what the shark population looks like at night here and whether we would finally get some images of large sharks if we did some night dives. … so James volunteered to keep watch for us, put some bait in the water and waited in the darkness to see what showed up. We thought perhaps that the tigers patrol the reef here at night and with powerful strobes we would at least get some images of them, but James never woke us up with news of a tiger or any other large shark. Only the usual characters, grey reef, silver tip, and sicklefin lemon. He did, however dream that a nice big hammerhead arrived but no photos to prove it.

Silver Tips and Rainbows

Tom and Dan spent a couple of hours this morning in the mangroves off the Passe Houareau channel between the islands of Malabar and Grande Terre photographing and filming the abundant marine life. There wasn’t enough room in the unstable and leaking tiny tin boat for the whole team to get to the mangroves, so I waded with a bright yellow pelican case full of camera equipment balanced on my head towards the circling frigate birds. Not far down across the lagoon the boat came into view and I abandoned my plan of photographing the circling frigate birds ahead in the harsh light and squeezed in a quick snorkel in the channel in the last half hour before we had to escape from the out-going tide. It is the healthiest mangrove system I have ever seen, with countless fish species and numerous hawksbill and green turtles. All levels of the ecosystem were present, from the fish that graze algae and nibble on sea grass to predators such as barracuda and the black tip reef shark, who has accompanied us on almost every single dive on Aldabra. Lined with knotted roots where black spotted snappers mingled and studded in large coral outcrops surrounded by schooling fish, this channel was particularly impressive, and one that deserves more of our attention. We reviewed Dan’s footage this evening and it truly captured the spirit of an intact mangrove forest! It also reconfirmed what we have been finding – that the basis of what makes a great still photograph and HD film are totally different. Video is all about the movement and photography is about capturing a moment. Tom wasn’t particular pleased with his results but he made up for it by getting some unique shots of jacks from behind the boat.

Our time at middle camp was cut short for lack of fuel and we motored back to base this afternoon, with the intention of going back there for a couple of days. I was lucky enough to get in the water this afternoon to photograph one of my favourite sharks, the silver tip. As their name suggests their fins, especially the pectoral fins, are splashed with a prominent silver sheen. Shy at first she soon lost her inhibitions and became a very fast and inquisitive subject. They can reach up to 3 metres but we are only seeing small ones here of 1.2 metres, mainly because the fully grown adults are most likely in deeper water - if they have not all been fished out.

On our way back to base we found more mating turtles. Not in crystal clear deep water today, but surfing on the back line! Dan snuck up to them on SCUBA but feeling vulnerable they didn’t stick around and took off for more peaceful waters when he got close.

Every evening is beautiful here, but this evening there is a huge cloud over the Atoll with a rainbow leaping across it.