Actualizaciónes Updates

I'm in Ireland right now, between the mountains and the sea, somewhere south of Clew Bay, North of The Killary Harbour and West of Croagh Patrick.

I'm still working on a conservation project in Galápagos, supported by The Rufford Foundation aswell as other projects. I will be back in Galápagos this winter investigating conservation threats to marine algae.




In the meantime, its all happening here and its all about Irish Marine Life, read it all here: Irishmarinelife.com

Old sailors

Our first voyage of 2009 and our last of the magnificent algal/herbivore project was once again undertaken on the trusty MV Pirata. You may remember this as the wooden pirate ship from a previous voyage. Once again she proved seaworthy, trustworthy, certainly worthy of our crew of maverick ecologists.

Again we went to the ends of the earth, Genovesa Island where sharks disrupted our fish transects and Fernandina, which I am adamant is not of this world and which I am sure I will never see its like again.

Our scientific crew comprised of Luis, the leader of the project and who never once referred to Robby in a masculine sense; Diego, a seasoned ecologist on paid vacation from the research station; Daniel, who is slowly coming out of his shell; Robby, who has fooled everyone into believeing he is a Quiteño and myself, the now resident algal slave who shall one day succeed in translating Irish sarcasm into spanish.

It did not go unobserved that this was our last such voyage and the emerging success of the removal of our valuable experiments from the fearsome intertidals lent an air of triumph and conquest towards the end of our trip. This manifested itself as a lot of fun and unending jokes as we were carried by obliging seas homewards.

Photos are from the camera of Robbie Lamb*

Updates from a tired ecologist

Cambios temporales en las communidades intermareales de Galápagos.
Temporal changes in Galápagos Intertidal Communities.

This is the idea folks, since December 2008, I have been pursuing this theme in my capacity as a voluntary researcher at The Charles Darwin Research Station in Santa Cruz island.

´´The marine ecosystem monitoring team of The CDRS provide information in the form of technical recommendations to the Galápagos National Park authorities to guide the implementation of conservation management strategies for the Galápagos Marine Reserve´´.

Thats the official line and I play a small part in the great master plan of understanding and managing our ecosystems, Its all about the ecosystems........

Another project I am trying to breathe life into is the investigation of meso grazer communities among algal assemblages in areas of varying productivity. We are sitting on a mountain of fabulous data and if we have the time and money, some great things will come out of this. Again, the ecosystems.....

Other projects I lend my diving assistance to are the investigations of urchin communities and shark monitoring activities. Its as fun and intersting as it sounds.

I will share more about these scientific adventures in posts to come

Donde se ha ido John Paul?

Tranqilos amigos, a los cientos quien me siguen, todo está bien. Aqui les dejo un resumen de los dos ultimos meses....

Me fui de las islas, pasé super bien en Quito, despues de un viaje feo, me encontré en mi isla original, Irlanda, de nuevo, donde yo llegué a conocer mi sobrino gordito y bonito y renové la amistad de unos de mis mejores amigos.
Despues de comer todo de lo que mi madre podía cosinar para su hijo favorito, y bueno, unico, me fui a Panama.

Ahí, Las ratas y la gente me trataron de robar (las ratas tuvieron mas exito que los ladrones, cierto mas intelligentes son). Por eso yo me quedé debajo el agua por la mayoria de mi tiempo ahí, y llegué a ser Divemaster. En verdad, nadie sabe lo que significa este titulo, pero si tienen preguntas sobre algo de buceo, escribanme...

Me fui lo mas rapido de ese pais y ahora me estoy alistando para mi proximo proyecto en Ecuador....

Es un resumen bien corto, pero cuando sienta mas la creatividad y talvez la influencía de cafe escribiré de nuevo.......

camino a puerto chino

Sé que no he escrito aquí por un buen rato, lo que pasa es, ahora estoy en Londres, donde no habla nadie español, nisiquiera mi teclado tiene las letras en español para escribir! Por eso yo disculpo a los españoles.
Tambien tengo ganas de escribir en espanol, por que, ya estoy afuera de mi segundo pais, Ecuador, por unas semanas, tal vez meses, y ya lo extraño.
La noche de 16 de Octubre, yo pasé un super buen rato en un concierto de mis amigos Arkabuz. Eso era mi 8 vez, o algo asi, que les he visto. y te tengo que contar, cada vez mejor que la anterior. La primera vez, hace casi un año, tocaron con un accordion, exactamente como tenia mi granduncle en Irlanda y todovia lo tenemos en nuestra casa. Es un accordion raro, con butones en los dos lados. Y no puedes imaginar como increíble era ver eso en una isla en el oceano pacifico. Y en esa noche, hace una semana, cuando yo estuve extrañandoa full a mis islas, me alegraba tanto ver eses chicos.
Siempre les estoy contando, tienen que pasar por Europe! Por Irlanda, todas de eses paises! Les recibirían y su musica super bien ahí! Pero creo que, como me siento ahorita sentado en un departemento en Londres(pero iqual,voy a estar en el surf en pocos dias en Irlanda,frio, pero mejor que nada) prefieren quedarse por el mar y el surf y las iguanas y los lobos. Y porqué no?!
Si quires conocer este grupo pasa por aqui http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSC7hRYpDZk&feature=related o aqui http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=138821827 o mejor, buscales por Tongo Reef, cuando haya holas del sur, y poco viento.
Chuta, esto es lo mas que jamas he escrito en este idioma, disculpa los errores....!


If you want to know the coolest fricken band in Ecuador, who I have seen about 8 times in one year, and who were fairly incredible last thursday night in Quito, check the above links. Im writing in spanish because Im now in Europe again and it would make more sense to write in english here.

Bigger

I definately moved to Santa Cruz Island yesterday.

A bigger island. 50 miles away from San Cristóbal. A bigger gene pool. Snatched conversations and dug up marine biology reactions are replaced by constantly streaming, publication led and authoritative discourse about our favourite subject. The next best thing to studying marine science is sharing it and at The Charles Darwin Research Station, where I am paid whatever I am clever enough to take away with me, and no not anything tangible, you know what I mean, interesting conversations are the norm.

In front of my desk a square fish tank sits with a patient octopus shading himself underneath a piece of lava rock. Crabs scuttle and scrape nervously around the tank, every so often making unsuccesful sorties to scale the slimy glass and be gone from him. They know what he did to that crab last night. He ripped him limb from limb and left his tripas (guts, puddings) on top of the lava rock. Somebody will die tonight. The hermit crab in his ridiculously oversized shell, surely overcompensating for his assymetrical frame, turned the chiton upside down at least twice today. Chitons have a difficult time righting themselves. This fish tank, this square aquatic tragic comedy represents all that is hellish and evil in the world of marine zoology.

Its why I study algae.

Would you go? This post contains no pictures because it is about something which did not happen.

I almost went to Australia yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon I left the university, board under arm to go for a surf on an otherwise insignificant normal day (surfing perfect waves in Galápagos is normal for me, probably not for you). Two men, who from a distance could be discerned to be sea goers, adventurers of some sort with weathered faces, bleached hair and a carefree poise, approached. They had a healthy disposition gained from years of not sitting at a desk. Discourse went as follows;

-Excuse me, Could you tell us where the university is?

-Sure, its just over the hill, actually I work there, Can I help ye out?

-Are you John Paul?

-Yes....

-Ah, We're looking for you, we're sailing a boat from Panama to Australia, and we need a third crewmember, somebody told us about you, would you like to come?

-Ehhh....


A day of thought, ideas, plans, lack of plans, people, deciding whether to be decisive or not. The issue at hand was the vastness, the whole world, the great beyond, expansion of your mind with limitless boundaries. The paradox was that first, all of this had to be processed internally, confined to the outer walls of my cerebrum until a decision would be realised. No ocean squall in the whole Pacific Ocean could compare to the squalls of thought competing for disk space in my mind.

Immediately following our conversation we walked to the pier, to jump in their dinghy and visit the yacht. To check it out, to kick its tyres. Nonchalance was the key here. As if they are just two more in a long line of people who have begged me to crew their yachts. While still administrating careful doses of enthusiasm. The yacht was indeed impressive. Based entirely on my one weeks knowledge of sailing and a keen eye for things which are not there, I deemed everything to be present and correct, and this vessel seaworthy until Marquesas and probably Australia.

We ate lunch together and shared stories. They had on board a couple crewing who didn't want to go any further, which the guys were happy about as the girl was as we say in spanish insoportable (it means unbearable, but sounds nicer in spanish) and needed me. I surfed with the first mate and in between waves, he told me the skipper was cool as hell and has the patience of a saint when he has to teach you how to tie a knot for the 11th time.

I'm still here. They sailed at sundown this evening. The decision was not mine in the end, the couple resolved to come back, her resolving to remain peaceful.

The first half of the day I could only think of reasons not to go, until I told myself to stop doing that. A quick consultation with the Uni revealed I had their blessing to break contract early. A quick consultation with finances for when I would arrive in Australia revealed I would be better not making such consultations. Towards the end of the day, I was positively warming to the idea.

After I found out the position was no longer available, I knew the decision would be easier next time. Whenever that is, I will go.