Friday, January 14, 2011

On Board Lectures

Ocean: from Greek okeanos, "great stream encircling the earth"

Despite its many names, the world ocean is global, continuous, and connected.

The ocean is the source of most rainfall, climate, and wind; life first eveolved in the ocean.

700 out of 800 known coral species are visible in the South Pacific.
Butterfly fish are a good indication of the health of a reef - they feed on coral polyps. Their camouflage is to get dark at night.

"Biodiversity - Micronesia"
"We only protect that which we love.
We only love that which we know.
We only know that which we are taught."

Which places on the planet are still most biodiverse? The Congo, Indonesia, Brazil, Columbia, and Madagascar. These land areas contain two-thirds of ALL the world's primates.

The island continent of Australia contains species that exist nowhere else. It is the only place that has monotremes - egg laying mammals, the platypus and two echidnas.
Madagascar is a land the size of Alaska and Texas combined. It holds one-half of the endemic plants of the world, and 42% of the vertebrate endemics.
Melanesia/Polynesia/Micronesia: All of the islands together equal a land mass the size of Switzerland.
There are NO birds on Guam because of the introduction of the brown tree snake, which came back to Guam in the military equipment sent there after WWII.  By the mid-1970s, all the birds were gone.

The tree that creates the branches that are used to build houses in the villages - Natarungua. Large fibrous leaves, like a palm tree.

There are lots of bats on these islands: Mega Mytropteras with a wing span of 5 feet, 16 inches in length, and weight of 2 pounds. The Flying Fox bat: furry, pretty ears, big eyes, they eat fruit. Flying fox bats are keystone creatures in rain forest environments. There are 60 species of Flying fox bats - only 9 live on continents, the rest live on islands.

Melanesia: the people. There are two distinct groups of peoples who make up the Melanesian population - those who came from Africa to Papua New Guinea 60,000 years ago, and then those sailors who came out of Taiwan only 6,000 years ago. "Papuan" means frizzy-headed.
The language family goes all the way to Madagascar. Papua New Guinea is the second biggest island in the world - it is the size of California.
All people who live here are subsistence farmers - they grow yams, they fish. Material wealth is ephemeral, but you must be rich in trade networks - it is all about your relationships.


Clipper Odyssey in bay at Sawa-i-lau

Children peeking out window of typical hut, Sawa-i-lau village

More children of village

Zodiacs zooming toward shore

Jonathan Rossouw and George Lake, expedition leaders



With thanks to: Jonathan Rossouw, resident renaissance man; Giovanna Fasanelli, marine biologist; Anne Matthews and Will Howarth, Princeton lectureres. Any factual mistakes are the author's own.


Traveling on the Clipper Odyssey, Day 2, November 22, 2010

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