Humpback Whales in Tonga

Just ran across this short video that features some incredible underwater video of humpback whales in Tonga in the South Pacific. It was shot by an Australian photographer named Darren Jew. Darren works for Canon, which happens to be the brand of camera that I use.    This guy is really living the life.

I have spent time in Tonga. The life there is laid back, so much different than the pace of life here.  I have a friend, Richard Chesher, whom I first met in Tonga. He is a remarkable fellow; a marine biologist, who spends his time immersed in marine photography. His photos are amazing. Chesher lives in New Caledonia these days.  We didn't see any whales while I was in Tonga,  but we did hang out in one of Chesher's clam sanctuaries. That's an adventure I've already written about in an earlier blog about Chesher.  Click on his name in the subject column on the right side of the page.

Anyway,  this video of Darren Jew hanging out with humpbacks in Tonga is worth the admission.  Check it out.

Here is a link to the video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y2JfZC5X7M

Super Coral

Here's an interesting story that needs to be told. It happened to my friend in the South Pacific, Richard Chesher.  He's a Ph.D. marine biologist, and a world class reef photographer, widely admired for his beautiful panographic images.  I've written about Rick Chesher six times before in this blog. He has his own blog label that you can click on if you'd like to read the other entries about him.

I was talking to Rick the other day via Google Plus.   We were discussing climate change and the impact on the marine environment. The two principle impacts are elevated ocean surface temperatures and increased acidification of surface waters.  These two issues trigger a cascade of other consequences. Ocean reefs and corals are particularly vulnerable to higher temperatures and acidification.  In fact, reef ecosystems in many parts of the world are in steep decline, in no small part because of climate change.

Finding isolated populations of super coral that have successfully adapted to higher water temperatures is very important.  Rick Chesher has identified just such a coral ecosystem.  It is in the protected waters of Port Moselle Marina in Noumea in New Caledonia, where Rick and his wife, Freddie live. The corals in Port Moselle are thriving, despite elevated water temperatures and high levels of pollutants from sewage and storm drain runoff.




Port Moselle, New Caledonia

Rick Chesher is retired from marine research.  Hoping to connect with a scientist actively working on coral reefs and climate change, Rick created a webpage about the corals in Port Moselle.  He also identified a university professor in Australia, who has received funding to search for coral reefs that have adapted to higher ocean temperatures.  When Rick contacted the researcher in Australia, he was , more or less, rebuffed.  Amazing.  Here's somebody - a trained professional tasked with finding heat adapted coral populations - and the response is disinterest. You have to wonder what kind of politics are driving that brand of bad attitude.

Port Moselle, New Caledonia

Anyway, Rick Chesher is hoping to attract some interest from  a marine scientist somewhere, who will pick up the ball and follow through with a serious study of these climate change adapted corals in New Caledonia.

Here is a link to Rick Chesher's page on the super corals of Port Moselle Marina in Noumea, New Caledonia ..  http://www.tellusconsultants.com/resistant-corals-super-corals-coral-bleaching.html

Here is a link to one of Rick Chesher's panograph images of Port Moselle...  http://www.360cities.net/image/port-moselle-marina-noumea#254.90,-5.30,60.0

Chesher's Memory Bubbles

I have a friend that lives a life more than a few people dream about. He is a marine biologist. His name is Richard Chesher. He and his wife Frederique have been living on their sailing yacht, Moira for the last forty or so years. During that time, they have  anchored now and then in pretty much every island nation in the South Pacific. The last time I had a chance to spend time with Rick and Freddie, they were based in the harbor at Port Vila in Vanuatu.  For the last few years, they have spent most of their time in New Caledonia, a South Pacific island nation with ties to France. French is the official language in New Caledonia.

In recent years, Richard Chester has elevated himself from being just an excellent photographer to elite world class status.   His work showcases the remarkable beauty of the pacific islands and the mostly still pristine marine environment around them.  More recently, he's been using a rig he designed himself using GoPro cameras to produce images of the marine environment that are technically amazing and breathtaking. They showcase the beauty of his home environment in rotatable, 360 degree panoramic images. They allow the viewer to stand where Chesher stood, or, better stated, be where he was when he captured the image in question.  The latter is the proper way to describe what he does because so many of his images are shot in the marine environment, many underwater, and remarkably,  some straddling the surface interface of sky, land, and water. Chesher calls these images memory bubbles.

I am amazed at what Richard Chesher accomplishes from his home base, a 44 foot long motor sailing yacht named Moira. 

Take a moment to enjoy some of the great photography of marine biologist, Dr. Richard Chesher.

Each still image that follows includes a link to a 360 degree rotatable, 'virtual reality'  version. Prepare to be dazzled.

Sea Eagle Nest

Here is the link to Richard Chesher's amazing image of Sea Eagles on an uninhabited isle in New Caledonia...  http://www.360cities.net/image/ua-eagles#28.63,2.21,110.0

Click to the full screen version and rotate the next image.  You will see Chesher's vessel, Moira anchored in the background, and if you look closely, Rick's wife Freddie cane be seen in fins and snorkel.

 https://www.360cities.net/image/diving-spots-new-caledonia-ua-reef#23.43,1.87,80.0

 

 http://www.360cities.net/image/underwater-scenic-overlook-kouare-new-caledonia#356.90,6.30,70.0

If you take a moment to link to these images in all their virtual reality,  memory bubble glory,  click on the comments icon below the image and leave an expression of appreciation.

Thanks, Rick and Freddie. The world is better because of the wonderful contributions the two of you make to it.

Ua Reef 360

Marine biologist Richard Chesher is a wizard with a camera.  His latest 360 degree image features his wife, Freddie in the glassy smooth, crystal clear waters of Ua reef in their South Pacific home base of New Caledonia.  

Ua Reef - New Caledonia

Here's the link to the very  cool 360 degree rotating image of the reef.
http://www.360cities.net/image/diving-spots-new-caledonia-ua-reef#808.56,-24.88,110.0

There are several other blog entries  - posted earlier -  about Richard Chesher's remarkable life with wife Ferddie aboard their yacht Moira in the South Pacific. Click below on the label - Richard Chesher - to find the earlier entries.

Hanging with the P.M. in Vanuatu

In 2003, I traveled to Vanuatu in the South Pacific to shoot a video segment for the documentary we were shooting at that time. It was titled, The Hydrogen Age.   This was the same trip that included the hairiest airliner approach and landing I have ever experienced. See my blog entry dated, 8/7/12.

We choose to do this segment in Vanuatu for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it is an independent nation that suffers in the strangle hold of big oil.   Like the rest of the world, Vanuatu is dependent on oil. In Vanuatu, that dependence is total and unequvocal.  There are only two or three power stations in the entire country.  They all run on imported fuel oil brought in by tanker.  The capitol, Port Vila has electricity.  There is also a power station on Espirito Santo, which incidentally is the island where James Michener was stationed during World War Two.  It was there, that he wrote his famous novel, South Pacific.  Anyway,  Vanuatu spends abiout 80% of its national budget buying fuel oil for it's power stations.  There is no money for roads; no money for lighting in rural schools; no money for any kind of big intiative that would advance the welfare of the Vanuatuan people.

My friend, marine biologist Richard Chesher, was spending alot of time in Vanuatu at that time.  He was acquainted with many of that nations's prominent government officials.  I talked to Rick about my media work focused on renewables and hydrogen in particular.  Almost immediately, he saw the impact it could have on that nation.

Vanuatu has an abundance of renewable energy resources including a lot of wind, solar, tidal, and perhaps most important, significant untapped geothermal potential.   If Vanuatu could tap that energy and find a way to store it for use on demand, they could end their dependence on oil. Not only that, they could become a net energy exporter. What hydrogen provided was the means to take Vanuatu's captured renewable energy potential into a clean, storable form of energy that could be used on demand, when and where needed. Hydrogen was the key. It was a gamechanger.

Rick Chesher began talking up hydrogen and renewables to his friends in government. He formed a company with some prominent local leaders. They got the Prime Minister, Eduard Natapei, interested. The P.M. saw that his nation's renewable energy potential combined with hydrogen's ability to be used as a clean energy currency, could have a profoundly positive impact on the future of his people.  






Port Vila, Capitol of Vanuatu

My co-producer on The Hydrogen Age, Bill Hoagland, and I decided that Vanuatu's potential with renewably produced hydrogen was a story that should be included in our documentary.

Within a few weeks, I was on my way to Sydney, Australia, and from there, it was on to Vanuatu, where I experienced the white knuckle arrival of my life. See blog entry dated 8/7/12.

Rick had friends at Vanuatu's national television station. It's called TV Blong Vanuatu.  They wanted replacement lithium batteries for their field ENG video cameras.  We made a deal. I brought some of the new batteries for them; they provided one of their video crews to me. 

The day after I arrived in Vanuatu, Rick Chesher and I went to meet the Prime Minister, Eduard Natapei, at his office.






Eduard Natapei

The P.M. was a very affable fellow. It was no wonder he was a successful politician.  I was prepared to conduct the interview with him in his office. Instead, he says,  let's go and see some things.  So, we headed out in a couple of cars. Vanuatu is a friendly place. No big security detail.  As soon as we left Port Vila, the roads turned from asphalt to gravel.  There was no money in the government treasury to pave roads outside of the capitol.  Halfway around the island,  we stopped .  The P.M. led us on foot off the road to an unndeveloped meadow very close to the ocean.  We were on top of a massive geothermal site. There were pools of boiling hot and steaming water scattered about.  At that location, I conducted the interview with the P.M.  We later visited a village that had no electricity or running water. Every one there subsisted off the land and the sea.  In was in that village, surrounded by the locals, that I gave the Prime Minister a copy of the book, Natural Capitalism.  I had interview one of the book's co-authors, Amory Lovins, at his home in Old Snowmass, Colorado a month or so before my trip to Vanuatu. Amory gave me an autographed copy of Natural Capitalism that was to be given to the P.M.   That was pretty cool; being the link between the great energy guru, Amory Lovins and the Prime Minister of Vanuatu.

All told, I spent about five hours with the P.M. that day. He was very gracious, and I left Vanuatu a few days later,  hoping very much that a start on a new and better future for Vanuatu would soon come in the form of  developemnt support for that country's geothermal resource.    It was exciting to think that my friend Rick Chesher, and I, and my associates working on The Hydrogen Age, might have played a significant part in creating a new energy paradigm for that small island nation.

Unfortuantely, the outcome was not what we had hoped for.   The government of Vanuatu was unable to generate any financial support for developing their indigenous renewable energy resources.  Big Oil's political muscle blocked any such possibility.  To this day, Vanuatu remains economically crippled by its total energy dependence on imported oil.

The Log of the Moira

Richard and Frederique Chesher live a very interesting life. For about the last forty years, they have been tooling around the South Pacific ocean aboard Moira, their 44 foot motorsailer/research vessel. They were once chased by pirates and their smarts combined with a bit of luck allowed them to escape. At sea, when pirates call, the victims generally disappear with their plundered vessel to the bottom of the sea, never to be heard from again. That is the constantly looming, deadly downside of travel at sea in a small vessel.

The upside makes the risk worthwhile, and it's on full display in The Log of the Moira, an online chronicle of the Cheshers research expedition in the South Pacific in search of the invisible threads that shape evolution. They spent extended time in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Micronesia, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Palau, New Guinea, Samoa, and a bunch of obscure places, about which us Westerners know virtually nothing.

I have had the good fortune of visiting the Cheshers aboard Moira in Vava'u, a group of outer islands in the Kingdom of Tonga and, a few years later, in Port Vila, the capitol of the island nation of Vanuatu.

I have already written about one of Rick Chesher's exciting initiatives in the March 'Giant Clam' entry to this blog. The Log of the Moira chronicles their adventures, their work with conservation of marine biology of the South Pacific, and their interaction with some of the most unusual human cultures found anywhere on Earth. The log is also packed with the wisdom gleaned from the very unique life experiences they've known, and the people they've met along their journey.

I had the privilege of reading much of the Moira logs twenty years ago, when they existed only in manuscript form. As currently constituted on line, the logs are offered in a visual format that makes them even more engaging. The log is not presented as a journal driven by time, but rather as a collection of experiences and observations, linked by what Rick calls, 'Threads of Awareness in Chaos'. As such, the log is exciting to read and also life affirming in its conclusions.

 Here is a link to the beautifully presented, Log of the Moira...

 http://www.log-of-the-moira.com/

 Here is a link to a sphere image of the Moira in New Caledonia....

 http://www.360cities.net/image/new-caledonia-cruising

Chesher's Dazzling 360 Photography

I first wrote about my friends Richard and Freddie Chesher in my 'Giant Clams' blog.  I will be writing multiple entries about them because they are such remarkable people. The next thing about them that I want to share is the web link to Rick's breathtaking 360 degree photo images.  He's not the only person in the world doing 360 photography, but he does it very, very well, and he is likely the only one using this image technology underwater in the islands of the South Pacific.

Here is a link to Rick Chesher's wonderful 360 photography...

http://www.360cities.net/profile/richard-chesher

Giant Clams

About twenty years ago, there was a story about giant clams in Outside magazine.  At that point, all I knew about giant clams is what I had seen in the Tarzan movies. You know, the pretty girl swims to the bottom of a lagoon and gets her foot stuck in a giant clam's mouth. Tarzan comes to the rescue.

The reality is there have been very few fatalities attributed to giant clams...if any. On a coral reef, they're the equivalent of couch potatoes.  Once they settle in, they cement themselves in place and are there for life. Giant clams are filter feeders, sucking in every kind of nutritive detritus that happens to float by.  They do it very efficiently; well enough in fact that they can grow up to about three feet in diameter. Unfortunately for them, they also happen to be good eating for pacific islanders, most of whom live off the bounty of the sea. In too many places, culinary appeal has turned the giant clam into an endangered species.

Anyway, this Outside magazine story I read was about Dr. Richard Chesher, an American marine biologist, who's working with local villagers in Vava'u in the Kingdom of Tonga to create  underwater sanctuaries to restore giant clams to places where they had disappeared because of overexploitation. And, it turns out, it's an idea that works. In places where you create clam sanctuaries protected by the local people, the entire reef is restored. 


So,  I tracked down this guy Chesher. The next thing I know, I'm in Tonga, hanging out with him and his artist wife,  Frederique Lesne aboard Moira, their beautifully maintained  44 foot sailing yacht/research base.  I find myself swimming above a circle of giant clams living happily in one of  Chesher's sanctuaries. Not exactly an everyday experience.The most satisfying thing that came out of that trip to the South Pacific was the lasting friendship  I developed with two of the most remarkable people I have ever met. Stay tuned for, Chesher's Dazzling 360 Photography,  my next blog entry about them.

http://www.unescap.org/drpad/vc/conference/ex_to_56_gcc.htm