Blog » Nature

Birding Aboard “SeaBC” has sailors reporting unusual birds

Diana Doyle — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:48:00 +0000

In the Women and Cruising blog series “Take Your Passion Cruising” I wrote about my passion: birds.

When you’re cruising, you’re immersed in nature, and many of us enjoy watching the birds while underway or at anchor. But as a boater you’re also in a unique position to contribute to citizen science simply by taking photos of the birds you see on passage and in remote anchorages.

Tropicbirds are commonly reported to the Birding Aboard project, perhaps because they are so elegant and have a habit of circling the mast.
Photo ©Ellen Massey Leonard.

Because there is so little coverage of these areas, the odds are high for a “birder aboard” to contribute notable sightings that help scientists and conservations map bird distribution and abundance.

Here are a few examples of how cruisers can be “the eyes on the water” for birds:

* Sailing vessel s/v Aventura, with the Blue Planet Odyssey through the Northwest Passage, photographed a rare white morph Gyrfalcon cliff-nesting on an island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Their sighting adds to a lone 1999 historical report of a Gyrfalcon at the same location.

A rare white Gyrfalcon spotted among the cliffs and icebergs
of the Northwest Passage. Photo ©Doina Cornell.

* A 24-year-old who crossed the Atlantic with his father as part of the Atlantic Odyssey fleet, captured stunning photographs of a Trindade Petrel about 1,000 miles east of Martinique. A Trindade Petrel also was reported independently by Dorothy Wadlow on s/v Joyant about 900 miles east of Antigua. Trindade Petrel is a recently split species, considered vulnerable with uncertain global population and range.

A striking capture of a fast-flying ocean bird, a Trindade Petrel at home a thousand miles from shore. Photo ©Michael Sammer.

* Two homeschooled children, ages 10 and 11, logged all the birds they saw during their two-week transatlantic, scoring a Red-billed Tropicbird and Masked Booby closer to Cape Verdes than their expected stronghold in the Caribbean.

* In that same fleet, s/v Gemm and s/v Fleur de Sel documented flocks of Cattle Egrets in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, over a thousand miles from Africa or South America. The Cattle Egret has had one of the most wide-reaching and rapid expansions from its native range in Africa, spreading northward through South and North America since first sighted in Guiana in 1877. They are presumed to have flown across the Atlantic Ocean, given that immature Cattle Egrets will disperse up to 3,100 miles from their breeding area. So Lanzarote to Martinique (the Atlantic Odyssey’s passage) is just a jump across the pond!

* Circumnavigator Ellen Massey Leonard collected photos from her and her husband’s round-the-world passage on 38-foot s/v Heretic, contributing noon positions for notable sightings such as Cape Petrel further north than expected in the Indian Ocean, a Brown Noddy hitchhiker off the South African coast, and a Pomarine Jaeger near St. Paul Rocks in the central equatorial Atlantic Ocean.

A Brown Noddy claims a radome as its perch halfway between Ascension Island and Barbados. Photo ©Ellen Massey Leonard

* Birding Aboard Advisor and U.K. marine conservationist Colin Speedie on s/v Pelerin sailed through the balmy Lesser Antilles, only to spot several notable birds common to him from his northern home port! These included Great Skua, Pomarine and Parasitic Jaeger, and Cory’s Shearwater.

There were also many reports of hitchhiking land birds, such as Bobolink, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Barn Swallow, Mangrove Swallow, Caribbean Martin, Northern Flicker, and Blackpoll Warbler. These sightings reinforce recent tracking evidence that tiny songbirds are able to migrate long distances over the ocean and are not all “storm waifs.”

A tiny Blackpoll Warbler, a migrant between Canada and South America, rests in the cockpit of s/v Cinderella about 20 miles off the Florida coast.
Photo ©Jaye Lunsford.

Going forward, the project is anticipating exciting reports from Blue Planet Odyssey vessels sailing to Tokelau and Vanuatu, another season of attempts through the Arctic’s Northwest Passage, a sailboat cruising the Scandinavian Arctic, and OceansWatch Donna Lange’s solo circumnavigation. And we hope for even more sightings from coastal and offshore cruisers like you!

The “SeaBC” Sea Bird Count is:

A Clean Wake Project of the Seven Seas Cruising Association
An Environmental Programme of the Ocean Cruising Club
A Project of the Blue Planet Odyssey

For more information on how to participate, visit www.birdingaboard.org or the Birding Aboard Facebook group.

About Diana Doyle

Diana Doyle and her husband Mark write the Intracoastal Waterway cruising guide series, On the Water ChartGuides. They work- and live-aboard their PDQ catamaran Semi-Local.

Diana holds a 50-ton USCG Master’s License, but she especially loves launching her onboard kayak since it gets her closest to the wildlife.

She also writes for birding magazines and is currently the Tools of the Trade Editor for American Birding Association’s Birding magazine.

Marine Conservation is my passion

Sally-Christine Rodgers — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 18:39:46 +0000

Marine Conservation is my passion and I have worked on ocean issues for decades learning a great deal along the way.

Sally-Christine Rodgers with husband Randy Repass & their son, Kent-Harris.

The oceans are in crisis and we who love them need to step up and be vocal in support of sustainable seafood, reducing Co2 emissions, and limiting plastics, which have impacted the oceans so dramatically.

I also believe that women play an important role in not only educating their families, but in using their buying power and influence on others, including our government’s representatives. Buying local organic food, only eating sustainable seafood, choosing bio-degradable cleaning products, reducing waste, not drinking water from plastic bottles, informing your representative on ocean legislation and supporting marine conservation organizations are just some of the ways we can participate in the health of the oceans.

In preparing for cruising, we made a lot of decisions that we hope reduced our impact; We use Bottom shield bottom paint with less copper content when available. We are very conscious of our waste. I remove and recycle nearly all packaging materials from our larder before we leave. I then repackage foodstuffs in seal-a-meal bags, which make it much easier to store, see what you have, control portions, and the bags are re-sealable! (Not to mention everything lasts forever!)

We did not throw anything we could not eat overboard. This gets tricky on small boats, and careful planning is necessary, but it can be done. I saved all of my glass jars to give to island women who loved having them as storage containers. We also work hard to see where trash is disposed. Often in small communities, it is just dumped or burned. Recycling is not common.

Cleaning products are often toxic. Why use them? Vinegar and Baking Soda work very well in most instances. A couple of other examples include using Cream of Tartar and hot water for cleaning Aluminum. Hydrogen Peroxide can be used instead of Bleach. Apple cider vinegar and baby oil is a good polish for chrome and stainless. And there are many biodegradable cleaning products available. (Pure Oceans Products at West Marine for example.) I stock up as they are hard to find once you leave.

We also actively organized beach cleanups with other cruisers.

It is all about making choices. Frankly most cruisers use few resources, they are careful with water and power, and live simply. That is what most cruisers want really, to simplify our lives, get close to our spouses and children and to truly be ourselves in nature.

I would love to see Women and Cruising hold a forum on what cruising women have learned about cruising sustainably. I am certain there is much we can learn from each other, and in supporting each other we can have an impact on the health and protection of the oceans.

Sally-Christine’s thoughts on Marine Conservation

Excerpt from her book
“Convergence – A Voyage Through French Polynesia”

When I was a child, the sea seemed vast and abundant. But today, the oceans of my childhood no longer exist. I am not a scientist, but I am an observer, and sailing long distances has given me an acute awareness of the negative impact that human behavior has had on our oceans. In my lifetime, I have witnessed startling changes in water temperature and the rapid decrease in the quantity and diversity of marine life. Pollution is ubiquitous, and critical habitats such as coral reefs are being adversely affected, in some cases beyond the point of recovery.

Pollution

Agricultural runoff, mining, aquaculture (e.g. farmed salmon), unrestricted coastal development, and unregulated manufacturing practices are just some sources of pollution that threaten the health of the oceans and contaminate the food we eat from the sea.

Nutrient-rich fertilizers discharged in agricultural run-off are causing dead zones—low oxygen (hypoxic) areas in the ocean where life simply cannot survive—causing entire ecosystems to collapse. Mercury and other heavy metals from power plants, pesticides, herbicides, detergents, sewage, oil, and plastic are also ending up in our oceans. Even residue from the pharmaceuticals we ingest is found in the fish we eat. A United Nations Environment Program study estimated that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. I have been thousands of miles away from land and have seen the floating debris.

More than a million seabirds and hundreds of thousands of marine mammals die from ingesting photodegraded micro-plastics, which are now part of the food chain. A study from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography estimated that fish in the intermediate ocean depth of the North Pacific ingest roughly 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic per year. Do you know what happens to your discarded plastic waste?

Overfishing

Although some fisheries are successfully managed, overfishing and unsustainable fishing practices are taking a catastrophic toll on world fisheries. Industrial fishing methods, such as bottom trawling, destroy critical habitats by dragging chains and nets over the sea floor, essentially wiping out entire ecosystems.

It is estimated that industrial fishing fleets discard 27 million tons of non-targeted fish and other sea life every year. In some fisheries, up to ten pounds of life is discarded for every pound of seafood that makes it to market. This intolerable waste is known as by-catch. Undersized fish, turtles, dolphins, whales, and sharks are just some of the species being discarded, dead or dying, with each haul. Seabirds are also affected. According to Carl Safina of Blue Ocean Institute, an estimated hundred thousand albatross are killed annually by longliners alone.

Over 90 percent of the seafood brought to market in the U.S. is imported. According to a Natural Resources Defense Council report, nearly every foreign fish product sold in the U.S. has been caught in a way that violates U.S. federal marine mammal protection laws. It is worth thinking about where your seafood comes from and supporting sustainable American fisheries.

Ocean Acidification

There is no longer any doubt that climate change is playing a role in our rapidly changing world. It has been scientifically documented that increases in temperature from natural weather fluctuations exacerbated by industrialized increase of CO2 emissions are leading to potentially catastrophic depletion of marine life.

CO2 is absorbed in the ocean as a natural process, but increased levels of CO2 reduce calcium carbonate; the sea becomes acidic and less hospitable to life. Over time, the reduction in calcium carbonate prevents creatures like shellfish—oysters, mussels, crab, and shrimp—from forming shells. In fact, existing shells start to dissolve. Coral reefs, home to the greatest biodiversity of ocean life, die. The smallest ocean animals at the base of the ocean food web, including zooplankton, cannot survive in these acidic conditions. And if zooplankton cannot survive, sea life further up the food chain—fish, mammals, and seabirds—will also perish. No food, no life! One billion people rely on seafood for their primary source of protein. The implications are obvious.

What Can One Person Do?

Humanity as a whole may be responsible for the degradation of our oceans, but I believe that we are all capable as individuals of responding to this crisis. How? Each one of us can make lifestyle choices that reduce our carbon footprint, reduce our own contribution to pollution, and educate our children.

Here are some thoughts on ways to begin:

Vote With Your Dollars

• Stop buying water in plastic bottles.
• Don’t use plastic bags.
• Don’t use Styrofoam or polystyrene products.
• Eat only sustainable seafood and support sustainable fisheries.
• Eliminate toxic chemicals from your homes; encourage your workplace to do the same.
• Avoid non-organic fertilizers and pesticides.
• Buy local, organic produce and products.
• Review your transportation options.

Finally, and very significantly, we can all get involved, becoming educated—and passionate—advocates for our oceans, the life-support system of our planet.

Be aware of your own carbon emissions and share your knowledge with others.

Contact and support marine conservation efforts locally and nationally. Following is just a partial list of organizations that I respect.

Blue Ocean Institute
Led by Dr. Carl Safina, the institute works to create a more knowledgeable constituency for conservation.

Ocean Champions
A 501(c)(4) with an attached political action committee (PAC), this is the first-ever political advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the ocean and its wildlife. Ocean Champions is focused on building support for ocean conservation in the U.S. Congress.

Oceana
This is the largest conservation organization focused solely on the oceans. It uses scientists, economists, lawyers, and advocates to achieve tangible results.

Ocean Conservancy
“Informed by science, our work guides policy and engages people in protecting the ocean and its wildlife for future generations.”

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch
The Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program helps sustain wild, diverse, and healthy ocean ecosystems by encouraging consumers and businesses to purchase seafood that is fished or farmed in ways that don’t harm the environment.

About Sally-Christine Rodgers

Sally-Christine Rodgers grew up as one of a “water tribe;” has lived near the water and worked in the marine industry all of her life.

Her passion for the oceans and her desire to raise awareness of their plight led Rodgers to support conservation efforts across the country and around the world. Rodgers and her husband jointly endowed a Duke University Professorship in Conservation Technology and a Platinum Leeds building dedicated to Marine Conservation Education at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, NC.

She has raced in the Vic Maui and Pacific Cup Races to Hawaii, and sailed with her husband and son across the South Pacific, South East Asia and in many parts of Europe.

When not on the water, Rodgers has her hands in the earth, tending vineyards, keeping bees, and raising longhorns on the California coast.

Convergence: A Voyage Through French Polynesia
by Sally-Christine Rodgers

Convergence: A Voyage through French Polynesia is a personal story of one woman’s adventure – her lifelong passion for the ocean, and her struggle to face her fears as she learns to surrender to nature.

Along the way, she comes to realize that passages are not just about getting from one place to another. Journeys like this one go to the heart of who you are when you start out and who you have become when you get to the other end.

www.convergencevoyages.com
PROCEEDS DONATED TO MARINE CONSERVATION
Available for purchase at West Marine and westmarine.com

More from this website

Cruising on Convergence : Building the boat, by Sally-Christine Rodgers
When green meets blue: Katharine Lowrie, aboard Listalight, discusses what we can do to sustain as blue-green a life as possible.
Sailing Green Links

Women and Cruising would like to hear from other women on ways that we can care for our oceans as we cruise, support marine conservation, and raise awareness of environmental issues.

The Sailing Green posts on Women and Cruising can become a way to share these ideas.

Adventures of a once reluctant sailor

Michele McClintock Sharp — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:57:57 +0000

Ready to go

In 2007, my husband Wayne and I traveled from Bayfield, Wisconsin, on Lake Superior to Punta Gorda, Florida, on our Island Packet 445 sailboat. We chose the long route, which took us through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Canadian Maritime provinces, a trip of about five thousand miles.

I had absolutely no intention of making the trip

…it was waaayy outside my comfort zone.

Wayne had often expressed his wish to take a long sailing trip. I once accompanied him on a trip of about one hundred miles and it caused me great anxiety, so a journey of five thousand miles was out of the question! Why? Fear. Fear of being on open water, fear of storms, fear of loneliness, fear of too much togetherness—but mostly just fear of the unknown. Besides, I’m a landlubber from Minnesota, which is about the farthest point from the coast of any state in the US. It seemed like such a radical idea.

Our purchase of a home in Punta Gorda in February 2004 gave Wayne a purpose and a destination for that long sailing trip. I agreed that we needed to get the boat down to Florida, but had my own ideas on how to get her there. My first choice: truck it down. My second choice: take it down the Mississippi. Wayne’s first choice: the East Coast by way of the Erie Canal and Hudson River; Wayne’s second choice: to the Gulf of Mexico by way of Chicago, the Mississippi, and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to Mobile, Alabama.

I wasn’t trying to squelch his dream. It’s just that Wayne wasn’t retired and I thought three or four months was far too long for him to be away from the business. It seemed to me that expedience was the wiser, albeit less adventurous, way to go.

Obviously, we needed to hash out a compromise. So how did our compromise result in a trip that was approximately fifteen hundred miles longer than the longest route we had considered? Furthermore, how did I end up making a trip I wanted little or no part of a few months earlier?

In the spring of 2006, Wayne had an unexpected opportunity to sell the business. Negotiations moved along quickly, and by the middle of the summer they had an agreement. With my blessing and encouragement, since he would now be retired, Wayne started making plans to sail the boat down the East Coast through the Erie Canal and Hudson River. I intended to meet up with him and do a week here or there, but mostly he would be accompanied by other friends and sailors, who were eagerly lining up for the trip.

Aboard LENA BEA - photographing whales

Both of the routes Wayne was considering would require taking down the mast and rigging to pass under low bridges and putting it all back up again. When he saw the scope of what would be involved with our sixty-three foot mast and fifteen hundred pounds of mast and stays, he began to have second thoughts. Stepping down the mast is done routinely for boats that make the trip (you can hire people to do it for you), but most masts are ten or more feet shorter and much lighter than ours.

There was one route, however, that didn’t require stepping down the mast: the Saint Lawrence River. It would have been Wayne’s first choice, but he hadn’t really considered it because it was so much longer than the Erie Canal/Hudson River route. After talking to other sailors and doing more research, Wayne began to see it as a more attractive option. He mentioned the possibility to me, and to his surprise—and mine—I was excited about taking the Saint Lawrence because it meant more wilderness to travel through and more adventure. The possibility of seeing whales hadn’t even crossed our minds at that point.

That’s all it took to get me on board.

Well, okay—that and a new boat, our Island Packet 445, Lena Bea.

So less than two months before departure, we finally chose our route and tacked fifteen hundred miles (and a First Mate) onto the voyage. We set sail from Bayfield on July 27.

First night out on Lake Superior

Fast forward one month to August 27. We are in anchored in a small town on the Saint Lawrence, Tadoussac, Québec, and traveling with Claus and Rachael, a couple from our marina whom we met up with in Québec City.

Wayne and I are sitting in the cockpit sipping our morning coffee, preparing to start our day. The rising sun glistens on the water and whales blow in the harbor. A lone seal swims by occasionally and glances at us warily without changing course. “We get to do this!” as Claus would say. And our adventure today raised the bar on “this” to an all new level.

I’ll try to skip all the superlatives, as they are trite and inadequate, and let the whale photos speak for themselves. The photos don’t do them justice either, because they don’t capture the essence, experience, and emotions of being there. We didn’t see any whales breaching and their bodies are mostly submerged, so it’s impossible to fully appreciate their massive size.

I did some research on whales in the Saint Lawrence and here are a few facts I gleaned: The blue whale is the largest animal known to have ever lived on Earth. They can grow up to one hundred feet long, weigh up to two hundred tons, and eat four tons or more of food per day! They are protected and endangered; the Saint Lawrence population is estimated at sixty to one hundred and the entire North Atlantic population is probably less than one thousand.

The beluga or white whale is also protected and endangered. Their numbers in the Saint Lawrence are estimated at around one thousand and declining due to environmental toxins.

See the beluga

Heading out into the bay this morning we observed the commercial whale watching boats, and when they stopped and congregated, we knew to look for whales if they had not already made their presence known to us. We watched blue whales surfacing and blowing, heard them breathing and moaning. Rachael and I stood in our bowsprits, cameras clicking wildly, while Wayne and Claus kept busy trying to aim the boats to where we pointed.

The blue whales had disappeared and we were sitting back, relishing the experience. All of a sudden the water surface seemed covered with whitecaps and my immediate thought was, Belugas. Then I laughed and thought to myself, Now I’m imagining that every little thing is a whale. Except they were belugas and we were surrounded by them . . . over one hundred for sure.

Rachael photographing belugas

They swam past the boat, swam up to the boat, swam under the boat, and I couldn’t shoot my camera fast enough. Wayne immediately put the engine in neutral, as we understood the protocol to be. We realized we were in a marine park sanctuary when the park patrol pulled up alongside of us and set us straight: If you find yourself in a pod of belugas while in the marine park, you are supposed to leave the area immediately and stay at least four hundred meters away (two hundred meters from blue whales). While the park rangers kindly educated Wayne about whale etiquette, I kept taking photos, including some of Kyanna with Rachael taking photos of the belugas.

We cruised alongside other species of whales too, including minke and fin whales (according to Claus, who knows more about them than we do, which is absolutely nothing). Were we afraid, knowing that some of these whales were possibly twice the length and ten times the weight of our boat? The awe we felt obliterated any possibility of fearfulness.

All day long the thought kept crossing my mind: this experience is beyond anything I had ever even dreamed of.

Dinner this evening with Claus and Rachael anchored off Île du Bic was a grand celebration. We bubbled with conversation about our shared experience, one of the most breathtaking of our lives. We had “show and tell,” reliving the day while sharing our photos, oohing and ahhing as over a pile of precious gems.

I am so grateful for the strength I was given to put aside my fear and step out of my comfort zone.

Many times since then I’ve thought back on that experience and many others we had, so grateful for the strength I was given to put aside my fear and step out of my comfort zone. I would have missed out on so much! It was a turning point and a major life lesson for me. Of course, I also acquired confidence and skills as a sailor, which has served us well in later cruising adventures.

This quote, which is attributed to Mark Twain, says it all: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

About Michele McClintock Sharp

Michele grew up in New Brighton, Minnesota, and raised two sons with her husband, Wayne. She calls herself a retired stay-at-home mom who also kept busy with volunteer work. Michele worked for a photography studio for a few years, mostly as a wedding photographer, and later did some freelance portrait work. She gave up professional photography when she realized she was losing the joy of taking pictures; Michele wanted to be able to photograph their children without it feeling like a job. She finds the most joy while photographing nature.

In 1998, Wayne bought Wind Dancer, a 1995 Island Packet 37. He kept her docked at Port Superior Marina in Bayfield, Wisconsin, and sailed her in the Apostle Islands. With two teenagers at home who had better things to do than go sailing with their parents, Michele joined him only occasionally. The couple bought Lena Bea, an Island Packet 445, in 2006 and have enjoyed many great times and adventures on board.

Wayne and Michele live in Punta Gorda, Florida, for most of the year, and spend their summers close to family in Plymouth, Minnesota.

They have written a book based on the blog from their first journey in 2007 – Adventures of a Once Reluctant Sailor: A Journey of Guts, Growth, and Grace. It is available online from their website, and from Copperfish Books, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

Chance encounters between ships and whales – Part 2

Daria Blackwell — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 15:54:48 +0000

This is the second half of a 2-part article by Daria Blackwell,
first published in the Ocean Cruising Club publication Flying Fish.
You can read part 1 here.

Photo: James Dagmore

Bizarre whale tales

Who can forget the photos of the 40 ton southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) that breached onto a 33ft sloop in South Africa in 2010, breaking the mast before sliding into the water with an ‘eerie groan’? Amazingly, Ralph Mothes and Paloma Werner were not injured and returned to harbour on their own, and a nearby vessel managed to record the whole incident on video.

YouTube video: Whale Crashes on Boat – Published by CBSNewsOnline.

It seems this was simply a case of being in the wrong place when a whale came up for air.

There are several additional videos on YouTube that show whales ramming boats or breaching onto them. So it does happen.

In 2011, a breaching humpback whale off southwest Washington smashed the mast and rigging of a 38ft yacht taking part in the Oregon Offshore International Yacht Race to Victoria, BC ‘leaving bits of blubber behind’, as Ryan Barnes told the Coast Guard. Ironically, the boat was called L’Orca. Her crew were in the cockpit and were not injured during the encounter.

YouTube video: Oregon Offshore 2011- Whale vs. Boat!

YouTube video: Sailboat struck by breaching whale near Astoria

In June 2012, Max Young of Sacramento, California, on the last leg of a circumnavigation, had to be rescued after a breaching whale struck his 50ft yacht 40 miles off the coast of Mexico just after dark. He was only about ten feet from the 55ft whale as it jumped about twelve feet in the air and came down on the bow of boat, lifting the stern clear of the water. The collision disabled the steering system and holed the boat, but he used a mattress to plug a hole, and four bilge pumps to bail water, while waiting to be rescued 5.

CruisersForum – www.cruisersforum.com – has a report of a man who left harbour in his new 27ft Bayliner just before sunset with two friends. They were off Santa Barbara Point ‘when a 30ft grey whale suddenly breached and landed on top of the boat. The weight of the whale crushed the cabin before it rolled off the boat back into the water… the beast came around and took another run at the Bayliner and slammed the boat with its tail’. This damaged the boat’s rail and broke one of the owner’s ribs, cut his hand, and embedded barnacles in his back. The whale made a third run at the boat, but just rolled one of its eyes out of the water and stared at them.

Then there’s the truly bizarre story from Australia of a humpback whale that grabbed a yacht’s anchor rode and swam off, towing the boat 1½ miles out to sea at night. It was joined by a second whale that helped along the way. The woman onboard managed to get a video of the encounter before they cut away the rode. The couple had called the Coast Guard and others for assistance but were not taken seriously.

Published studies of collisions

In 2001, researchers from the US and Europe conducted the first survey of reports of collisions between ships and whales (See Laist, DW, et al, Collisions between ships and whales. MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE, 17(1): 35-75 (January 2001).)

They focused on motorised vessels, as collision reports first started appearing in the 1800s with the advent of steam power. They found that collisions increased as vessel speed increased.

A humpback whale lands in the water after breaching near Auke Bay, Alaska.
Photo Aleria Jensen, Public domain NOAA/NMFS/AKFSC. NOAA Photo Library anim1037

Of eleven species known to be hit by ships, they reported that fin whales are struck most frequently and right whales, humpback whales, sperm whales and grey whales (Eschrichtius robustus) are hit commonly. The most lethal or severe injuries are caused by ships travelling at 14 knots or more, which eliminates many cruising yachts. Today, collisions occur most often with high speed ferries and racing yachts.

Since then other reports have been filed, including the 2009 report of an ExxonMobile tanker returning to port with a humpback whale draped over its bulbous bow. In Alaska, in 2010, an adult female humpback was found on the bow of a cruise ship owned by Princess Cruises – the third whale incident involving the company since 2001. Bizarrely, this same ship had had a similar encounter with a fin whale the year before outside Vancouver. Speed and visibility were considered factors in these events.

In 2011 Fabian Ritter, collaborating with noonsite.com, published a study which constitutes the first attempt to quantitatively assess collisions involving sailing vessels and whales on a global scale (Fabian Ritter. Collisions and near miss events between sailing vessels and cetaceans – MEER eV, Bundesallee 123, 12161 Berlin, Germany.)

A total of 108 collisions and 57 ‘near misses’ were identified between 1966 and 2010, the majority of which (75%) were reported between 2002 and 2010. He concluded that elevated vessel speed contributes to a higher risk of collisions, although it doesn’t correlate with likelihood of damage or injuries where other factors can prevail.

Ritter recommended three courses of action to protect ships and whales:

speed reduction,
dedicated observers, and
the shift of routes.

He also recommended publicising the International Whaling Commission (IWC) Ship Strike Data Base and encouraging sailors to report their encounters so the data can be collected and analysed.

Locations of collisions and near miss events between sailing vessels and cetaceans (1966-2010)

Location Collision	Collision (N=108)	Near miss (N=57)	Total (N=165)	Total % (%)
North Atlantic Ocean	43	26	69	41.8 %
Caribbean Sea	5	3	8	4.8 %
South Atlantic Ocean	12	3	15	9.1 %
North Pacific Ocean	14	12	26	15.8 %
South Pacific Ocean	21	6	27	16.4 %
Northern Indian Ocean	1	2	3	1.8 %
Southern Indian Ocean	4	1	5	3.0 %
Mediterranean Sea	3	2	5	3.0 %
Baltic Sea	1	0	1	0.6 %
Other	4	2	6	3.6 %

Reproduced with permission

In other studies, sound has been used to try to deter whales from crossing paths with boats. In one, it was documented that harmonics may actually attract rather than deter whales. So running your engine may not be a good way to ward them off.

In the Oyster magazine, Pantaenius Insurance reported research they carried out following the loss of a Formula 40 catamaran after it hit a dormant whale in 1991.

The advice their experts offered was for yachts to keep their depth sounders on during ocean passages, as a whale can hear the pulse emitted by the transducer.

What can you do?

Minimising risk of collision with whales is a goal of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). They are planning detailed guidance for all segments of the maritime industry, including cruising and racing yachts. In advance of the guidance, the Belgian Department of the Environment has released an information leaflet which includes advice about how to reduce the risk of collisions with whales and provides a link to the ship strikes database developed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Their advice includes the following points:

Plan passages to avoid high density areas
Keep a close watch, reduce speed, and alter course for direct avoidance
Report incidents to help improve knowledge
Heed restrictions and seek advice from the IMO and national authorities
Contribute to scientific research by reporting sightings and encounters

The IWC database contains 1076 collisions reported between 1877 and 2010. It includes the type of whale and the location of collision, though the IWC is quick to note that these reports are, for the most part, uncorroborated.

A humpback whale breaching near the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Photo Wanetta Ayers. Released into the public domain on Wikimedia Commons

The majority of whale fatalities occur off the East Coast of North America and in the Mediterranean. This is hardly surprising, as that is where shipping is most congested and where whales migrate. A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), however, has shown that whale populations are on the increase in California waters, adding to the risk of encounters. Multiple species of whale feed along the coast, including killer, grey, humpbacks and blue (Balaenoptera musculus – the world’s largest animal). NOAA has issued advisories to shipping to reduce speed along the migration paths.

What happens to the vessels involved in collisions with whales seems, in comparison, mild. Few ships have been reported holed, disabled or sunk. It has happened, but it seems – at least from our experience – that the benefits to cruising sailors of being out there outweigh the risks of collision – at least with whales.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

Herman Melville

About Daria Blackwell

Daria Blackwell is a USCG licensed Captain. She and her husband Alex, and cruising kitty Onyx, have crossed the Atlantic three times in three years aboard their Bowman 57 ketch Aleria, spending years cruising the Caribbean and Atlantic islands as well as the American and European coasts. They are now in Ireland planning their next adventure.

Daria is a proud member of the Ocean Cruising Club Committee, Seven Seas Cruising Association (cruising station for Ireland), American Yacht Club and Mayo Sailing Club.

The Blackwells are co-authors of Happy Hooking – The Art of Anchoringwhich has received excellent reviews in the sailing press. They periodically conduct their Happy Hooking webinar for Seven Seas University.

Their website is www.CoastalBoating.net, “the boaters’ resource for places to go and things to know”.

Also on this website

Chance encounters between ships and whales – Part 1
All posts about Nature
More posts by Daria Blackwell:
- Dancing in the Harbour
- What I like best about cruising? Passages and anchorages: a world of your own

Chance encounters between ships and whales – Part 1

Daria Blackwell — Sat, 25 May 2013 15:55:21 +0000

This article was first published in the Ocean Cruising Club publication Flying Fish.

A fin whale preparing to dive beneath ALERIA’s bow. Photo Alex Blackwell.

Most sailors setting off on a passage dream of encountering wildlife at sea.

Yet ask blue water sailors about their biggest fears, and near the top of the list is likely to be ‘striking a whale’. It’s one of the events most likely to be catastrophic at sea. Today, we can usually avoid really bad weather, but can we avoid a sleeping whale at night?

And what is the likelihood of a chance encounter with a whale? It may not be as rare (or as common) as one might think, depending on location. The likelihood appears to be increasing as protected whale species increase in numbers, and like many cruisers Alex and I have had a few very happy encounters.

Fortunately, several lessons can be applied to reduce the risk and enhance the experience.

Magic at sea – the friendly encounter

First encounter with whales

Whale spy hopping on Stellwagon Bank.

Our first encounter with whales came while crossing Stellwagen Bank, a vast marine sanctuary off Cape Cod. We came upon a pod of northern right whales (Eubalaena glacialis), which started us off with a magical experience that would be difficult to top. We first sighted a mother and calf feeding near tour boats – she was ignoring the humans intruding on her brunch.

About an hour later we noted a rock where there should have been deep water.

After frantically checking the charts and keeping a close eye through binoculars, we realised it was a whale with callosities, spy hopping and being groomed by a flock of birds. Then the whale rolled and dived to show off his fluke.

Soon afterwards a second whale appeared, much closer, then two more, and five more, until we were surrounded by scores of these leviathans.

As they came closer to get a better look at us with those all-knowing eyes, our first thoughts drifted to the infamous line from Jaws, “we’re gonna need a bigger boat”. They were about the same length as Aleria.

As soon as we realised they were just curious and respectful we ghosted along beside them as we checked each other out. We were under full sail in light winds with no engines running, and worried about them surfacing beneath us after their dives. We kept a close watch, steered cautiously away from any ahead of us, and avoided coming between mothers and their calves.

Whereas the experience was initially silent, suddenly the air filled with whale song. Not just one but a cacophony of voices, which seemed to be amplified by Aleria’s hull acting like a stethoscope. There were long wails, short burps, moans, groans, and high pitched squeals of varied duration and emphasis. We were taken aback, perplexed. We looked at each other to make sure we were both hearing this. It sounded surreal. Then, we succumbed to the sheer joy of it. We sang back, jumping up and down, cheering and clapping like children. I don’t recall ever having had such a joyous experience in my life. We were speaking whale! All fear was gone, replaced with sheer wonder. It seemed to go on forever.

Then, suddenly, they were gone. The whale song receded and the whales disappeared from view. We mourned their passing but felt blessed to have met them. Alex described the experience as ‘prehistoric, otherworldly’. We had been so dumbfounded that we forgot to take pictures. We have only a few that Alex took as he sighted that first ‘rock’.

Occasional glimpses

As we left Nova Scotia to cross the Atlantic to Ireland, we were followed out of St Margaret’s Bay by a lone killer whale (Orcinus orca). She swam along peacefully and we wondered if her reputation was deserved. We didn’t see any more whales all the way to Ireland, but we sailed through thick fog followed by six gales. We know now that whales are sighted more often on calm, clear days – if the surface of the sea is smooth, you’ll spot an unusual disturbance more readily.

We were next rewarded with a visit by a pod of pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) while in transit from Tenerife to La Gomera in the Canary Islands. They are known to be resident there, so we kept a close watch. Not much bigger than dolphins but black in colour, the pilot whales swam gently along in company for some time.

A pilot whale off La Gomera in the Canary IslandsPhoto Martina Nolte / Lizenz Creative Commons CC-by-sa-3.0 de

During six months of cruising the Caribbean, where whales come to calve, we saw only one, breaching off the west coast of Antigua. From the shape and acrobatics it appeared to be a humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae). In certain islands, the Grenadines for example, fishermen are permitted to take their annual quota of whale meat in the traditional way, and as we passed St Vincent we saw a boat with a bow-mounted harpoon coming in with a cetacean strapped to the side of the hull.

Whales galore

Crossing the Atlantic from the Caribbean to the Azores, we encountered very light wind conditions. In fact, the Azores high overtook us until we were smack in the middle. It was on this leg that we learned the value of a flat sea for whale sightings and learned just how many of these creatures are en route through the area at any given time. No wonder the Azores were so prominent on the whaling scene. Plentiful food, good weather – what’s not to like?

We had numerous sightings on one day – sperm whales (Physeter catodon) and fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus), mothers with calves, juveniles and elderly, in the distance and REALLY close by. In fact, one pod swam along in our bow wave like dolphins, except they were 60ft long fin whales. They dove underneath and we wondered where they’d come back up. They blew air which carried the scent of bountiful fisheries right beside us and stared at us with those penetrating gazes. It happened to be my birthday – one I will never forget!

In all these encounters, we have never truly felt threatened – concerned about proximity, but not threatened. We rarely use the engine even in very light air, and we always keep a close watch. We are respectful of the distance between us. We are respectful of their environment. We are respectful of their intelligence and their place on this oceanic earth. I think they knew all that.

Collisions between ships and whales

Struck by a whale off Grand Banks

The first time I heard about a sailing boat ‘encountering’ a whale mid-ocean was when a yacht, the 49ft sloop Peningo, collided with a whale about 700 miles from the Azores while en route from the US to the America’s Cup Jubilee in England in 2001.

The skipper wrote about their ordeal afterwards, providing insight into the experience1. Although the story is entitled Struck by a Whale, from his description of the encounter it is more likely that it was the vessel that struck the whale. The whale was severely injured and the yacht was rendered helpless with serious rudder damage. Luckily for those aboard, the yacht remained afloat with no major water intrusion until a rescue ship arrived to tow them back to Newfoundland.

The whale probably didn’t do so well.

The sinking of the Essex

This illustration from the Russel Purrington Panorama – a series of paintings intended to describe the workings of the whale fishery – shows the attack of the whale on the Essex

A most famous encounter is that of the Nantucket whaling ship Essex, which was sunk by a sperm whale in the South Pacific2 in 1820. Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dickis based on this true story, told by the few crew who survived. The whale struck the Essex with its head just behind the bow while the light boats were out hunting.

‘The ship brought up as suddenly and violently as if she had struck a rock,’ recalled Owen Chase, the first mate. The whale had smashed through the bulkhead and water was streaming in. Chase set the crew to work on the pumps and signalled the other boats to return immediately.

The whale, meanwhile, was apparently badly injured and was leaping and twisting in convulsions some distance away. Then suddenly the animal raced toward the ship again, its head high above the water like a battering ram.

It stove in the port side of the ship and the Essex sank, leaving the crew thousands of miles from land in three light boats. (See Nathaniel Philbrick: In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Penguin, 2001.)

In a scientific paper on whale behaviour by Carrier published in 2002, the authors note, ‘Head-butting during aggressive behaviour is common and widespread among cetaceans, suggesting that it may be a basal behaviour for the group. Although data is not available for most species, head-butting has been observed in species in each of the four major cetacean lineages’. They put forth a hypothesis that the spermaceti organ has evolved in whales as a weapon used in male-to-male aggression and was used as a battering ram capable of sinking the Essex. (See Carrier, DR et al: The face that sank the Essex: potential function of the spermaceti organ in aggression. J Exp Biol 205: 1755-1763, 2002.)

Even without this, the sperm whale is the largest-toothed animal alive today with some growing to more than 60ft in length and weighing 50 tons.

A mother sperm whale and her calf dive together near the Azores.
Photo: Daria Blackwell

Whale attack! Yachts colliding with whales

During a passage from the Canaries to the Caribbean we heard one of the boats in our SSB net report an attack by a whale.

She was a vessel in the 35ft range, heading back to Boston from Europe with two people aboard. While under sail in light wind they sighted several whales, one of which turned towards their boat and rammed it head on. It circled, and came back at them repeatedly. They were terrified that the whale was going to keep battering until they were holed and sunk, then suddenly it swam away. They had the presence of mind to take photos and were able to identify it as a false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens). The net controller asked what colour their hull was, as a crew member suggested that whales tend to attack boats with red bottoms. Interestingly, they had just had their bottom repainted – and the colour they had chosen was red. Aleria’s bottom is green and her hull is white.

There are multiple reports of yachts colliding with whales, including two in the 1970s when British yachts were lost.

• Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were on their way from Panama to the Galapagos Islands when, at dawn on 4 March 1973, their 31ft Auralyn was struck by a whale and holed. The Baileys survived for 117 days and drifted 1500 miles on an inflatable liferaft before being rescued. They wrote an account of their ordeal entitled 117 Days Adrift(Staying Alive! in the US).

• Dougal Robertson left England in 1971 aboard Lucette, a 43ft wooden schooner, with his wife and four children. On 15 June 1972 Lucette was holed by a pod of killer whales and sank approximately 200 miles west of the Galapagos Islands. The six people on board took to an inflatable liferaft and a solid hull dinghy, which they used as a tow-boat with a jury-rigged sail. They were rescued after 38 days by a fishing trawler.

Robertson wrote two books, Survive the Savage Seaand Sea Survival: A Manual.

• More recently there’s the 1989 account of a pod of pilot whales sinking the yacht Siboney, after which owners Bill and Simone Butler awaited rescue in a liferaft. He documented their story in the book, 66 Days Adrift: A True Story of Disaster and Survival on the Open Sea.

• In October 2011 Yachting Monthly reported on a boat which had been attacked by a whale mid-ocean in the mid 1990s. The animal made three glancing blows before swimming away, and scientists whom the author spoke to afterwards suggested that she must have had a calf and was chasing them off. They did not report the colour of their bottom paint, but noted that sections of paint had been scraped clean in the collision. The vessel, an Oyster Lightwave, did not suffer any significant damage.

• Anecdotal reports on blogs include one by Paul J who reported being attacked by what may have been a sperm whale about 150 miles off the Great Barrier Reef. He posted a photo (right) on ybw.com of the bottom of his steel boat dented by the whale’s head – the bottom of his boat was painted red.

In the same thread, two other cruisers noted encounters with pilot whales around their redbottomed boats, but no attacks.

Can whales see colour?

It has long been advised not to paint a boat’s bottom white because it looks like the belly of a killer whale. Other people advise not to paint it black, grey or blue because it might appear to be a competing whale or a predator. Then the red question came about.

Yet scientists have long professed that whales cannot see colour as they do not have the short wavelength cones in their eyes. That to me is short sighted (excuse the pun) as it assumes the human way is the only way to see colour. A study published in 2002 by Griebel suggests that cetaceans do indeed discern colour, but in a different way than we do (See Griebel, U, Color vision in marine mammals. A review. Bright, M,Dworschak, PC, and Stachowitsch, M (Eds.) 2002: The Vienna School of Marine Biology: A Tribute to Jörg Ott. Facultas Universitätsverlag, Wien: 73-87.)

So it is possible that colour does make a difference to whales – we just don’t know for sure.

Speed is a factor

One certain trend is that more collisions are being recorded as boats get faster (especially racing boats). A British sailing journalist’s blog looked back at some of the better-known collisions with whales, and we have now added to the list. There are four reports of collisions during the OSTAR (one in 1964, two in 1988 and one in 1996) the latter including one with Ellen MacArthur’s Kingfisher in which the whale was killed and found wrapped around the vessel’s keel. David Selling’s Hyccup sank as a result of a collision in 1988.

There were two reports during Whitbread Round the World Races, in 1989 and 1998; of the second, Knut Frostad said, ‘It was like being in a car crash’. Delta Lloyd and Ericsson 3 both hit whales during the 2008/09 Volvo Ocean Race, with minor damage.

There were four other reports during races between 2001 and 2005 in which boats were damaged, with rudders being particularly vulnerable.

That’s a total of twelve high-profile collisions reported since the 1960s, but only one vessel (Hyccup) was catastrophically damaged.

And in the 2011/12 Volvo Ocean Race, Camper’s helmsman Roberto Bermudez managed to avoid collision with a whale on Leg 7 from Miami to Lisbon – all caught on amazing video footage

YouTube video: CAMPER Avoids Whale Collision – Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12

Next:
Part 2 of this article is here.

About Daria Blackwell

Daria is a proud member of the Ocean Cruising Club Committee, Seven Seas Cruising Association (cruising station for Ireland), American Yacht Club and Mayo Sailing Club.

Their website is www.CoastalBoating.net, “the boaters’ resource for places to go and things to know”.

Also on this website

Chance encounters between ships and whales – Part 2
All posts about Nature
More posts by Daria Blackwell:
- Dancing in the Harbour
- What I like best about cruising? Passages and anchorages: a world of your own

Why washing dishes in saltwater is WORTH IT

Lanea Riley — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:30:54 +0000

“What did we sign up for?!” I thought after our first day at anchor in the Sea of Cortez. We had spent the prior night and wee morning hours fighting through a 30 knot coromuel to get to the anchorage. Both us and the boat were covered with salt.

Alone at anchor in Puerto Don Juan

We took a pitiful shower in the cockpit with the already partially broken Solar Shower but without a watermaker we didn’t have enough water to clean the boat. Instead we walked around the deck spraying the hardware with a water bottle in hopes of preventing corrosion.

We had barely slept the night before and were expecting another sleepless night due to a repeat performance of coromuel winds.

After dinner I leaned over the side of the boat to scoop salt water in to a 5 gallon bucket. The very bucket that I planned to use for the summer to wash the dishes in salt water before a fresh water rinse.

I don’t like doing dishes in the first place, and now I am doing dishes in a salty bucket? Looking out on the uninhabited island of Isla Espiritu Santo, my husband and I asked each other, is this seriously going to be our life for the whole summer? Is this really what we signed up for?!

I don’t know if I can do this all summer, I confided that evening.

The next day we took a hike, walked the beach, and had the most magical sunset at anchor. It was as if all the wildlife in the area choreographed a magnificent performance while we sat on the deck eating dinner. I kept waiting for Ariel to jump out of the water with flying fish and manta rays as back up dancers and belt out “Under the Sea.”

From that moment on, we were undeniably hooked.

We would sit on the foredeck with a good book and maybe a glass of wine and wait for the wildlife dance that took place every night before sunset to begin.

Waiting for the evening wildlife “show” to start

Away from the comforts of the marina which offers free-flowing water, electricity, and the ability to sleep through the night, we settled in for a summer of exploration, living off the sea, and self sustainability. After our first 18 days in the Sea of Cortez we picked up a mooring ball at Puerto Escondido for a couple of nights to refill our water tanks, wash the boat, change the oil, and refuel before we headed out for the islands again.

Fresh boatmade fish tacos

That was the longest we had gone without visiting a restaurant since we each started college. In fact, before we went cruising I cooked an average of one meal a year for my husband. Obviously things had changed since our land life.

Six months in the Sea of Cortez led to lasting friendships, fabulous meals on board, learning how to wash clothes by hand, and becoming intimately aware of how to use our anchor, the tides, the moon cycle, and weather. Not to mention a slight addiction with the game Baja Rummy. Most importantly we learned about each other and ourselves.

“If you would enjoy a weekend alone with your partner locked in your apartment without power and water, then you will love voyaging together.”
— THE VOYAGER’S HANDBOOK by Beth A.Leonard

A ‘land friend’ asked what it was like to spend so many uninterrupted days together. “Like we were on an extended couples retreat.” I answered. We had nothing but time to laugh, play, explore, and talk.

Happy couple

By comparison, life is pretty easy in a marina. But we love the adventure that comes with being at anchor in the Sea.

This article was published on July 3, 2012 in Lanea Riley’s blog The Voyage of Moondance.

About Lanea Riley

Lanea Riley and her husband Conor bought an Islander 36, in April 2011 and within 15 days they decided to prepare Sausalito-based MOONDANCE for a southbound trip to Mexico. Six short months later, they left under the Golden Gate Bridge.

They have been enjoying Mexico ever since and spent 6 glorious months in the Sea of Cortez in the summer of 2012.

Lanea maintains a sailing blog at www.svmoondance.wordpress.com

When green meets blue

Katharine Lowrie — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:05:05 +0000

Breakfast with Westland Petrels,
becalmed, Pacific

From watching dolphins leaping at the bow, seeking companionship from a banking shearwater during lonely ocean watchers or flushing hundreds of tiny sparkling plankton down the loo(!), sailors are overwhelmingly in tune with the natural world.

Like our fellow amphibians, we have adapted to life on land and in the water, just with a few more contraptions to keep us afloat! Sails power us, wind turbines swish, solar panels bristle and wake turbines spin, providing green energy for our lights, laptops, fridges or if you’ve a wooden boat like us, bilge pumps!

It is this usage of alternative energy and awareness of its consumption, down to the last amp, that holds us apart from many of our land-dwelling counterparts. Just as a gecko effortlessly merges with its surrounding, so the sailor can be seen collecting rain water, conserving water, sourcing locally and eating seasonally; it is as natural to her as living in a box the size of most people’s garden shed.

Red-footed booby on the bowsprit, Pacific

Blue Whale, Pacific Ocean

We live a privileged life in some of the most remote and wild places on earth. Tiny, shaken feather-balls seek shelter with us on their incredible migrations; flying fish screech onto our decks; a blue whale, one of the least known and largest animals ever to grace our planet, surfaces at our ‘front door’.

We are immersed in the lives of animals that others can only dream of.

But we mustn’t get complacent.

It’s easy to underestimate the impact of jettisoning a piece of rope, of the gurgle of the ‘iron top sail’ or that of anti-foul paint. The natural world, especially the vast ocean, can appear so limitless, bountiful and forgiving. It can be, but at the moment humanity is pushing Lovelock’s Gaia Theory to the limit. The repetitive death knells of: overfishing, pollution, over-population, coral bleaching and climate change hammer remorselessly at our planet, our life support system.

South American sealions

In our unique positions sleeping within a few centimetres of a passing hammer-head shark or giant squid, we can lead the way. We are the Queens of our mini floating worlds, regulating inputs and outputs, far and above that which a land-lover could dream to achieve.

Together we can reconnect our blue-green umbilical cord and ensure that the passion and inspiration ignited by our magical world is shared with others and serves to conserve our wild home forever.

I have always been transfixed by the natural world. Whether perched on a branch watching the canopy commotion as a bird of prey soars through or waiting under the roof of a million stars for whiskered bats to emerge from their roost. But it was not until nearly four years ago when we set sail that I started to meet and understand the other 70% of our planet.

Since then we have been trying to work out how to leave as tiny a blue print as possible. I find it challenging and extremely satisfying. I’m sure many of you will be following similar principles and I would love to hear more ideas. Because I believe together we CAN make a difference, can ENJOY the ‘greening’ process and most of all the wildlife and wild places we’re supporting.

“There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience”.
~French Proverb

Below are some of the things we do to sustain as blue-green a life as possible:

Buy products with as little packaging as possible.

Home Made Preserves, Chile

I have an allergy to plastic bags (!) and carry rucksacks and egg boxes for provisioning. We preserve our own fruit, meat and veg to cut back on cans.
Reuse, recycle and sort waste. I dig organic waste into a hole on land or jettison it at sea when on passage. We believe that if waste comes from the land it should go back there if at all possible.
We conducted a rubbish experiment, hoarding all our no non-organic waste for 10 months. This included stuffing five pillows with all our old bits of old rope ends, thread and material. It’s amazing how focused one becomes on packaging, when you know you have to stare at it for another 10 months! It also becomes weirdly therapeutic…

10 Month Rubbish Experiment, Chile
We buy local and seasonal food. We consider how products are made and how they reached the shelves. This can on occasion hemorrhage decisions, but most of the time it’s liberating and suits my controlling nature!
We don’t eat fish or seafood unless there is evidence that stocks are healthy. If you haven’t time to research the topic read, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat,by Charles Clover, it’s a fantastic piece of investigative journalism. Unfortunately, a bustling fish market is not necessary the sign of a thriving fishery. Blue-finned tuna, Atlantic cod, Atlantic salmon, shark, marlin, monk fish, shrimps, prawns, lobster and swordfish are amongst the many imperiled species.See:
www.fishonline.org
www.fishwatch.gov
www.greenpeace.org.uk/oceans/what-you-can-do/better-buys-what-fish-can-I-eat

Cleaning:

Soapnuts in organic cotton bag

I use Ecover which can be found in the UK, Canary Islands, USA etc. and Seventh Generation which I found in St. Maarten, or better still vinegar and lemon (to cut back on packaging), also organic soap and shampoo (I’ve found organic olive-based products in the French Caribbean).

Soapnuts are little gems for laundry. They’re totally organic, not the rightest of results, but the fish are happier! Friends know to bring these beauties with them when they visit, although you need such tiny amounts, they last for ages.
I use a ‘moon cup’ during menstruation, so nothing’s thrown in the bin and it’s very cost effective. We haven’t had children yet, but I would love to hear from parents who’ve used cloth nappies.
We’ve tried various anti-foul alternative treatments such as chili in paint, but with the fear of ship worm ever stalking us, I’m afraid we still use hard anti-foul paint. I’m not an expert on anti-fouling and would love to hear if anyone has found ‘greener’ alternatives. This is the bane of our wooden boat life. We collect the hard paint debris as best as we can when re-painting the hull, but no doubt this highly toxic substance gets into the environment and into us.
Fuel: we use the engine as little as possible, equating it to CO₂, stinking fumes and noise. Some of our most treasured days at sea have been sitting becalmed with our toes being pecked by seabirds!

Westland Petrel, becalmed, Pacific
We mend and re-use everything: when lowering the floor in our galley, we re-used all the wood and nails. We are very careful in selecting wood, using, for example, teak grown in agricultural plantations in Trinidad. I’d rather see a tree in a rainforest heaving with wildlife than dead on our boat.
We avoid petroleum-based products where possible using, for example, linseed oil and Varnol (pine tree resin-based product) on the exterior wood. No product is perfect: e.g. linseed oil is often produced through intensive agriculture, so it’s often a case of choosing the best of a bad bunch.

I look forward to hearing your ideas!

The 5000 Mile Project

On 27 July 2012, Katharine and her husband, David, will start running the length of South America, over 5000 miles, the equivalent of 200 marathons, unsupported, in a year.

Tortel, Chile

Their goals are to:

Raise money to buy and conserve threatened habitats in South America.
Connect people to the communities and wildlife they meet and examine how, through our actions, we are connected.
Inspire environmental action; to prove that with small steps we can tackle seemingly insurmountable challenges; it’s not too late to protect the world’s remaining unspoilt ecosystems, but time is running out.

If you would like to sponsor their expedition or donate to their wildlife charities, please:

Contact Katharine at landy@listalight.co.uk
And visit www.5000mileproject.org and www.facebook.com/5000mileproject

About Katharine Lowrie

Katharine Lowrie surveying in Reloncavi, Chile

Katharine is an ecologist and currently lives with her husband David in Uruguay on their 77-year-old wooden gaff-ketch.

They surveyed the breeding seabirds of the Eastern Caribbean between 2009 and 2010 and recently published, The Seabird Breeding Atlas of the Lesser Antilles, with Environmental Protection In the Caribbean (EPIC), available from Create Space and Amazon.com.

After leaving the Caribbean, they sailed to the Galapagos, Easter Island and Chile where they lived for nearly a year, including sailing south through the Patagonian canals and the Beagle Channel. They then sailed to the Falklands and Uruguay — experiencing some of the worst weather of their entire journey! (www.listalight.co.uk).

More information (external links)

Lovelock’s Gaia Theory: Model and Metaphor for the 21st Century:
The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat,by Charles Clover
The buyer’s guide to sustainable seafood (Marine Conservation Society, UK)
Fish Watch: US Seafood Facts
Sustainable seafood: what fish can I eat? (Greenpeace website)
Ecover (Ecological cleaning products)
Seventh Generation (Green cleaning products)
1001 Uses of White Distilled Vinegar
Lemons, a natural household cleaner
Using Soapnut shells for your laundry
‘Moon cup’ (Sanitary protection)

How do you leave a ‘small blue print’?

Let us know.

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

Women cruisers organize seabird citizen science project

Diana Doyle — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:50:27 +0000

Diana Doyle spotting wildlife in a quiet South Carolina saltmarsh anchorage.

A year ago, I wrote about “Birding Aboard” for Women and Cruising‘s series, Take Your Passion Cruising.

It turned out I was not alone in my passion for observing and enjoying birds while cruising.

Thanks to the phenomenal network of Women and Cruising, I connected to several other dedicated “birders-aboard,” including

Beth Leonard
on s/v Hawk,
Brenda Free
on s/v Willow,
Devi Sharp
on s/v Arctic Tern,
Jeanne Socrates
on s/v Nereida,
Katharine Lowrie
on s/v Lista Light,
Wendy Clarke
on s/v Osprey,
Yvonne Katchor on s/v Australia 31,
and Dorothy Wadlow on s/v Joyant.

Together we organized the first worldwide “SeaBC” SeaBird Count, where cruisers tally and submit their ocean and coastal bird sightings to eBird‘s online database. These sightings become a resource for scientists and provide much-needed data on seabird abundance and distribution.

Participation spanned over 100 degrees of latitude — from the Gulf of Maine at North 48º to South 58º on Antarctica’s Weddell Sea. But most counts were from more temperate latitudes, such as the islands off Africa, Chile’s Golfo de Penas, and the Caribbean.

And this year’s inaugural SeaBC was promoted by three long-distance cruising rallies: the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, Baja Ha-Ha, and Caribbean 1500.

Two Black-browed Albatross that landed by S/V LISTA LIGHT on passage from Falklands to Uruguay (Photo by Katharine Lowrie)

But this post is not only about the SeaBC event, it’s about how this event illustrates the passion and commitment many women aboard have for the natural world.

Women aboard boats value nature. Of course men love nature also. But I’d venture that many women who thrive long-term aboard a cruising boat really love nature. The cruising lifestyle connects them with nature in a way that a climate-controlled condominium never can. And they love their boat, in part, because it’s their magic carpet to an endless supply of captivating new natural observations with each change of latitude.

Devi Sharp shares her knowledge during a cruiser raft-up in Venezuela.
(Photo by Charles Shipley)

Women also embrace volunteerism. We can’t change generations of cultural imprinting! And the SeaBC taps into our enthusiasm for contributing in a way that is compatible with the cruising lifestyle. As volunteerism adapts to technology, citizen science takes environmental projects to the Internet. You may sometimes feel like a floating island, but you can still participate in your areas of interest by collecting and photographing geo-referenced data and uploading it to citizen science projects.

So the important role of women in launching this inaugural event isn’t just a coincidence.

Thank you Women and Cruising!

How You Can Help…

Join Facebook.com/Birding.Aboard, where you can share sightings, get ID help, and see news about next year’s SeaBC.

On your next coastal or offshore passage, take digital photos of seabirds and report your sightings to www.eBird.org.

If you’re not a birdwatcher, no problem—you can make an important contribution by reporting hourly stretches of “zero sightings.” Scientists and conservationists need to know where the birds are—and are not.

Volunteer to print and post a color PDF flyer at marinas you visit.
The SeaBC Sea Bird Count project needs help getting posters disseminated to marinas and yacht clubs worldwide. If every Women and Cruising reader would take a few minutes to print a downloadable poster, then post it at their next marina port-of-call, imagine the reach! The one-page poster, printable on standard-size paper, is available for download here.

Know a second language? We need help translating our one-page tally sheet to French, Spanish, German, …

About Diana Doyle

Diana Doyle and her husband Mark write the cruising guide and electronic charting series, Managing the Waterway—now known as On the Water ChartGuides to reflect their full-time surveying and cruising status.

Diana holds a 50-ton USCG Master’s License and is the “Tools of the Trade” Department Editor for American Birding Association‘s Birding magazine (www.aba.org).

More information (external links)

Facebook.com/Birding.Aboard:
Share sightings with other birders aboard long-distance boats.
The eBird website: On-line database of bird observations.
American Birding Association website
www.onthewaterchartguides.com

Do you agree with Diana that many women who thrive long-term aboard a cruising boat really love nature? How important is that aspect of cruising for you?

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

Gardening for cruisers

Bev Feiges — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 21:53:37 +0000

I have always said the two things most cruising women agree they miss most are their children/grandchildren and their gardens.

I dealt with the gardening issue by bringing aboard window boxes and potted plants.

My outside garden, always changing

I put a layer of heavy pebbles in the bottom of the boxes, then put in potted plants in their pots (if they are only going to bloom for a few months), or actually plant them (if they are long bloomers like geraniums).

The rocks are to give enough weight so the box doesn’t tip over or blow away, since the potting soil is so lightweight.

This is my “back porch garden”, and with such limited space as you have on a boat, I give away the plants that are out of bloom.

My flower basket on the galley table.

Inside the boat, I keep some potted plants that do well without sunshine, and I keep a number of them snugged together in a flat basket to eliminate the danger of tipping over. If they are single containers, I stick them down with museum putty, or put them in the sink while traveling.

This has become a suitable substitute for the large garden I had at home.

It is also easy to grow various herbs, like basil, if your preference is to grow something that’s good for dinner.

The other compensations are visiting great gardens along your path of travel, or even taking walks along nearby roads, and photographing the wild flowers you will find.

Everybody is photographing the black iris, Netanhya

As much as I loved the ancient sites we visited in the Med, it was the wildflowers in Israel, and their pictures, that gives me the most long lasting satisfaction. Following are some illustrations, of what I am talking about.


Lotus Creticus	Alkana Strigosa Borignaceae


The Rothschild garden, outside Hifa, Israel	Black Iris, Netanhya

Hope this inspires someone, and makes them realize you don’t have to leave your favorite pastimes out of your life, just because you are cruising.

It opens your doors to a world of plants you would not see if sitting in one spot ashore, and by using your camera, and even searching out the identities of what you photograph, you will have these memories for as long as you wish.

Beverly and David Feiges
Aboard Cloverleaf
Abaco, Bahamas

About Bev Feiges

After 21 years on a Cal-46-3 sailboat, Bev and her husband moved aboard Cloverleaf, their second cruising boat, a 61-foot custom Krogen motoryacht.

Self-described “coastal cruisers”, they have traveled the eastern seaboard from Canada to Florida, much of the Caribbean, and with a little help from Dockwise Yacht Transport, much of the Med, from the Balearics to Turkey, south along the coast to Egypt, through the Suez Canal, as far south as Abu Tieg.

You can read Bev’s blog, “Cruising with Cloverleaf“, at www.feiges.blogspot.com.

Bev is also a contributor to Gwen Hamlin’s “Admiral’s Angle” column.

More information (external links)

Bev and Dave Feiges’s blog: “Cruising with Cloverleaf”
With 60 years of boating experience, Bev and Dave Feiges have seen it all. From racing inland lake scows, to cruising and living aboard sailboats and trawlers for the past 30 years, they have developed opinions on almost every aspect of life on the water, especially with an eye toward the needs of older boaters

Do you have a garden aboard your boat?

Let us know.

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

Diana Doyle enjoys “birding aboard” as she writes cruising guides

Diana Doyle — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 15:40:28 +0000

When my husband Mark and I started writing cruising guides,

we called them “enriched” guides because we wanted to include more than just the “mileposts and signposts” of transiting from one port to another.

When we cruised, we most enjoyed the learning experiences along the way. Although we were busy piloting, we were curious about the stories behind the island’s names, the birds and plants we were seeing, and the local history. But the existing guides didn’t fill in enough details. And I couldn’t tote along enough field guides, nature books, and regional history reading to cover the miles!

Interpretive vignette from “Managing the Waterway” (Mule Key to Loggerhead Key)

So when we started our series, although they are first and foremost navigation books, we decided to include what we called “interpretive vignettes”: short but detailed background reading on the sights, sounds, and stories along the way.

What marine animal makes that crackling noise under the hull at night?
What causes bioluminescence?
How can a large pelican hit the water at such high speeds?
How far can a flying fish fly?

Our cruising guides were a perfect business outlet for our mutual passions: Mark’s passions for computers, photography, design, and boats; and my passions for the outdoors, nature, writing, and research.

Cruising is like living an eco-tour.

When you cruise, nature is all around you. Although I try to balance the vignettes to include history, geography, geology, archaeology, and so on, my favorite vignettes to write are nature-based. I’m an avid (Mark says obsessive) bird-watcher (now called a “birder”), but I’m particularly interested in birds in their larger ecological context, which means plants, insects, climate, etc.

To help me write the vignettes, sometimes I think of myself as a guide on an eco-tour, interpreting all the amazing natural sights along a particular waterway or in an anchorage.

Atlantic Puffin

When you live aboard a boat, natural phenomena that other people pay to experience with a nature tour are regular daily sightings. Destinations that folks go on birding trips become your home for days or weeks!

In the Dry Tortugas, we anchored for days surrounded by the racket of thousands of sooty terns and brown noddies. They were our all-day companions. Most birders have to take a ferry out to the island and only spend a few hours before being herded back aboard for the return trip.

When we sailed the coast of Maine, we charted our course along Eastern Egg Rock to experience the successful reintroduction of an Atlantic Puffin colony. We had front row seats as puffins commuted back and forth with beak-fulls of tiny fish.

I was reminded of the unique vantage point of the cruising lifestyle when I read Return of the Osprey, by David Gessner. The author fervently wished to see an osprey haul a fish out of the water in its talons. I can’t even count how many times I’ve witnessed this event from our boat at anchor. Wildlife, doing their daily chores, are your neighbors when you live aboard.

But I want to do more than just “watch birds.”

On land, I love participating in projects that aid bird conservation. There are countless opportunities for this: Christmas Bird Counts (CBCs), Important Bird Area (IBA) surveys, or the Breeding Bird Atlas.

But what about when I’m birding aboard? Although I love watching birds, and searching for new birds, it’s not enough. Writing our cruising guides helps scratch that itch by letting me share my knowledge about common bird species. I also write articles on more advanced birding for nature magazines.

Now I’m ready to start my next project: a “CBC at Sea.”

As I brainstormed how I could bring my passion for bird conservation onto a moving vessel, I came up with the idea of a “CBC at Sea.”

CBC at Sea:

A call to those who spend time at sea to establish a worldwide annual bird count and contribute their ocean sightings to a citizen-science database for the study and conservation of pelagic species.

The cruising community is a huge untapped resource for citizen science. We are tuned in with our environment, educated, and interested in the marine world. We explore the less-traveled areas. And there are literally thousands of us out there!

Bridled Tern

Remember all the amazing bird sightings you’ve experienced at sea? The tropic bird colony along a rocky cliff? A seabird that followed your stern wake? The tired songbird that landed on your gunwale? The birds seen as you dinghied to a little island off your anchorage?

If you’re on the water and interested in nature, then you can really help.

Your sightings matter since there aren’t too many scientists who have the time and money to be where you are! Citizen science is the new thing in this massively-connected digital world. Research and conservation databases need reports from those of us who live unconventional lifestyles in unconventional places (admit it, live-aboard cruising is highly unconventional!)

It’s fine if you’re not a bird-whiz. We need to start somewhere and, just like land birding over the decades, knowledge will come in time. But we need to start getting the data and spreading awareness sooner than later! For example, when the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred, so little was known about seabirds on the Gulf of Mexico that the early spill data basically had to function as baseline information.

The initial idea is to have boaters from around the world record their local bird observations on a one-day count. Observations would be submitted to a central database, such as Cornell University’s eBird.

If you’re home-schooling, this is a perfect project to teach children about ornithology, marine biology, data-gathering and recording, citizen science, and seabird conservation. There remain so many unanswered questions about ocean birds, such as where some species breed or winter. Your child can help answer these puzzles!

If you’re interested in participating or staying updated about the CBC at Sea, send me an email at diana@managingthewaterway.com. I’ll send information as the project develops.

Get Involved in Seabird Citizen Science!

Even if you don’t consider yourself a birder, here are some tips to help you or your home-schooled child identify what you see.

Purchase a field guide for your area. Women and Cruising’s website includes many excellent regional suggestions.

Take notes or draw sketches of what you see. First look and record; identification can come later.

Ask locals. Their knowledge of nature usually far surpasses what’s available in field guides or even web searches.

Jot down what locals call a bird. Do they call it a “dry land booby” or a “diablotin”? That’s a black-capped petrel. Many regional field guides include local names.

Submit your sightings to Cornell’s eBird database so it can be used to help bird conservation and study trends (www.ebird.com). This is a great activity for home-schoolers.

About Diana Doyle

Diana Doyle and her husband Mark write the cruising guide and electronic charting series, Managing the Waterway. They wrote their first two guides, covering the Intracoastal Waterway and Florida Keys, while cruising on a PDQ catamaran and home-schooling their son.

Diana began birding at age seven, when her third grade visiting teacher, a “twitcher” (compulsive bird-lister) from the U.K., ignored the state-mandated curriculum and took his students birding all day—resulting in an entire class in remedial summer school. She recovered from that early academic setback to earn a Ph.D. from Yale and is still birding forty years later. A former political science professor with a lifelong interest in environmental conservation, she also holds a 50-ton USCG Master’s License.

Mark and Diana’s latest guide is An Illustrated Cruising Guide to the Great Loop Inland Waterway: Chicago to Mobile. You can see details on all their titles, see Mark’s photos, download additional cruising guide resources, and get the latest guide updates at their website: www.managingthewaterway.com.

More information (external links)

Christmas Bird Count, from Wikipedia
Audubon Official Christmas Bird Count (CBC) page
What is an Important Bird Area?
The ebird website (on-line database of bird observations)
Details on Mark and Diana Doyle’s cruising guides: www.managingthewaterway.com

Has cruising given you a unique opportunity to explore YOUR passions?

Do you have stories to share about how cruising has brought you up close to nature?

Do you want to get involved with the Christmas Bird Count at Sea?

Let us know.

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.

Blog » Nature

Birding Aboard “SeaBC” has sailors reporting unusual birds

About Diana Doyle

More from this website

Marine Conservation is my passion

Sally-Christine’s thoughts on Marine Conservation

About Sally-Christine Rodgers

More from this website

Adventures of a once reluctant sailor

I had absolutely no intention of making the trip

That’s all it took to get me on board.

I am so grateful for the strength I was given to put aside my fear and step out of my comfort zone.

About Michele McClintock Sharp

More on this website

Chance encounters between ships and whales – Part 2

Bizarre whale tales

Published studies of collisions

What can you do?

About Daria Blackwell

Further readings

Also on this website

Chance encounters between ships and whales – Part 1

Most sailors setting off on a passage dream of encountering wildlife at sea.

Magic at sea – the friendly encounter

First encounter with whales

Occasional glimpses

Whales galore

Collisions between ships and whales

Struck by a whale off Grand Banks

The sinking of the Essex

Whale attack! Yachts colliding with whales

Can whales see colour?

Speed is a factor

About Daria Blackwell

Further readings

Also on this website

Why washing dishes in saltwater is WORTH IT

About Lanea Riley

More on this website:

When green meets blue

But we mustn’t get complacent.

Below are some of the things we do to sustain as blue-green a life as possible:

I look forward to hearing your ideas!

The 5000 Mile Project

About Katharine Lowrie

Read also on this website

More information (external links)

Women cruisers organize seabird citizen science project

How You Can Help…

About Diana Doyle

Read also on this website

More information (external links)

Gardening for cruisers

About Bev Feiges

Read also on this website

More information (external links)

Diana Doyle enjoys “birding aboard” as she writes cruising guides

When my husband Mark and I started writing cruising guides,

Cruising is like living an eco-tour.

But I want to do more than just “watch birds.”

Now I’m ready to start my next project: a “CBC at Sea.”

If you’re on the water and interested in nature, then you can really help.

About Diana Doyle

Read also on this website

More information (external links)