Flying home from the Falklands – reflections on our expedition (Frithjof, Pieter, Alexandra and Melina) Dec. 17, 2013

We are writing these lines in mid-air between the Falklands and Ascension Island. Seeing the vast expanses of ocean underneath is a good moment and inspiration to reflect on the last 3 ½ weeks spent in the South Atlantic.

After a 3-day visit to Ascension Island, our team of 4 scientists and divers - Alexandra Mystikou (joint PhD student of the South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute in Stanley (SAERI) and the University of Aberdeen), Professors Pieter van West and Frithjof Kuepper (both at the University of Aberdeen) and Melina Marcou (Dept. of Fisheries and Marine Research, Cyprus) - have been roaming and diving the shores of Saunders Island, West Falkland, SW East Falkland (Danson Harbour area) and Sea Lion Island from Nov. 26 - Dec. 17, with strong support by Stevie Cartwright, Paul Brewin and their friends from the Shallow Marine Surveys Ground (SMSG) and SAERI (notably Dr. Paul Brickle). Another important activity covered the freshwater courses in these regions, where isolates were made for surveying the diversity of aquatic oomycetes, a group of pathogens related to fish mould and potato blight.

The only major, published research on seaweeds in the Falklands is the work of the Swede Carl Skottsberg on the Falklands’ brown algae in the early 1900s. With no diving available at that time, inevitably a part of the deeper-water flora was not covered – and the archipelago’s red and green algae have remained almost totally unexplored to this date. The team is returning to Europe with hundreds of specimens and samples and over 10,000 photos. Follow-up work at Aberdeen – mostly consisting of algal and oomycete culturing, DNA analysis and microscopy - will start immediately but will certainly take several years to complete.

The team came across challenging weather conditions, poor visibility and underwater currents. In combination with the cold waters (7^o Celsius), they made the scientists’ work not an easy task. Nevertheless we not only managed to complete successfully the scheduled sampling, we also very much enjoyed diving in the Falkland Islands. The underwater environment of the Falklands is full of surprises -the colourful coralligenous habitats underneath the forests of giant kelp (Macrocystis sp.) and the deeper-growing Lessonia create a unique habitat for the marine organisms, which looks like a magical world. The underwater photos taken by SMSG and the team reveal a secret paradise hidden in the waters of the Falkland Islands. This was the 5^th visit of Frithjof and Pieter to the Falklands - every single visit so far has resulted in new discoveries of seaweed and oomycete biodiversity from around the islands.

We are very grateful to SAERI and SMSG for their support during our expedition - namely the Director of SAERI and Alexandra’s co-supervisor Dr. Paul Brickle and his team at SAERI (Rachael Crowie, Dr. Deborah Davidson, Anne Saunders and Dr. Ilaria Marengo). We would like to thank also Steve Cartwright, Dr. Paul Brewin, Dr. Martin Collins, Joost Pompert and Vernon for their organization and support of the expedition to the Falkland Sound (Danson Harbour).

Once more time the people from the Falkland Islands showed us their hospitality and made everything they could to make us feel like home. Special thanks to Brian Jamieson (owner of the South Harbour Farm for warming up us with a cup of tea after of a cold dive but also to the owner of Dunnose Head Farm (SW of Port Philomel). Our special thanks go to Kay McCallum for making our stay in Stanley feel like home. Her orange cake filled us with energy to complete even our most challenging task.

We are once more on board the gray-painted AirTanker Airbus A330 Voyager. As the Falklands disappeared from our views, a Typhoon fighter jet appeared as escort on each wing tip, a stark reminder of the siege-like situation that the Falkland Islanders still have to put up with. 

We are flying back to Europe, but our hearts and minds remain in the Falklands with the Falkland Islanders and the magic underwater world in this cold corner of Planet Earth...

Looking out for Orcas at Sea Lion Island – Dec. 12-14 (Alexandra, Melina & Frithjof)

Sea Lion Island is the southernmost inhabited island of the Falklands, a paradise-like place and nature reserve with amazing wildlife. It is considered as one of the most unique places in the world as within a total surface of 2,236 acres one can encounter Southern Sea Lion, Southern Elephant Seal, Orca; 4 different species of penguins (Gentoo, Magellanic, Rockhopper and King Penguin), but also the rare Striated Caracara, a bird of prey.

A FIGAS (Falkland Islands Government Air Service) flight with one of their characteristic, red BN Islander planes took us from Stanley Airport via Fox Bay (West Falkland) to Sea Lion Island. A very scenic, low-altitude flight, with some awesome views of the mountains west of Stanley with their characteristic stone runs of glacial origin, the Mount Pleasant Airbase (MPA), Darwin, Goose Green, Lafonia, the rugged coast on both sides of the Falkland Sound, the lovely twin village of Fox Bay, and then the remote shores of southern East Falkland, Speedwell Island and over a stretch of sea towards Sea Lion Island! The Falklands’ white beaches with turquoise waters look as splendid from the air as from the ground, but their colour certainly is deceptive as far as the temperatures are concerned.

We were once again greeted by the friendly and very hospitable staff of the Sea Lion Lodge as soon as we had landed on the island. Melina was the only member of our team who had never been to Sea Lion Island before. What really impressed her was the sight of a Gentoo Penguin colony right next to the lodge and all the noise they make. Sleeping here was definitely an experience itself, since the loud voices of the penguins were the last thing you hear as you drift into sleep; paradise indeed.

Unlike our previous visit in January 2013, our scientific diving team was not able to conduct any diving or snorkelling activity, due to the Orcas’ hunting season (November – December). Thankfully, this did not affect our work, since we managed to find the Maullinia-infected Durvillea antarctica that we were looking for, during a low tide search right at the beginning of our stay. As far as Sea Lion Island is concerned, this meant mission accomplished.

A documentary of the Orcas in Sea-Lion Island shows one of the places most commonly used by Orcas hunting for sea elephants and sea lions, the so-called Orca Pool. The Orca Pool is at the right end of a long beach were Elephant Seals usually rest. Waking up at 3:30 am was definitely challenging, but not unbearable since the thought of sighting Orcas was enough to energize us. The first morning was not so lucky for us, since no Orcas showed up, but that did not put us off, since the next morning at 4 am, we were again on the beach and immediately greeted by three Orcas, swimming next to the coast. With mixed feelings, we watched the Orcas moving outside of the “pool” trying to decide how to approach their prey. We were just observers of nature’s survival chain; the three Orcas finally managed to snatch one of the Elephant Seals in the sea. Immediately a lot of birds approached the site, looking for the remains of the kill. The Orcas left suddenly and everything was calm once again, with the Elephant Seals lying on the beach, or fighting with each other and the Magellanic Penguins passing by us to get into the sea for their morning food.

Shortly, a FIGAS flight will take us back to Stanley. Leaving this amazing wildlife paradise behind, pictures of Penguins, Elephant Seals, Sea Lions, Birds and the Orcas swimming in the sunrise, remain in our minds. In this remote place, on the southernmost edge of the Falkland Islands, where human activity is limited to three buildings and a small airplane strip, nature goes its way…

Danson Harbour, Dec. 7-10 (Frithjof Kuepper, Melina Markou and Alexandra Mystikou)

After only one night in Kay’s cosy home in Stanley with a lot of laundry, re-packing and a night of office work, we hit the long road from Stanley to North Arm and then off-road towards the SW corner of East Falkland, to a remote, lonely house (belonging to the North Arm settlement) otherwise used by farm staff for herding cattle etc., which would be our home for the next 4 days. An almost 5 hour drive! It has to be said that despite the images of marine life, diving etc. on this blog, much of our time in the Falklands is inevitably spent in cars, typically 4 WDs. Distances are huge and roads are poor or non-existent, which makes for long durations of rough vehicle travel for getting almost anywhere. The southern half of East Falkland, south of the Isthmus of Darwin and Goose Green, is mostly made up of the great plain of Lafonia, mostly dry grassland reminiscent of Patagonia, with very little human population.

Outhouses like “ours” at Danson Harbour were built in the past and are still used today for working these huge lands, especially for cattle ranching. They are occupied only sporadically, whenever farm staff needs accommodation for a couple of days. Heating is by a peat-fired kitchen stove with back boiler for providing warm water and a fireplace in the lounge. A diesel-powered generator in an adjacent shed provides electricity for a few hours a day.

Our team of 4 joined forces with the team of the Shallow Marine Surveys Group (SMSG), who coordinate and conduct assessments of the status of inshore resources around the Falkland Islands. SMSG is headed by a core group of experienced biologists and divers and assisted by volunteers from the local community who carry out scientific collections and identifications, photographic surveys, and marine ecological research that contributes to local and regional conservation policy initiatives.

Days started at around 7.30 am with Pieter yelling “How would you like your eggs today?” until he would have a response from everyone. After a cooked breakfast for fuelling up, we would load the 4WDs with dive and sampling equipment and drive to the boat launch site on a secluded beach, about ½ h off-road driving away. The team worked in 2 groups, each of which would go for 1 or 2 dives from a Zodiac with outboard engine, 15-30 min from the boat launch site.

The dives were very rewarding scientifically, but challenging due to the environmental conditions – very cold waters, currents, wildlife, weather conditions and the giant kelp forest all of which can bear special hazards for divers. Moreover, the lack of a recompression chamber on the Islands was the limiting factor for not working in depths greater than ~ 20 m. Nonetheless, we very much enjoyed and managed the diving with safety and organisation.

A highlight of our dives was an underwater encounter with a male Sea Lion while we were sampling seaweeds. The big creature came very close to us and after a few “dancing” movements, he left us to continue our work.

The seaweed flora of the Falkland Sound area has not been studied in depth since the days of Skotsberg 110 years ago, as the access is difficult in such a remote place and scuba diving for phycological objectives had not been conducted in this area. This left us feeling like genuine explorers, something that a scientist does not feel very often in his career these days. Indeed, this was the exploration of a pristine environment in a region rarely ever visited by phycologists, in which one can expect to encounter many undescribed red algal species.

Explorations around West Falkland - Melina & Frithjof

We are writing these lines on the ferry from Port Howard (West Falkland) to New Haven (East Falkland), after 5 days of explorations of the coastline of West Falkland. This large island, 2^nd largest of the Falklands archipelago, is home to around 200 people, with huge swathes of wild land, some of it used for sheep farming.

The weather was not always (actually, for most of the time not) favourable, with heavy rain, snow on top of the hills and strong, ice-cold winds, making our diving and snorkelling excursions difficult and in many occasions physically very challenging. Surface and underwater currents, along with poor visibility at several dive sites, made our collections of seaweeds not an easy feat. Despite all these, we have managed to successfully collect at least 50 samples and specimens, and we hope that new discoveries will be among them.

Among the highlights are the first record of the oomycete pathogen Anisolpidium ectocarpii (affecting filamentous brown algae) from the Southern Ocean (and only the 2^nd from the southern hemisphere, after our earlier finding of this bug near Puerto Montt, Chile, in 2007), and a recollection of the enigmatic Cladochroa chnoosporiformis from Port Philomel. We also collected numerous samples of the filamentous brown alga Pylaiella for a population genetic study of our collaborator Christophe Destombe in Roscoff. Among our magic moments in West Falkland was an encounter with a large pod of Comerson’s dolphins shortly before our arrival, and with 2 king penguins on the beach of South Harbour, just as we had gotten out of the water after our dive there.

We had a beautiful home in Port Howard on the island’s eastern side, a self-catering, traditional Falkland Island-style house (a wooden structure inside, metal-clad outside). From there, we undertook daily excursions to various sampling sites around West Falkland – to South Harbour and Port Stephens on the first day, then to the Hill Cove and Shallow Bay area in the north, then a whole day in the western Port Philomel area, and finally a day on the south shore of Christmas Harbour (opposite the Sheffield settlement). We had a very challenging night dive in the harbour of Port Howard – very poor visibility, waves and currents in icy waters.

Despite all the hardships, we had an incredible and productive trip to West Falkland, making new friends with the amazing local people, that they even invited us to their homes for a cup of tea, especially after our cold  dives.

 Pieter van West entering the water at Port Philomel

 In our improvised lab in Port Howard

Early summer in West Falkland!

Comerson's dolphins seen from the ferry close to Port Howard

Frithjof Kuepper diving in the Macrocystis forest

Alexandra Mystikou  diving in the Macrocystis forest

Melina Marcou diving in the Macrocystis forest

Our encounter with king penguins after our dive at South Harbour

 Melina and Frithjof with the king penguins at South Harbour

A memorable encounter: Our group with Brian Jamieson, owner of the farm at South Harbour

 Melina and Pieter sampling fresh water for isolating oomycetes