- NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 17/Jul 09:02

Taking the plunge into marine science

Dr Anjani Ganase learns to dive and falls into the splendour of life in the ocean. This is the third instalment of the series in which she recounts her journey to becoming a coral reef ecologist. I decided that I needed to learn to scuba dive when I went to university. I signed up for an undergraduate degree in marine biology but I had no idea what the marine world looked like. Like most freshmen, I expected that being a marine biologist meant working with dolphins, whales and turtles or any megafauna. But an unseen world was being revealed through courses in microbiology, chemistry, oceanography and invertebrate zoology. The ocean systems are built on the microbes that regulate ocean food, and they drift on currents that regulate the climate. It was about time that I saw what the ocean looked like. During my summer vacation, I signed up to for an open water certificate in Trinidad. The lessons started in a classroom, and then a pool, from learning the physics of breathing from a tank at depth – a daunting idea – to putting it in practice. The last step was applying what I learned in the pool to open water, or in my case going “down de islands” (DDI) to dive. DDI may not be the most picturesque location, as the water can be murky, but in hindsight, it builds the competence of a novice diver who is more diligent at looking at her gauges to assess depth and compass for navigation. There is a lot to think about on your first dive – do I have my weights, do not descend too fast, equalise your ears as you descend, regularly check the amount of air you have left, check your depth, check your location, clear mask, do not ascend too fast. It consumes time and focus, and by the time you feel comfortable, the dive is over. [caption id="attachment_1166971" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Sharks provide an escort for my camera scooter on Osprey Reef, Coral Sea. Photo courtesy Anjani Ganase -[/caption] I remember a dive that didn’t go as planned. We were diving along a bay when we were caught in La Remou (a common phenomenon where strong currents that funnel through the Bocas create strong eddy currents that flush the bays around Trinidad’s northwestern islands) although I didn’t know what it was at the time. We were pushed out to sea and up to the surface and when we came up, we were surrounded by murky water. It was one of my first lessons of respect for the ocean and ocean currents. Tobago After my open water licence, I immediately wanted to learn more so I jumped on a plane to Tobago to do my advance open water certification the same summer. Nothing prepared me for the clarity of Tobago water. Diving to 100 feet off the western peninsula of Trinidad required flashlights in pitch black waters, it was so eerie. But in Speyside, I could easily swim to 100 feet and beyond. I was over stimulated by the bustling marine life, too many to things to look at. I was amazed by the tiny arrowhead crabs perched under overhangs, the electric blue of queen angelfish and cryptic scorpionfish. The corals were of no interest to me, they were background. Only when I took a course in coral reef ecosystems, did corals finally come into focus. For extra credit, I worked for Dr van Woesik in undergraduate research. He chucked me a dataset – literally notes on underwater paper – on his assessment of how corals in Japan recovered from the 1997 bleaching event ten years later based on survival and growth. I transcribed the notes and analysed the dataset. I only had the names of the corals to go by, but I looked up each species in the Corals of the World books and the photos amazed me, to see the patterns, shapes and colours of these living underwater animals. I also learned that the corals of the Pacific were very different to corals in the Caribbean, so when I went back to Tobago to dive, the corals were still very alien to me, but I was able to appreciate the beauty. Curacao I wanted to know more about the coral reefs of the Caribbean, so I applied to do my master’s in oceanography at the University of Amsterdam primarily because it offered a field course in Curaçao on coral reef ecosystems. It was the start of one of the best learning experiences I’ve had. I travelled to Curaçao, a two-hour flight from Trinidad. I did the course and stayed for another six months to conduct a research project. The reefs were giant aquaria, calm water and beach diving was the norm with no current. I saw new marine critters, the sea anemone and the peppermint shrimp and the blue vase sponges that looked luminescent at night – these do not occur in Tobago. [caption id="attachment_1166972" align="alignnone" width="1012"] Encounter with a fever of rays while snorkelling on Heron Island. - Photo courtesy Anjani Ganase[/caption] As students, my friend Elfi and I had a very old beat-up Ford Focus – Blue lightning we called it. Every opportunity we had, we would throw tanks into the trunk of the car, shove a soca CD into the player and speed down the road with the windows down (it was hot and dusty). We would gear up on the sand or rock or pavement, walk into the water. The beaches were endless, and so were the diving opportunities, some reefs were so remote, down a gravelly path, behind a salt marsh, another site we scrambled down a cliff face, and another at the entrance of an abandoned hotel. Every dive, we would swim out to the reef, descend and swim for 30 minutes in one direction, turn around and swim back, we would surface in almost the same spot we started. The water was so predictable and unchanging. It’s very different to the churning currents of Speyside and northwest Trinidad. Australia Absent from Caribbean reefs, on both the ABC islands and Tobago, were the big fish. Gone were our predators – sharks, large groupers, barracudas – to overfishing; with the exception of a protected marine area such as in the Bahamas. It was only when I did my second master’s internship in Australia that I truly understood that healthy reefs were homes to healthy communities of fish. I flew to Australia for an eight-month research internship. I arrived in Australia but didn’t stay long on the mainland: my home was a tiny island in the Southern Great Barrier Reef called Heron Island. [caption id="attachment_1166974" align="alignnone" width="604"] Sea anemone found in Curacao. Photo courtesy Anjani Ganase -[/caption] Heron Island is 72 kilometres offshore (more than twice the distance between Trinidad and Tobago). It is 800 metres long and 300 m wide, and on a high tide, I was able to swim around it in 45 minutes. In the marine park, the reefs around Heron were pristine. I knew the 60+ stony corals of Curaçao, but knowing the 400+ species of corals was impossible, even the best taxonomic scientists didn’t know. The island was essentially a coral cay that became a bird colony for sooty shearwaters and the noddy terns. It was also home to about 100 research and hotel staff. I remember my first snorkel clearly; the sky was ominous with dark clouds but we ventured to snorkel on the reef flat that surrounded the island. It was the first time that I saw several black tip reef sharks cruising the shallow reefs and a fever of rays (at home, we are lucky to see a lone one). [caption id="attachment_1166973" align="alignnone" width="604"] Anjani Ganase diving in Curacao with her research colleague. - Photo courtesy Anjani Ganase[/caption] Fast forward six months, I would be surveying reefs from the south GBR all the way to Raine Island in the far north GBR, 950 kilometres away, over a period of four months. By this time, breathing, equalising and all basic skills became second nature, I was driving a long underwater scooter taking photos of the coral and the majestic marine life that the Great Barrier Reef had to offer.   The post Taking the plunge into marine science appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.