The deep blue *boo!* effect

It was on the news the day before yesterday: a “prehistoric” shark normally living hidden away in the depths of the ocean off Japan came up to the surface and, unfortunately, died. Scientists recognized the species, although from 80 million year-old fossils instead of live specimens. A schoolbook example of a “live fossil”: If the environment doesn’t change (and it almost doesn’t, at that depth), there’s no need for obvious evolution. Anyway, the footage looks terrifying (just as one would imagine a prehistoric marine monster), and frankly I wouldn’t have had the guts to almost put the camera in its mouth, as the maker of this videotape did… To list the freakiest close encounters I experienced diving in Oman:

3. Giant Green Turtle emerging from tons of accumulated dead macroalgae at the bottom. It’s usually quite turbid and a bit dark above the dense algal packs at about 10m depth due to the decomposition, and turtles hide in there completely for shelter and feeding. When you’re swimming right above the algae, sometimes turtles emerge because they’re scared and swim away. Although you know what a turtle is and that it’s completely harmless, it scares the hell out of you when a creature the size of you suddenly and unexpectedly appears right in front of you. They swim away so quickly I never had the chance to capture such a moment on camera.

2. A Teira of almost 1m height pops up right in front of your face out of quite turbid waters. It was very inquisitive and followed us for quite some time. At that time I had no idea at all what it was and I didn’t know it was harmless. The picture was taken after I’d drawn my knife in a reflex and I’d put it away when I was at ease a few minutes later. The thing is, as with the turtle, under water you see everything one third bigger than it is (due to the optical properties of water), so I had the impression of looking at a fish that was 133cm high.

1. Fantail Stingrays of about 180cm disc diameter (already more than I am tall!) and 300cm overall length – no need to explain how one perceives that size under water. There’s one bay in the south of Oman we visit each time where you’re guaranteed to see several of those at any given time. Already the first time, 3,5 years ago, I didn’t dare to approach these “monsters” closer than 10m. Over time, I got used to them, but it still frightens me when they suddenly arise from the sand where you didn’t see anything before. And when you did, it’s probably because you saw the eyes or the tail first, and it always takes a few moments before you’d find the other end and realize its full size. Last time I saw them was actually exactly two weeks after Steve Irwin, the famous Australian “crocodile hunter”, got the venomous spine right through his heart while swimming above a stingray like this to film it; he was killed almost instantly…

A la recherche du temps perdu

Wow… I guess my blog has never been out for so long before… A whole month has gone by, a whole month during which I couldn’t find a minute of spare time to post something, although so much has happened I’m starting to wonder how I could ever catch up. I guess I’ll start by illustrating my previous posts with some pictures and then I’ll add further stories when I get to them by association of thoughts
In short, the last two weeks in Oman have been wonderful, interesting and fun, regardless the lack of comfort and hygiene (and even of sanitary water whatsoever during the last four days), Tom’s severe viral illness which made us visit a local Baghdad-like hospital and my day of food-caused cholera and typhus (a.k.a. traveller’s sickness). The latter can be easily overcome in a nice and clean western house, but being in a village with a temporary lack of water kind of obliged me to break my 500m sprinting record eacht time to the nearest 50cm high bush in the desert, if you see what I mean. Anyway, as I said, apart from that the last two weeks have been wonderful, interesting and fun!

What has been far less fun: my Stereo-II (satellite earth observation) project proposal got turned down… Since this was the only option for me to obtain independent funding and more adequate supervisors for my preferred PhD subject, I actually can’t see what to do in the future right now… I still know what to do during the current academic year: I have to supervise an MSc dissertation and I can work on at least three publications resulting from all the previous sampling campaigns, but I can only hope time will tell what to do after that. I’ve considered lots of options, varying from working as a marine ecologist in a commercial environmental impact assessment in Oman to starting something completely different, but of course it’s a way too early to make decisions. Let’s say I’ve got about 6 months to talk to some people and to explore various alternative routes.
To be continued… next season?

Of course Allah does inch

If last time I wrote we had to deal with some pratical issues preventing us to do our job, I really ment everything was just fine. I never experienced a month here without minor things like that happening all the time. So yes, we did find a boat in time, and yes, we did find a compressor in time. Concerning the boat, I went down to the fishing harbour again to see if I had better luck with perhaps someone else, and as a coincidence I met the brother (Mohammed) of the guy (Salim) who’d helped me out last time. I actually saw Salim too, as he noticed me around from a distance. He immediately came to me and greeted me with an enthusiastic “Hi Klaas! [I didn't even had to repeat my name after six months - was that in fact with you, Jan, or was it even a year ago with Jelle?] Nice to see you again, how are you? You should have called me right away, I’d have been glad to help you immediatel!” Well I certainly would have done just that, if I hadn’t lost my cell phone in June. Amazing, those people…

So in the end we were able to complete all nine planned dives in due time, and the conditions turned out to be the best we could imagine: clear visibility up to 15 meter or more, and 30C down to 18m depth! Murphy only showed up the last day, just as we were about to jump in the water for our second last dive, at 20m, when a police boat came by and forced us to stop, and arrested me at once. Our boat wasn’t equipped with a dive flag (true, my responsibility, but you have to have this made on order, they don’t sell this ready-made in a dive shop or so), and most of all the police wasn’t informed about our diving activities going on (which was the responsibility of the safety engineer at the fertilizer plant; consequently, the police called him and apparently they had a very excited discussion about that…). Anyway, my passive, agreeing and cooperative approach paid off in the end, and we were allowed to complete our last dives without any consequences, which was a lot better than their first suggestion to take me immediately to Sur (still in my wetsuit!) and put me behind bars at once… I’ve heard of people coming off worse

So just as we arrived at the bottom during the first dive, I realized the strong winds and swell had made us drift off in the small time gap between arriving at the waypoint and throwing out the anchor. We ended up at 25m depth instead of 18, leaving us far less time to be down, and the place was a desert of rough sand with no algae except for a few very scattered red algae – which luckily turned out to be special fertile ones, but of course this wasn’t our job…Besides, apparently the thermocline was at about 20m down, and at 25 the water was freezing cold (well, 23 degrees). The only compensation was a school of Yellow fin tuna circling very close around us, new to me, and very impressive (almost frightening)…

We treated ourselves with a day off to take the beautiful coastal road via Wadi Tiwi, the Dibab sinkhole and the Quriyat mangrove forest back to Muscat… I’m really sorry I don’t have the time to post some pictures now, but reliable sources told me that the pictures you can find with google image search give a nice idea about the impressive beauty of the scenery Besides, from right after Wadi Tiwi on we had a guide as picked up an Omani hitch-hiker, who turned out to be good company!

Well, last day in Muscat now before we leave to Dhofar. Last day to arrange the Qatar work; still nothing is decided. For a start, I called my boss and the guys at the uni, and they were all okay with me staying for one more week, mostly because of the fact that samples from Qatar would fit quite well in the framework of a paper recently published. That said, we still need to make sure it all fits in the schedule of Five Oceans (the environmental impact assessment office) and if there are some opportunities to change my home ticket… I hope to find out in a couple of hours!

Allah doesn’t always inch’

Seems that a previous post sent from my mobile phone got lost… Anyway, the news I had to tell wasn’t that good: when I checked the tyre pressure of the car as we were about to head off to Sur (like I always do before leaving for greater distances), I noticed one rear tyre was slowly leaking air while the other was completely worn off. I immediately went back to the rental office and they had both tyres replaced – but not until the next morning. We used our extra time in Muscat to find a new diving shop, owned by Omani twin brothers (a rare phenomenon, by the way), which turned out to be the nicest, most helpful guys, who filled our two empty dive tanks (we got 8 from the ministry of environment, of which 6 were full; but to our dismay we found that the Oman Dive Center doesn’t fill private diving tanks anymore, based on some lame excuse of unreliable air getting into their compressor – which could be easily avoided if they would empty all tanks prior to filling!). It also happened to be this new dive shop who actually sold the tanks to the ministry. People, don’t go the expensive, worthless, arrogant Oman Dive Center for diving anymore!! There are plenty of other smaller, cheaper and friendlier dive centers in Muscat nowadays!
That night, we had dinner and a couple of fresh juices in a new Turkish restaurant on a terrace with a view on the sea just above the entrance to the Muttrah souq, and were invited to sit over at the table of a Jordan guy as all other tables were occupied (a nice Arabian habit of never refusing guests). He entertained us with his adventures in Madrid where he practiced some kind of islam-approved polygamy with two Swedish girls he met in a bar I must say my frustration about the misfortune that day was gone at once.

So one day later than hoped, we arrived in Sur. As the environmental and safety engineer was still out of office, we were allowed to do only intertidal field work and weren’t allowed to dive until we’d seen him (concerning the safety with incoming and outgoing ships). The thing was, low tide was in the late afternoon, and processing the samples of one site takes about 8 hours… Hence, nothing else left than to shift our biorhythm (again) and work for three days from 2 p.m. until 5 a.m. Not a problem really, except for the first day when we were already up from 8 a.m., and yesterday, when we finished work at 3 p.m. and had to get up at 7 this morning for a meeting with the engineer to start the diving work. So now, we’ve completed our first dive (finally!), and although it was only at 8m depth, it felt really incredibly good to be in very clear 32°C water with no need for a wetsuit at all and with aquarium-style coral and fish (and a little bit of algae) again after six months!
However… Allah wouldn’t be Allah if he wouldn’t put some issues to overcome in our way. For instance, the only diving club with a (portable) air compressor within 350km was a group of expat leisure divers at the nearby natural gas plant, and as it so happens they all retired or quit their job in the last year – and took their compressor with them. I now managed to get in contact with the safety engineer at the gas plant, as I know they still have an air compressor for various purposes, but I’m not sure the connection would fit and indeed, the closest option to find an adaptor is at… 350km. I actually tried to get hold of one while still in the capital before heading off to Sur as I knew this could be a bit of a hassle, but guess what, the only shop where people knew I could find one was closed for an indefinite period of time. That said, we still have enough air to dive at over half of the originally planned sites, so that would be okay by me. The other thing is that I just went to the fishermen to see if I could rent a boat for the next days (in my best Arabic, since they don’t speak a word English, ahum), and they too couldn’t help me before tomorrow in the late afternoon, too close to sunset… another day lost, obliging me to call the ministry of environment to ask if we can borrow their tanks for one day more than originally planned…

Another thing to think about: when I met the guys at Five Oceans, the first thing they asked me was to stay here for a week longer and help them out with an environmental impact assessment in Qatar… a job I’d love to accept if it wasn’t for the practical issues… I was already informed the elections could be avoided with a simple form proving I had to stay for work longer than expected. The biggest problem is the work at home, where I was told a million times in the past I could always take a few days off as it pleases me (just as I am entitled to), but NEVER when practical or training courses I’m supposed to supervise are going on… and guess what, there are at least two going on the first week after my originally planned return… So as I’m still craving to accept the job, I still haven’t found the guts to call my boss and ask for a few days off anyway… and I don’t think I will…

One amusing story to close with: apparently a bloc of ice falling from an airplane hit a pick-nick table in Belgium and injured several people, but no-one was killed, according to a newspaper. Okay, the story itself might not be amusing for these people, but what is: I happened to discuss this unknown and underestimated risk of death by falling ice only six months ago while on the airplane to Oman with Koen. I feel people should be more informed about this, as again the newspaper failed to do so, so here comes: the chemic latrines onboard an airplane have an exterior valve for emptying, but this valve often leaks during flight. As temperatures are about -50°C on cruising altitude, small leaks cause major icy stalagmites to form, and when they get big enough they break and fall. So for once and for all: beware of icy substances of dubious origin coming down after an airplane crossed your path!

Getting started

The last row in an airplane might be the safest place, it is definitely not the most comfortable. The engine noise is worst in the back, there is constant light and noise from the kitchen, and you get served for dinner as the very last on board after suffering a terrible hunger from the intense smell of food over an hour or so (so you’re the last to go sleeping and the first to wake up by the kitchen noise too). And by the time you get served, there’s only one item left on the menu…

Just as I came at the desk in the internet cafe, an Omani high school student was standing next to me with a few printed pages, apparently a school work they had to make. I managed to get a sneak at it, and apparently it was a treaty on equality between men and women in Islam, written in impeccable English. It started with the statement that he personally, as Islam in general, strongly supported the equal treatment of men and women, but that “an equal treatment has got nothing to do with an identical treatment, very much the same as women and men are, although definitely not physically identical, both equally human” I was very sorry not getting to read the rest of the treaty!
We’ve been up with talking to people and arranging our permits and stuff for two days now, and it looks like we’ll be able to head off to Sur tomorrow afternoon, and start our field work the day after tomorrow. Finally, some action!

	Final approach over (part of) the huge Sultan Qaboos University, with the marine laboratory in the red circle.
	According to the legend (together with the mosque created merely in the 1980’s!), if the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is finished, so is the Sultan himself. So they always find some spot that needs additional (re)construction. Allah bless the Sultan!
	Disadvantage of being able to read some Arabic: jam indicated in English as “raspberry jam” while translated above in Arabic as “murabat al-karaz” or “cherry jam” is quite confusing…

A quick bird’s eye

The following images are taken from Google Earth, where several QuickBird images have been combined and overlaid into jpegs. Although useless for scientific purposes, they are amazingly impressive. I’ve been at all of these places, feel free to ask for ground pictures!

The huge Sultan Qaboos Mosque between the airport and Muscat	Fertilizer plant under construction; note the intake and exhaust pipelines visible under water; do you remember the position of the violent exhaust air leak I showed a couple of months ago?	Mutrah, the fish souq and the harbor, a Royal Navy ship and the Naseem hotel – my usual base camp, the third (narrow) building under the roundabout close to the sea… And a rare cloud.
The Marine Science and Fisheries Center in Muscat and the BlueZone diving center in the marina	The Ministry of Regional Municipalities, Environment and Water Resources; a bit of a shame the parallax offset on this picture is to the left, otherwise the magnificent front wall would have been clearly visible.	Oman’s shame: Bandar Jissah resort (under construction), a 6* decadent luxury hotel complex built right on valuable coral communities at the edge of the Capital Area
Dibab Sinkhole and the new 6-lane highway connecting Muscat and Sur under construction	Eagle Bay, “Hoons Bay” and Aquarium Bay near Mirbat, under calm conditions during winter monsoon (note the bare rocks, individually recognizable)	Mirbat, with the fishing harbor in the SW corner and our hotel with the little blue swimming pool in the N of the picture; note the individually recognizable umbrellas on the terrace!
5* Al Bustan Palace hotel near Muscat, sadly covered by a hazy sky. Al Bustan means “the garden”, as you can see. A whole village was moved to build the hotel on the best beach.	The mangrove forest and beach of Quriyat, a lovely village between Muscat and Sur	Salalah, zoomed out to about 10m resolution, showing its khawrs (brackish water wetlands at the end of wadis), banana plantations (square fields) and pivot-irrigated circle fields
Sur and its magnificent tidal bay	Tawi Atair sinkhole (200m in diameter) and the nearby village of the same name, clearly visible on the arid plateau of the Dhofari mountains	Wadi Tiwi, paradise on earth with the most peaceful villages hidden in it
The former aspect of Wadi Tiwi; these days, the six-lane Muscat-Sur highway crosses the wadi over an immense bridge just south of the village	Wreck bay near Mirbat on a calm winter day with extremely clear waters	Yiti, a popular cozy week-end beach village (both for locals as for expats), just outside the Capital Area and now right next to the 6* Bandar Jissah hotel
Shana (with leaving and arriving ferries to Masirah Island), surrounded by tidal seagrass and salt plains, with a 30m resolution; note the red color of the salt, caused by halophilic bacteria. The immense tidal currents create amazing patterns in the silty substrate	high resolution zoom on Shana, surrounded by seagrasses, the road ending on the mooring jetties with the ferries (read as: miraculously floating rusty iron platforms, overly loaded with cars and trucks)	Hilf on Masirah, the other ferry terminal. Hilf has a military airbase, used for civil flights, but it is a standard western air strike base during Gulf wars
Cape Ra’s al Had (“the head of the head”), clearly dividing the Arabian Sea (on the right) and the Gulf of Oman (on top). Plans are made to convert the air strips into a true air field (while the village itself still doesn’t have its own regular fuel station).	Turtle beach resort at the bay of Ra’s al Had. We always go to the resort (upper left) to have a decent meal and then sleep under the stars on the rocky plateau with sea view just to the north – much cheaper and cozier. The turtle beach is in the NE corner.	Ra’s al Jinz, a protected turtle nesting beach with an ecological beach tourist camp. You can actually distinguish the hundreds of turtle nests on the beach (note the bumpy aspect)
	Siddah, a secluded fishermen’s village in a crevice with a sheltered bay, a village where a western visitor is the attraction of the day

Fertilizer plants for Dummies: update

I’m probably way out of line doing this, but I gave it a thought and decided to publish this anyway as I couldn’t just do as if nothing happens. Remember the giant whirlpool I told you about in my post on April 6? I now received the satellite image of the site under discussion I’d ordered for March 8. I literally jumped up when I downloaded the low resolution preview image and immediately noticed “some bubbles” were clearly visible on the image, 19 (!!) days before the safety engineer told us they had this problem going on for “the last few days” and asked us to get a few samples and express our opinion on the matter. Understatement suddenly gets a whole new meaning. I sincerely wonder about the amount of sediment stirred up by the violent air leak, not to mention the damage caused by the chlorine. In the worst case scenario, the increased sedimentation could lead to extinction of the extremely rare Fungid coral communities at the site (one of the only places in the Gulf of Oman and very sensitive to siltation as they only grow a few centimeters above the substrate, on the left in the picture) and further resuspension of nutrients into the water column causing more severe diatom blooms, further killing the already heavily overgrown gorgones (soft corals, right on the picture).

The pictures below show the air leak from a different perspective, facing the mooring jetty for fertilizer tankers, and the low resolution preview of the satellite imagery, indicating the viewpoint by a red arrow (picture taken at the head of the arrow, facing its direction) and the bubbles in a red circle (click to enlarge).

Update

Some video fragments have been posted to http://users.ugent.be/~kpauly/Vids/!
I’ve added some more pictures in the relevant posts as well – just view the archives to see them all.

My desk after an Oman trip…

Huh?

For those who want to visit Oman: this might be a good hint

Wadi Tiwi

A few tropical piccies to end the Oman2006-series…

The white pick-up in the lower left of the first picture is ours. We didn’t want to take risks by getting up the incredibly steep tracks any more than necessary, but we quickly found out that it’s far more easy letting a 2,7 l engine take you up in an airconditioned seat than pushing your legs to the limit. Taking a walk for an hour here is very much the same as running 20 km.

We tried to have lunch in the shaddow of the idyllic oasis, but a freaky hornet changed our mind…