Mir

New Arrival

2011-11-26T10:19:00.000-08:00

When I first saw Mir, she was bobbing in her mooring at Raffles Marina, still bundled up from the weeks she had spent alone while the rest of the crew made preparations back in the states. My landlubber eyes could barely tell the difference, but she was already stripped naked, empty of all of the ropes, rigging, and canvas that she would need for life. It was only when I hopped on board that I noticed the difference - the few words I had picked up from Moby Dick and Horatio Hornblower helped clue me in that things, like the sails, were missing. She was lying clean, exposed, ready for the facelift of a lifetime.

Now, six weeks later, she looks a bit different. A heart-transplant interrupted mid-procedure would seem a lot like a murder, and Mir looks to be in a similar condition, even down to the surgical gown tenting she's wrapped in to protect her innards from the monsoon rains. Her masts are off, her teak deck has been stripped, most of her second layer of wood has been sawn away, her hatches have been cut out, and a few chunks of the worst steel has been excised from her aft. We are well on our way.

The ultimate goal is to put a layer of steel underneath the original teak deck, replacing the old, soggy underlying wood with a watertight plate. The constant leaks and corrosion had been a recurring issue and steadily grown to surpass the pots and pans catchment system the crew had been improvising. With a new deck, secure from the elements, Mir should be set to continue her work for years to come.

Getting there is the tricky part. We began in Raffles Marina, the home-port for Mir and Biosphere Foundation’s projects for nearly two decades. Safe and comfortable in a secure setting and amongst many friends, we took apart the cabin interiors and emptied her of all but the barest essentials.

Under the shade of a blue umbrella, we experimented with different ways of carefully removing the plugs, screws, and rubber caulking that fastened the teak to the deck, before teaching the new tricks to our enthusiastic volunteers on a few work party Saturdays.

We couldn't start taking all of it apart yet - we still had to keep her seaworthy to get her to the next stage - but everything that wasn't needed went, (like every second nut holding down the deck)

Our next leg was my first trip on Mir, a five hour motor down the Singapore Straits, dodging tug boats, massive barges and supertanking leviathans.

Slipping into our berth at ASL Shipyard, our new home, we squeezed between the industrial steel giants of global oil and shipping companies, our neighbors for the upcoming months. Our presence is a bit of a peculiarity in ASL, and curious workers stop by every day to watch us working and look at the ship. This industrial and impressive dry-dock has generously offered to help us and provide expert care to us during the many months ahead.

Gaie quickly made friends with the nearby crane operator, who helped us take off our masts and lift our winch.

It's only been a little over a year since the masts were put in, but we'll be refitting the bases for new fittings on the steel plate and shortening our main mast (which is almost comically tall for Mir).

With all of that done, it was time to start taking off the wood. Joe, our amazing carpenter from Malta, has joined us is Singapore to show us how its done.

And once we got started, it came up quick.

But before we could get too far along, we had to get out of the water, which we accomplished with the friendly help of our neighborhood sling-lift, riding the boat up into the air and over, onto land.

Now, she rides on steel props and carefully wedged lincoln-log towers of red blocks, but sometimes she still seems to roll, just a little bit, mischievously, which you catch out of the corner of your eye before you turn and look and the whole world comes back to its heavy reality. Mir has come a long way from her active self, and has a long way before she's back to it, but we're making progress in leaps and bounds every day - stay tuned and you won't miss it.

-- My name is Michael and I've taken over Sam's blog for our time in the dockyards. I'm a recent graduate of Deep Springs College and am currently a student at Yale, taking a year off to work on Mir. I like my peanut butter chunky, my coffee black, and prefer waffles to pancakes. I joined the crew in September and will do my best to carry this blog through until Mir is back in the water and moving on to the next stop.

Completions!

2011-06-06T06:01:00.001-07:00

This is the word ringing at the back of our minds right now.

We left Menjangan, Bali two weeks ago embedded in a deep sense of accomplishment.

A Education Program and a Community Outreach were carried out with full support of the local community, including the Bali Barat National Park.

Yearly, an event called Earth Day’s Celebration is held by the National Park, involving the school students in beach clean ups and other eco-activities. This year, though, the Biosphere’s team was invited to take part on the organization of the festival. It was a gentle acknowledgment of the local authorities in regard of the daily activities held by our Science Team over the coral reefs around Menjangan Island.

Boat trip to Menjangan Island (above) / Science program (below)

The celebration also gave place to the launching of a new program called “Friends of Menjangan” - that will carry along the coming years education activities with schools, aiming at raising the awareness of new generations towards the conservation of coral reefs and its green surroundings.

Performances of dance and music were held by the local students on the Friends of Menjangan Festival, held at the Bali Barat National Park.

Along side, the Friends of Menjangan program also held an outreach with the community of fishermen and boat drivers, who many times toss their anchors over the corals while taking tourists diving by the island.

In this concern, Laser, MIR’s Captain, did a pretty nice job going around with the boat drivers installing new moorings in the most visited areas, so the drivers can stop their boats safely without damaging the coral reefs. The boats were also given new signs with information about how to protect the coral areas.

The vessel MIR and Friends of Menjangan adopted two baby trees in the National Park area where Menjangan Resort, our host and great supporter, is located.

Gaie, Laser, Orla and the Biosphere’s Team leave their roots in this fertile soil… a commitment to foster a deep blue and green future!

By the end of the science and education programs, it was time to get our dear MIR ready to face the Java Sea back to Singapore.

This very week we depart once again for a new expedition, now in Anambas Islands… conservation, baby turtles and community outreach waiting for us.

Bon Voyage MIR!!

Satyavan Rogério

Science, Schools & Friends of Menjangan

2011-04-16T01:19:00.001-07:00

One week to unwind a little bit on board of MIR.

Our “Science Team”, led by Orla Doherty, have finally gone through four intense weeks of data collection around these majestic Coral Reefs here in the surroundings of Menjangan Island, West Bali. The transects were run by Orla, Carol Milner, Gaie Alling, Philip Dustan Phd. (professor of Charleston College), and Tasrif Kartawijaya (Wildlife Conservation Society). The team also counted with Leslie Roberts, an quite experienced diver who’s been on board with us for this season.

Massive beauty still resides under these waters - colourful walls covered with a pretty vast variety of luminous corals, algae, sponges… the sheer habitat of thousands species of fish, shrimps, squids, star fishes, as well as turtles and a few sharks (like the Leopard Shark we had the great surprise to come across recently). Certainly these reefs are cradles for uncountable new born marine fauna and flora, a beautiful treasure enveloped in blueness.

But it’s just one side of the whole picture. Even though we are dealing with a “no-take” zone, protected by the Bali Barat National Park, illegal fishing does takes place all around. Most of the local fishermen have had their vessels turned into facilities to take tourists from the resorts and villas to fun dives, after a conservation programme led by government and NGOS’ initiatives. It seems to have worked well, somehow, in terms of even increasing the income of these family holders. Nevertheless, it’s left a gap open for fishermen from other locations, like Java, to find here a prosper site for fish collection, and the worse is that once the illegal fishing must happen rapidly, the use of dynamites to bomb the coral reefs leaves behind a trail of destruction, death and rubble which might take ages to be recovered by Mother Nature.

Local boatmen now are getting together to keep watch on the bay, specially on holiday seasons when advantage is taken upon people being out of the sea for religious festivities at the temples.

Another issue that haunts this sacred paradise is well known to all of us, rubbish and PLASTIC! A ghost spoiling our blue waters and threatening the sea life everywhere in the globe. Nono, a new partner of ours, has been mobilising the community in order to develop recycled products in order to give plastic an artistic and useful future, while working on bringing extra income to some families, an initiative that can really blossom if the necessary support come in hand!

The Biosphere Foundation’s “Education Team” has just started a programme which includes visit to schools, beach clean-ups, and the launching of a local association called FRIENDS OF MENJANGAN / SAHABAT MENJANGAN (in Bahasa Indonesian). The association is meant to develop activities related to coral reefs’ conservation and eco-education. This idea is the fruit of an old dream weaved together by Gaie, Laser & Orla (Biosphere Foundation) along side with Mr.David, the chairman of Menjangan Jungle & Beach Resort, a great partner who’s invited our team here, and whose life has been dedicated to conservation causes. Now, with the support of the Bali Barat National Park, FRIENDS OF MENJANGAN shall be formally introduced to the local community on the next 7 & 8 of May 2011, in a great celebrative event for Earth’s Day.

We’re really happy to have Kartika Dewi with us at this point of our journey. She’ll be the face and the voice of FRIENDS OF MENJANGAN towards the local community and authorities. This strong Balinese woman is a professor of Bali University, a journalist for Bali Now Magazine, and has been involved with conservation actions for many years. A person easy to fall in love with, due to her passion towards life, wits and courage to stand for the protection of the silent Coral Gardens under the water.

Hope we can also count on your support as well, dear readers from around the Blue Globe, to sponsor and aid all these actions to protect and conserve these Natural Sanctuaries in West Bali.

Love and Gratitude!

Satyavan Rogério

Menjangan Bay, West Bali

2011-03-29T20:56:00.001-07:00

Two tough weeks have passed by on board of MIR in the Menjangan Bay, West Bali.

Menjangan surely is a majestic and sacred sanctuary of both marine and surface wild life, sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking in here!!

The science team, working really hard, set off daily on long diving jams around the island, collecting all sort of data on corals and fish, making use of the transects, underwater pictures, etc… when back to the ship, some time to chill out and, back to work... another long hours to enter all data into the computer, research and catalogue the huge variety of species seen around the reefs.

On the first week, the dives were followed by our honourable guest and friend Professor Phillip Dustan… a living enthusiastic encyclopedia on biosphere affairs. Doctor Phill shall stay with us up to the end of the science team work. Last week, Tasrif, Indonesian eco-activist and specialist in fish, joined the team in order to make it all happen.

Thanks a million to you gentlemen… wonderful presence both under the water and on the boat!

Laser, dear Capitan, celebrated his 50^th birthday throwing a great party… mystical atmosphere around the deck, fire lamps all around, beautiful people, great music and the full moon, as a goddess, playing with our hearts.

To me, at least, everything seamed slightly ethereal; dancing was the only way to bridge all the mystic realms that mingled together on board of our 100-years-old Lady MIR.

In between dives, rubbish collection on Menjangan Beaches... here, Phill Dustan and Captain Laser.

In the coming weeks the Community Outreach will begin and school children and local people from the village mobilized to celebrate and protect the Menjangan Bay.

Love and gratitude to you, Biospheric friends & heroes!

posted by: satyavan

Mir Expedition

2011-03-20T00:28:00.000-07:00

Ahoy! Warm greetings and news from “MIR” in the South Eastern seas of Asia!!

I left India and Nepal behind after nearly one full year roaming around those mystic grounds. Incredible experiences marked that journey in which I felt surrounded by angels disguised in faces of all nations and accents that sounded to me like melodies of hope and peace. Amongst them all, one in particular is the bridge between me and you, reader of the Biosphere Foundation’s blog…

I met Carol Milner, a long term active crew in Biospheric expeditions, in Pokhara, Nepal, last August 2010. Pokhara is one of those places that you can take for granted, specialy if you are just a traveller passing by on you way to any of the famous trekking destinations around the Himalyan ranges that surround that town and its colourful lake.

Out of the unattractive touristic area by the Fewa Lake, I met Carol in a sort of family run restaurant called Continental Collision… the family also run a language school, the Cosmic Brontosaurus. I guess it was one of those encounters in which you cross eyes with someone and you say to yourself – Gosh! This person came to stay. And so it was, we were sharing great time cherishing expeditions to rivers, mountains, villages…

Carol would take our breath away, from time to time, telling us stories and showing pictures of the Biospheric expeditions she had undergone through out the past years, and that’s how, somehow, Jasmina, our Bosnian-Swedish friend and me, their Brazilian fellow, happened to be entrapped to MIR, the boat of Universal Peace.

To make the long story short… I flew to Singapore to meet MIR and “her” crew and was warmly greeted by Gaie and Laser, ou dear Capitan and host. After a few days warming up, we set sails on a five days voyage towards Jakarta.

Arriving in Jakarta was not easy, the bureocracy we faced to get MIR in and through was outrageous, so I dare saying it’s the sort of destination which sailors could avoid… the laws are not clear and the political games will shake your nerves more than a thousand squalls!!!

Thanks to our dear deeply commited and faithful friends, Nina and Dhany, we made it to get the necessary permits in order to face another sixs days and night towards Bali.

My sincere gratitude to our brave Capitan, Laser, Gaie, Carol, Orla and the fresh new crew, Oliver, Jasmina, Dhany and Adrien who just gave all their energy to make our way throughout scorching sunny days and tempestuous nights…

Now, a new expedition awaits for us in Manjengen where the team of scientists will be diving to collect data, while social outreach shall take place to make kids and grown ups fall in love with the Coral Reefs…

Join us in thoughts, good wishes and with a visit if you happen to be in the area… great meals bewitching those who cross the galley!!

Ahoy
Satyavan

Mir`s Maiden Voyage Slideshow

2010-10-05T22:34:00.000-07:00

Here is a slideshow with photos from our voyage from Malta to Singapore. Enjoy!

The Final Leg Of Mir's Maiden Voyage---Sri Lanka To Singapore

2010-10-04T23:55:00.000-07:00

We made it to Singapore!!! We all knew this day would come eventually, but did any of us actually believe it possible? Our crew met in Malta over thirteen months ago, and it was simple enough to say: “Here is this old, run down boat, and we are going to fix her up and then sail her to Singapore.” But to actually do it! Not so simple. But somehow we managed it, and now we’re here, and with a beautiful and elegant ship to boot.

Our voyage across the Bay of Bengal was a breeze (literally). Finally after months of raging winds and swollen seas we were rewarded with perfect sailing weather, as if the Bay of Bengal held out an outstretched arm, palm up, and swept it in front of us, saying: “Right this way my fine people, you’ve worked hard enough.” It was a very peaceful crossing, a perfect finale, and a time to reflect on all that we had accomplished as a team.

Though less harrowing than the previous legs of our voyage, there was no shortage of excitement. Off of the shelf from Sri Lanka we saw Minke Whales up close, and Blue Whales from afar. Again we were visited by many pods of dolphins, but what made these sightings unique were the surprising amounts of baby dolphins we saw mixed in with the pods. The calmness and ease of the elements allowed for more celebrations than usual, and we finally finished the captain’s rum that had been gathering dust since Malta. But perhaps the most memorable of all our stories was the morning that Woody caught a marlin that was over seven feet long! It was incredible, and unfortunately after the almost two hour struggle to get this magnificent creature on board it had died, so we are now eating marlin in as many ways as we can think of. Woody is a lifelong fisherman, and to pull in this marlin was a gigantic dream come true for him. As he put it: "I never need to go sport-fishing again!" I don't think anyone who was present for this catch ever does either.

The crew of Mir has proved to be a movable feast, and once again our cast went through some changes for this final voyage. Jan and Mily left us in Sri Lanka to return to Bali after they bravely helped us to endure the heat, winds and dust of the Red Sea, and on our safe passage through Pirate Alley. Woody returned to us after spending six weeks traveling around India and Sri Lanka. And Carol Milner, who had spent seven years living aboard PCRF’s two previous vessels, Heraclitus and Infinity, jumped on board Mir, and her expertise and experience have been an invaluable help to the smooth finish of this journey.

Once across the Bay of Bengal we entered into the Strait of Malacca where unfortunately we lost our wind. We had to motor through the majority of the Strait because to try and wait out the doldrums meant not only getting nowhere, but actually getting pushed backwards by a strong current. The shipping traffic in the Strait was impressive and only got denser by the day as the Strait narrowed more and more. At about five in the morning just hours before arriving to Raffles Marina when the traffic was at its peak we lost our GPS fix and had to navigate through all of the ships and markers using only an old map.

Now we are at Raffles Marina working to put Mir to bed until January and tying up all of our loose ends before this crew scatters and this experience comes to a close. I know I am not alone when I say that this past year has been one of the most memorable of my life, and to now be completing this project is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. This project has proven to me the power that big dreams backed up by hard work can have in the world, a lesson that I hope will carry me far.

Just as Mir is getting put to bed after such a long trip, so too is this blog. Mir will be docked at Raffles Marina until her trip to Bali in January at which point perhaps a new crew member will pick up where I have left off. Until then, good night!

Photos From Our Indian Ocean Crossing

2010-09-06T02:52:00.000-07:00

The crew the evening before arriving in Galle, Sri Lanka:

Celebration!

Sam and Clarence opening the next round of Champagne:

The royal Jan and Milly being served by Michel:

An attempt at photographing the Milky Sea:

Before:

After:

Big Swells, Flying Fish, Mold, High Winds and A Milky Sea

2010-09-06T02:51:00.001-07:00

Of all the hard work that we did to bring Mir back to life, there was one large project that we decided to postpone until arriving in Singapore, which was to re-build her deck. Mir has a gorgeous teak deck, but the sub-floor is completely rotten, which means that Mir leaks. A lot. On our Indian Ocean crossing from Oman to Sri Lanka we got absolutely pounded by colossal seas for the first ten straight days without a break. This meant that waves were constantly crashing onto the deck, which in turn meant that the deck was leaking. It was quite a trial, as we had to keep all windows and hatches closed and it was literally raining inside, which as you can imagine led to a very musty, dank and moldy interior.

Though the high seas, the strong winds and the mold made it a difficult voyage there was also plenty to be in awe of. The Arabian sea was unparalleled for flying fish, and on many nights we would find dozens of them on deck. Not a bad lunch. The Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean were also unmatched for their bioluminescence, and on a moonless night when the stars were burning uninterrupted above it was always difficult to decide which galaxy to singe your eyes with, the one in the sky or those ever-changing constellations in the water.

One of the most noteworthy stories from our crossing was the night that we found ourselves in the Milky Sea. Laser and I were on watch just after dinner, and for the previous few nights it had been pitch-dark during this time of our watch, but we couldn’t help but notice that it was strangely light out. No moon, cloudy above, so no stars either, why did the world seem to be glowing? The light gradually grew stronger, and it became clear that it was coming from the water. The whole sea around us seemed to be thick and opaque like milk, and was emitting a greenish-blue light. This was not your typical bioluminescence that is little sparkles of light caused by disturbances in the water. This was a constant glow that stretched from horizon to horizon. I was reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne, at the time, and just the day before had read the chapter titled: “The Indian Ocean,” where Verne described a phenomenon almost exactly like what we were witnessing. I ran down to my bunk to re-read the passage: “The Nautilus, half immersed, was sailing in a sea of milk…the ocean seemed lactified…the whiteness which surprises you is caused only by the presence of myriads of infusoria, a sort of luminous little worm…ships have floated on these milk seas for more than forty miles.” It was strangely serendipitous that I had just read this passage only to be surrounded by this exact phenomenon the very next evening. Within this overwhelming glow would occasionally float past large pieces of solid material that glowed even brighter than the rest, and when I attempted to catch them in a bucket or with a gaff hook they would just break apart like clumps of dirt. We floated in the Milky Sea for over three hours, and everyone was in disbelief at what we were seeing, and then suddenly we could see a line of black water ahead, and as quickly as it had started we passed out of the Milky Sea, but for a little while still we could see an eery glow behind us. For more information on this phenomenon check out Wikipedia’s page on “Milky Seas Effect:” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_seas_effect

On the evening before we arrived in Galle, Sri Lanka we all gathered on deck for a well-deserved celebration after such a rough 15 days at sea. We drank champagne, gave toasts and ate a feast while we let Mir just drift along in the swells. Now we are in Sri Lanka, and it is so beautiful here. We have been very warmly welcomed by the incredibly kind people, and though we still have a few days left we are all sad already to leave. Next stop Thailand, and then the final stretch through the Strait of Malacca to Singapore.

Photos From The Red Sea And The Gulf Of Aden

2010-09-06T02:39:00.000-07:00

The crew on morning of departure from Hurghada:

Mir in the Red Sea:

Pirate patrol:

Laser fixing our snapped backstay:

Michel up the main mast:

Fred and Milly pretending to be pirates:

Nik with lunch:

Laser and Jan:

HEAT.

Dolphins!

Spinners:

A Risso's Dolphin (left) with a Spotted Dolphin:

P.S.

2010-09-06T02:29:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I said that I would be leaving the crew for the Red Sea voyage, but then blogged about it as if I was there (because I was...). I doubt that anyone is paying enough attention for this incongruity to have been noticed, but wanted to quickly explain that while I was indeed planning on not being on board Mir through "Pirate Alley," a last minute decision kept me afloat.

From Hurghada, Egypt to Salalah, Oman

2010-08-07T02:10:00.000-07:00

I know I said you wouldn’t hear from us until Sri Lanka, but due to a broken backstay on the main mast we find ourselves in Salalah, Oman for some quick repairs before our long charge across the Indian Ocean.

A lot has happened in the month since leaving Hurghada. The Red Sea is now behind us, but our time there will not be easily forgotten. One of the main things that we will all remember is the heat. It was incredibly hot and was truly inescapable. Even in the middle of the night the temperature would be pushing 100 F, and so for three straight weeks we sweat and sweat and sweat. Dolphins. We were visited by hundreds of dolphins in the Red Sea who never seemed to miss an opportunity to ride Mir’s bow. My favorites were the Risso’s Dolphins who resemble creatures from an ancient time. Seeing so many dolphins was very reassuring because we hear so many statistics about the demise of fish populations, and the decimation of coral reefs and ocean biodiversity in general, but to see so many cetaceans certainly allowed us the rare opportunity to be witnesses to hope. We went on some beautiful dives, the most noteworthy being at a place called Sha’ab Rumi where once upon a time Jacques Cousteau put an underwater station called Conchshelf II that is still there today. It is a big dome with circular windows and when we dove down beneath it and went inside there was still air in it. It was incredible. It looked like a sunken spaceship and was covered in anemones and soft corals and all sorts of other creatures, and all of my dreams of exploration, discovery, space, the ocean and science fiction were rapidly invoked at 30 ft. below the sea. We anchored off of a few of Yemen’s remote volcanic islands, which were rugged and harsh but beautiful in the same way that a rhinoceros is. And the moment we passed out of the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden the temperature dropped at least ten degrees and some of us put on shirts for the first time in weeks.

Now we are all but through “Pirate Alley,” the stretch of water in the Gulf Of Aden where all of the recent pirate activity has been. Instead of pirates we encountered warships from all over the world; Chinese warships, Japanese warships, Iranian, Australian and American, who are all monitoring these troubled waters. It was an exciting time and we were all on guard and constantly looking out for approaching boats, but we can happily report that we crossed through safely and undisturbed.

On our way into Salalah we got so close to a Sperm Whale that we could have jumped onto its back from the ship. I am hoping that it was the first of many to greet us as we begin sailing into the Indian Ocean. And now we’re off again, our backstays are repaired and we are leaving Oman in a few hours. Wish us luck as Mir ventures into the true open ocean for the first time! See you in Sri Lanka in a few weeks.

Suez Canal and A Force Seven Wind: Our Voyage To Hurghada

2010-06-30T03:13:00.000-07:00

We were only four days at sea between Port Said and Hurghada, Egypt, but it felt like weeks. We spent the first two days going through the Suez Canal, which was exciting and very interesting, to say the least. Suddenly our 31 meter ship felt like a toy boat beside the many mammoth container ships that we were passing all day in the narrow canal. The Suez Canal is approximately 100 meters across on average, the water is a light green and both banks are generally sand as far as the eye can see. We were visited by many terns and kingfishers hunting in the heat around Mir as we slowly motored through the Gate to the East.

Once through the canal we were spit out into the Gulf of Suez, in the Red Sea, which as it turns out is immaculately blue, and we shut off the motor and raised the sails and began our journey south to Hurghada. The Sinai Peninsula to the east, the burning tops of the many oil wellheads along the horizon, steering straight towards the full moon, it was beautiful, but it didn’t take long before the winds picked up, and once they did they only gathered strength. Our simple two day sail through the Gulf of Suez to Hurghada became a saga as we were suddenly hit by nearly gale force winds. Waves crashing over the bow, lines getting washed across the deck and blocking the scuppers, sails needing to be lowered in the middle of the madness, it was epic. The old salts among us, namely Gaie, Laser and Michel, looked like they were just loving it, while us green sailors were enjoying the rush but with a bit of a “deer in the headlights” look in our eyes. Mir handled it all well, and it was great see that she can take strong weather, because it certainly won’t be the last of this voyage.

So it was after these few wild days that we arrived in Hurghada and were very warmly welcomed by our new friends at HEPCA (Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association), who are an Egyptian NGO that are doing truly remarkable and ambitious projects to help care for the Red Sea. Check out their website here to learn more about their work: http://www.hepca.com/

Now in Hurghada we are taking a bit of time to do some diving and to explore the beautiful coral reefs of this area. We are also working on Mir, and are fixing whatever needs to be fixed and improving whatever needs to be improved now that we know how it is to live aboard her at sea. Woody leaves tomorrow for India, and we won’t see him again until Mir is in Sri Lanka, I will be staying behind in Hurghada once Mir leaves (probably in a week’s time), but fortunately two dear friends, Jan and Milly, who live in Bali, will be coming to Egypt in a few days to fill our two empty spots and will be joining the voyage from Hurghada to Sri Lanka, Way to go Jan and Milly! Depending on winds the voyage to Sri Lanka should take between four and six weeks, so you should be hearing from us again sometime around mid to late August.

As always, there is no shortage of excitement around here as we all watch this dream unfold in the most mysterious and wonderful ways. See you in Sri Lanka!

Photos From Our Mediterranean Crossing

2010-06-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Mir.

Joe and Betty we'll miss you!

Gaie and Laser as we leave Malta.

Woody and the albacore.

Mates discussing how to best approach Port Said.

Sunset helming.

Betty.

Sails up!

Out Of The Blue...

2010-06-23T03:45:00.000-07:00

We made it! Mir is currently docked in Port Said, Egypt awaiting clearance to pass down the Suez Canal (hopefully tomorrow!---fingers crossed).

We had a fantastic voyage from Malta to Egypt. Being that none of us had ever sailed this ship before, and all of the systems were brand new and untested, things went exceedingly well. The weather was very kind to us by being calm and steady, and allowed for a good shake-down voyage without too much shaking. The only downside to the weather was that the wind was only at our backs for about half of the time, which meant that we needed to motor more than planned, but really that was helpful as well, because we got try out our new Northern Lights Lugger engine, and wow is she a beauty. But don't worry, we did get to do plenty of sailing as well, and those of us who had never sailed before got to witness firsthand the beauty of the ancient art of traveling by wind. One big highlight of our first voyage on Mir was catching a few beautiful albacores and eating fresh fish nearly everyday as we floated through the blue.

And now we are in Port Said, hearing the call to prayer through our portholes while we have our morning meetings, eating delicious falafel and pita and washing it down with an Immodium pill. Sadly, Joe and Betty are leaving tomorrow morning to go back to Malta due to a family emergency, but we are all hoping that everything turns out fine and they will return to us soon. Woody and I will also be leaving the ship in a few weeks once Mir is leaving Egypt because of a long and difficult decision to not risk travelling through the Gulf of Aden and its current troubles with pirate activity. All of us on the crew of Mir feel very confident that all will go well through these dangerous waters, and many precautions have been taken, but alas, him and I both thought long and hard and have decided to do a bit of solo traveling around Egypt, India and Sri Lanka instead of being on the ship for this particular leg of the voyage, but we will both be re-joining Mir in Sri Lanka in a few weeks. The rest of the crew is continuing on for the whole thing though, and with great excitement for such a long stretch of sea ahead.

So we're off again, and are looking forward to doing some diving in the Red Sea on our way to Hurghada, our next port of call. See you then!

We're Out Of Here!!!

2010-06-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

I write to you all on the eve of our departure from Malta! We're finally leaving. Our departure date has been pushed back again and again for a multitude of reasons; some of us were sidetracked by sirens, gale force winds kept us stuck in port, the wrong dive compressor motor was shipped from the States, a last minute decision to have a roller furling Genoa sail made took a few extra days (thanks Yves!), but now it's actually happening, the diesel tanks are topped off, the pantry is overflowing with fresh food, and we are all running around like crazy tying up loose ends, ship-shaping everything, and preparing ourselves for the long voyage ahead.

Wish us luck as we sail across the Mediterranean to our first destination of Port Said, Egypt. I look forward to telling you all about the first leg of our voyage soon!

Mir's Maiden Voyage! Short But Sweet...

2010-05-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

We returned from Indonesia at the end of March and have been full-on ever since. Mir is really coming along now, and instead of being overwhelming and daunting, this project has become extremely satisfying and full of beauty. Thanks to our intrepid engineers, namely Laser and Clarence, we now have a running Lugger Diesel Engine, the generator is going strong, our steering system is set up and the desalinator is nearly functional. The woodworkers have been busy building bunks, shelves, walls, cabinets, etc., and now Mir really feels like a home. The Bosun’s Locker has become a very nice workshop and storage space. All of the wood on deck has been resurrected from years of sun and weather damage and is now sparkling like new after days of detailed sanding and varnish. Our galley is a work of art thanks to Joe, and is also a joy to use thanks to Laser’s plumbing. We have a great office (where I am sitting now), and the Dive Locker (Cousteau’s Quarters) is beginning to look quite ready for its intended purpose. As the ship’s electrician-in-training I have been enjoying the wiring of the boat, and at this point we have all of our navigation lights up and running, our radar, depth sounder, weatherfax, radio, bilge pumps, water heater, and many outlets and lights. Michel did a marvelous tiling job in the head, and Gaie, as our other budding electrician, installed the light. Speaking of Gaie’s contributions, it should be noted that somehow this one powerhouse woman is holding every single detail of this project in her mind (and heart); is single-handedly running all of the errands, getting supplies, making decisions, keeping the Biosphere Foundation afloat, dealing with a giant bunch of grunting men, writing articles, etc., and all with the utmost grace. It is certain that we would all be at the bottom of the sea gathering detritus by now if it wasn’t for her. So thanks to Gaie and the entire crew, Mir has become a true gem, and catches the eye of all who pass by.

We recently reached another huge milestone when for the first time in over five years Mir left the Bezzina Shipyard and moved across the water to a new home at the much more luxurious digs of the Melita Marina on Manoel Island! On April 19th we fired up the engine, cast the lines and motored away from the shipyard that was nearly Mir’s final resting place. It was fantastic. The ship behaved perfectly, we spent a bit of time just testing her out, maneuvering around the harbor a bit to get a feel for the steering, and then we headed out of the secluded harbor into a nice choppy sea. We only stayed out for about an hour, but what an hour it was! It was a true pleasure to see Laser at the helm, and have Gaie standing beside him navigating, and taking her turn at the wheel. There have been times in the past eight months where I have almost forgotten that this construction site is a vessel that is meant to travel across water, because it was so far from being possible, but now it’s clear, Mir is meant for the sea, and hopefully within the next month she’ll be on her way across the Mediterranean to Egypt (and beyond). Wish us luck!

Our Maiden Voyage In Pictures

2010-05-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

Indonesia!

2010-05-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

Hello! The Mir crew is still out here working hard although you wouldn’t know it based on this blog (or lack thereof).

There is so much to catch you all up on, and I will start with one of many equally blog-worthy events of late, which was when a number of the crew spent a month in Indonesia re-visiting existing projects and deepening connections there. The Biosphere Foundation had the immense pleasure of hosting a team of people called Beyond Boundaries who are a group of eight Americans spending almost a year circling the globe visiting different communities of people who, as Beyond Boundaries puts it, “are exploring the frontiers of creative, peaceful, and regenerative life.” We were honored to be the last of such communities that they would spend time with on their journey before returning home.

The first ten days of our time in Indonesia was spent in the breathtaking Anambas Islands where the Biosphere Foundation has helped to develop a protected area for sea turtle breeding on the small island of Durai. Sea turtle populations in Indonesia have dropped significantly in recent years due to the over-harvesting of their eggs for food. With the help of Premier Oil and Sea Turtle Biologist Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, the Biosphere Foundation has achieved a huge victory for sea turtles in the Anambas Islands, and our visit there in February was a chance to finalize the agreements to protect Durai and to raise community awareness and support, which we did in spades.

After Anambas we spent the next three weeks in Bali at a beautiful eco-lodge called the Menjangan Resort. Orla Doherty, our coral reef superstar biologist, and Gaie just received a three-year permit to do a comprehensive study of the Menjangan Reef, which is a huge success story because permits like this are very illusive and nearly unheard of in Indonesia. So the Biosphere Foundation will be making our presence felt in Bali for many years to come. At Menjangan the Beyond Boundaries team, and two of us Biospherians (myself included), were trained in Scuba diving by Laser and Michel, which was incredible. After our training we immediately split into two groups, a ‘Conservation Team,’ and a ‘Science Team’ to work on service projects that could only be accomplished by Scuba Divers. The Conservation Team spent their days doing underwater trash clean-ups on Menjangan Reef and also installed a permanent mooring to help curb reef destruction by boat anchors. The Science Team was able to help Orla in the beginning stages of her monitoring of Menjangan Reef by learning Vitareef, a coral reef monitoring method where data is collected on many individual corals and is then compiled in a database which gives a good general overview of the health of the reef being studied. We also had the pleasure of being joined by esteemed coral reef biologist Phil Dustan while in Bali, whose expertise about corals, and stories about being part of Jacque Cousteau’s crew we all benefited from and enjoyed immensely.

After so many months of grueling hard work at the shipyard in Malta it was a true pleasure to get to go to the part of the world where Mir will be, to meet first-hand the projects that all of this hard work is for, and of course to rejuvenate our bodies and spirits for the final push of boat work in Malta. It was a magical experience to imagine seeing Mir in the places we were, from the turquoise waters of Anambas (where we did not see a single sailboat), to the mooring off of the dock in front of Menjangan. We’re going to get there, that’s for sure.

And now a quick story to give you a better feel for what this paradise was truly like: On our one night on the tiny island of Durai, myself, Dr. J. Nichols and a wonderful young student from Indonesia named Tanjung (who is currently doing his Master’s thesis on the sea turtles of Durai) were walking down the beach searching for mother turtles laying their eggs. We had scouted the entire beach with no luck and were on our way back to camp, the moon was high overhead, the Southern Cross sparkling like a diamond kite to the south, the coffee hot in the thermos in anticipation of a long night, when suddenly all around our feet were tiny, scuttling shadows, so we flicked on our flashlights and scrambling past us, crawling over our feet, pouring down the beach into the surf, were about 70 baby Green Turtles, freshly hatched, heading to sea for the very first time. Turtle eggs on Durai have been fiercely harvested for the past 40 years, and just this past December were the nests first let alone due to the Biosphere Foundation’s work there, and we realized as these ancient newborns were rushing past us that we could potentially be witnessing the first turtle nest hatching on Durai Island in over forty years. It all lasted about 30 seconds and then you never would have known a miracle had just occurred on this little patch of sand. Talk about right place at the right time. In my lifetime as a nature lover and in all my years as a biologist/naturalist this experience is at the very top of my list of most cherished wildlife experiences. Thank you for listening.

Bali

2010-05-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

Me taking Vitareef notes in the blue:

Gaie (left) and Orla, post-dive:

Clarence:

Wayan (right) and Made, two of our wonderful dive assistants at Menjangan Resort:

Sanur, our chief dive assistant at Menjangan:

The Anambas Islands

2010-05-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

Pak Lahanie, the lone inhabitant of Durai Island, and the primary steward of sea turtle nests:

Nina Marliani (left) with Pak Lahanie. Nina was our wonderful host in Anambas, and as the head of Premier Oil's Community Development Program in the Anambas Island played an integral role in the protection of Durai Island and its sea turtles.

Releasing baby Green Turtles on Durai:

Cleaning up trash in the Anambas Island's capital city of Terempa:

Gigi Coyle (front-right), the visionary behind Beyond Boundaries, in a classroom in Anambas:

Dr. Wallace J. Nichols handing out blue marbles (www.bluemarbles.org) in Anambas:

The Masts

2010-01-29T00:33:00.002-08:00

There’s a reason why they’re called sailboats and not something else. Though completely necessary to their overall functioning a sailboat is not called a galley boat, a deck boat, an anchor boat or a hull boat, and it’s no mistake why. They are called sailboats because these vessels above all other purposes are designed to catch the wind in their sails so that they may move around this watery world of ours. Though Mir is a sailboat she technically had no ability to perform her intended purpose until the triumphant day of Thursday, January 7th, 2010 when her two masts were put back onboard. Before then she was no more a sailboat than a pile of strings and a few pieces of wood are a guitar. But now, with what one of our mates, Michel, refers to as her two “totems to the sea,” Mir’s potential has been unlocked once more.

Myself and a few others in our crew spent the past few months as the “mast team.” Our job was to repair our two masts, the main and the mizzen, that had been lying on wooden blocks at the Bezzina Shipyard for over three years. When we began we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but after a bit of investigating we realized that they were in much worse shape than originally thought. Our main mast is a 109’ tall and was at one time the tallest wooden mast in the Mediterranean Sea. Our mizzen is 90’ feet tall, and both are made of boards of Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menzesii) wood laminated together. The main mast had a few very rotten sections which required cutting out all of the rot and replacing it with new wood (not as simple as it sounds, I can assure you). The mizzen mast had to be completely taken apart, board by board, and many pieces needed to be entirely replaced while other planks only needed to be repaired, and then re-planed, re-glued, re-shaped, re-etc. All of this woodwork gave me the opportunity to be introduced to different power tools, such as large, antiquated planers and table saws, and other such appendage and phalange-removing machinery.

If I didn’t already believe in guardian angels then I do now. We had hit a wall in our progress of repairing our masts, and those of us working on the project got to a point where we just simply did not have the experience or know-how to continue. Enter Joe Mallia.

Joe (left) and Laser sitting on the main mast:

Just as it was beginning to dawn on us how desperate our situation was our prayers were answered with a guardian angel named Joe. We hired two Maltese carpenters, Joe and Reno, to help us with a particularly large and challenging insert on the main mast. During this day of working side by side with them a friendship was forged, and Joe being a man who loves to share what he knows (and he knows A LOT!) saw that we were in need of much more help than just this one piece that we had hired them to help us with. After this fateful day he began swinging by the shipyard anytime he had a free moment to offer his help to keep us moving along on the masts. In these past few months he came to the shipyard more and more, even sacrificing his weekends to volunteer his time with us, and it is because of his guidance that we succeeded in this daunting task of repairing our two masts. Our friendship became so strong that now Joe and his wonderfully gracious wife Betty are going to join us when we leave Malta to sail to Singapore. They say that if you don’t cry when you leave a place you did not truly experience it, and the only reason that some of us may be able to avoid tears is because we will be taking Joe and Betty along with us when we go.

Joe and Reno working on the main mast:

January 7th was the big day and it went off without a hitch. We craned in our new dive compressor, our main engine, the main mast, the mizzen, two booms and a windlass. It was a very exciting day, and even all of the guys who work at the shipyard had their cameras out and were snapping shots as if Angelina Jolie was visiting the yard for the day. Everyone was all smiles, and now Mir looks more beautiful than ever. There is still much to do, but there is no denying that we have made tremendous progress. Mir’s potential is now only a hoisted sail away. That clumsy pile of strings and wood have been carved into a beautiful guitar, and she now waits patiently in her stand for that right gust of wind to make her sing across the seas.

I hope you enjoy our three slideshows! Below is a slideshow of our time on dry-dock, and above is a slideshow of the construction of the masts, and another of the day that we stepped our masts.

The original "mast team." From left: Sam, Michel and Gaie:

Three Slideshows Showing Our Time In Malta

2010-01-29T00:33:00.001-08:00

- From Marilou to Mir -

- The Masters -

- Masts Ahoy! -

More Photos...

2009-12-09T06:49:00.000-08:00

Her new look:

Buoyancy!

The day Mir went up on dry-dock:

The Crew:

The Mates: (from left) Michel, Laser and Gaie:

Volunteers: (from left) Woody, Samantha, Fred and Nik:

Laser with Ron Easley (left) who came all the way from California to help us install our steering system. Thanks Ron!

Laser with some of our new friends from the Bezzina Shipyard:

From left: Nik, Fred and Woody watching Mir get placed back into the water after over two months on dry-dock:

Our new Northern Lights generator being lifted into the engine room of Mir:

Malta's capitol city of Valletta:

The sardine can:

The dogs of the Bezzina Shipyard:

Lunchtime!

Photos of the Crew in Action

2009-12-09T00:09:00.000-08:00

Our foreman, Clarence:

Woody pouring concrete:

Portholes:

Orla in our freshly painted main room:

Luckily for us she does not look like this anymore...

Laser and Clarence with our new Miller Welder!

Your Blogger:

Making It Real

2009-12-08T22:51:00.000-08:00

Hello ocean enthusiasts, old friends, those concerned about the state of our world’s coral reefs and the planet at large, and also hello to those of you who have stumbled upon this blog while traversing at random through the endless ranges of the internet!

It seems an introduction is in order. My name is Sam Scott, I am 26 years old, come from San Francisco, California, and have recently begun a one year commitment as a volunteer for the Biosphere Foundation. I am currently writing this blog from an apartment in Gzira, Malta, smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, where I am living with eight other people who are all dedicating their current lives to the refurbishing of an old steel sailboat named Mir. Mir is the newly acquired vessel of the Biosphere Foundation, a group who amongst many other causes and missions geared towards raising awareness and protection for the health of Biosphere 1 (also known as Planet Earth---you may have heard of it?), has dedicated the majority of the past 14 years to monitoring and studying our planet’s coral reefs, and to educating people (especially those in coastal communities that live close to reefs, and whose actions most effect their health) about their critical importance to the well-being of our entire planet. That’s as far into the Biosphere Foundation’s (BF) projects and history as I will go into here, as they have a great website where you can learn all about them at: www.biospherefoundation.org.

Back to the boat and our reason for being in Malta: Mir is a 114’ sailing yacht that was originally built in 1910, and once repairs on her are complete, will be the new research vessel for the BF to continue their work of sailing the world’s seas in an effort to document one integral piece of our global ecosystem that is all too often overlooked.

The purpose of this blog is to keep anyone who is interested in this particular chapter of the BF up to date on what is happening, which for now consists of a crew of eight people working very hard at a Maltese shipyard. We have been in Malta working on Mir for over three months now, and the idea of keeping a blog is not a new one, but was thought up immediately upon beginning our work here, so let’s just say that it is a testament to our dedication and hard work at said shipyard that only now, over twelve weeks later, am I able to sit down and carve out a little piece of time to reflect through writing on this experience thus far. Because of this large chunk of time that has already passed without an entry, this first blog will serve as a quick catching-up on all that has already happened (a futile effort, no doubt), and once caught up, I will do my best as your blogger to not allow another mountain of time to settle over me, but will instead try to use this as a forum to keep you all up to speed on our life here in Malta.

A lot of work has been done in these past three months. When I arrived in Malta in the first week of September, Mir was still named Marilou, and she was sitting in the water at the Bezzina Shipyard after over three years of being abandoned. A few days later we had her out of the water and up on a dry-dock. If you don’t know, a dry-dock is when you take your boat completely out of water so that you can work on both the inside and outside of her hull without fear of sinking, and in our case this was absolutely critical seeing that we removed and replaced nine square meters of steel from the hull. Mir stayed on dry-dock for over two months, and underwent many changes during her visit on land. When she came out of the water the inside of her hull was full of old concrete and rust. Many parts of steel were almost completely corroded through. Her paint was chipping away, portholes were leaking, there was no steering system, insulation was caving in from the ceilings, she had no ballast to keep her deep enough into the water, etc., etc. Needless to say, she looked every day of having been neglected for over three years. But once finished with her stay on dry-dock, Mir is sitting pretty back in the water with a new paint job, inside and out; a restored and strong hull; she is free of rust and concrete and is once again full of ballast blocks; her steering system is nearly complete, and most importantly, she floats!

It took many days of dedicated and concentrated work to transform old Marilou into the new, greatly improved Mir. A typical example of one day for those of us who work on Mir begins with a six AM wake-up followed by breakfast and a morning meeting. Forty-five minutes later, we all pile into our tiny silver van and make the jouncy commute to the Bezzina Shipyard, usually by seven. We all begin our day’s projects, whether continuing where we left off from the evening before, or getting lined up on the next task that needs completing, until our first break at nine-thirty. The work then continues until noon, when the long-awaited lunchtime is announced. Lunch consists of all eight or nine of us squishing around a tiny table and reaching over each other to make sandwiches and coffee. Once the feeding has commenced and our batteries are recharged we all continue our work until around four-thirty, when we begin cleaning up whatever various messes we managed to scatter about throughout the day, and at five PM we are back in the sardine can whizzing towards home to make dinner, eat it together and then get some rest…before beginning it all anew with a fresh sun the following morning.

It has taken a great many long days like that to get Mir into the shape that she is now in, but it has clearly been worth it, because you can see the difference, and feel the changes, and suddenly we have a beautiful ship over here in Malta. There are still many long days ahead before we will be sailing away and finally seeing this island from the perspective of the sea, when Malta becomes but a speck on the horizon, and then nothing more than a memory of a time in all of our lives when we were working very hard towards pulling a dream out of our heads, and placing it into reality. The name Mir was inspired by the Russian Space Station that orbited Earth for 15 years. The word Mir has a double-meaning of ‘world’ and ‘peace’ in Russian, and seemed an exceedingly appropriate name for BF’s ocean-going ship. We have recently also begun to refer to Mir as an acronym for: ‘Make It Real,’ which is exactly what we are working so hard in Malta to do. To make real our ambitious dreams, and to do all that we can to make real a healthier, more conscious planet for generations to come. Make it real.

It is always difficult to take so many experiences, moments, triumphs and defeats and to try to sum them up so rapidly through writing. I could easily write an entire entry on the first few weeks of work on Mir which was almost entirely dedicated to crouching down inside the main room and chipping away at concrete and rust from between the steel ribs of the hull. I could write pages just dedicated to our cluttered storage shed at the Bezzina Shipyard, or to the two containers (one from Singapore, one from Los Angeles) that for weeks we anxiously awaited the arrival of, and that so often led to the response: “it’s in the container.” Many blogs, and books even, could be written on our crew alone, an eccentric bunch of big dreamers who all collectively believe in the merits of adventure and to the service of our planet. I could write about Malta, her strange and intricate history, her crane-speckled horizons, her frustratingly slow pace when we are trying to get things done in a hurry. But alas, there is only so much that can be encapsulated in a blog entry, and I will do my best to take all of our many full experiences here, and distill them down to their most interesting and noteworthy, and will hopefully be able do this incredible experience justice, and keep you coming back for more.