ROV Dive Ile de Madeleine

A bunch of us (25 ish) headed out to Ile de Madeleine yesterday for a day of ROVing and snorkeling. Despite the short circuit in our main battery (which smoked, and sparked, and flamed), the new ROV demonstrated that:

the wrapping of the batteries in electrical tape was successful

the hydrophone works

the two-battery configuration works

This was a very important and necessary step in the advancement of the technology.

My immediate involvement in ROV-related activities will be put to rest for awhile now as I invest in forming an ISD Kid Dive Team. I'm working with water babies, no question, and the energy of enthusiasm has clearly shifted to the more direct experience of swimming with fish.

Now, where to find wet suits?

Orientation With Google Earth

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I've included these Google earth images as orientation to locales referred to in recent entries:

Image1: NW Africa. Interesting to imagine that the mountains of Mauritania were once attached to the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern US, and the mountains of Scandinavia. But it's been a while . . .

Image2: Senegal, with the Cap Vert Peninsula (and Dakar) jutting out into the Atlantic.

Image3: Dakar and the Cap Vert Peninsula. It's as small as it looks. It takes about 20 minutes to drive from Yoff in the north to the Cap Manuel headlands in the south, depending traffic.

Image4: Our immediate area. ISD is maybe a half mile from Plage Ouakam, an easy walk. The Mamelles, two extinct volcanoes, are prominent features on the landscape, aptly named (mamelles is French for breast, as in mammal).

Image5: An oblique view of Plage Ouakam and the Mamelles bluffs, where I've been diving.

Image6: The cove of Plage Ouakam, and the Mosque of the Divinity.

Image7: A wider view with our flat in the upper right, a 5-10 minute walk to the beach.

Image8: Ile de Madeleine is located about a mile from the peninsula, to the west of Dakar.

Tours of Ouakam Plage With Frederique 2

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For video clips of our two visits to Plage Ouakam, see clip1 clip2 clip3 clip4 clip5 clip6 clip7.

Photos (top to bottom): photo1: Frederique guides us around the plage with abundant enthusiasm; photo2: Carlotta and her classmates view a selection of fish commonly caught by the fishermen of Ouakam; photo3: carpe rouge, an African red snapper (this is a little 'un, they grow to be quite large); photo4: Jahou and her classmates enjoy handling the fish -- and getting all yucky; photo5: the head of a sea turtle, a very disturbing discovery on the beach; photo6: a neighborhood pelican; photo7: preparing dried fish.

Frederique explained that what was once a relatively large and profitable fish drying operation has deteriorated and is sorely in need of intervention, as by a Peace Corps volunteer. Fish were once dried on rocks along the shore. Wood-slated drying racks were introduced by an NGO, and rocked-wall buildings were constructed to support the operation. But, according to Frederique, when the NGO departed the operation declined, and now the drying process is potentially unsanitary. Frederique speaks about this on video.

Tours of Ouakam Plage With Frederique 1

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The International School of Dakar is located on the western side of the Cap Vert Peninsula, in the neighborhood of Fenetre Mermoz, several miles north of central Dakar. The peninsula is generally volcanic, and the western shore is dotted with beaches tucked between rocky outcrops.

See Orientation for google earth satellite images.

Immediately north of the school is the Lebou fishing village of Ouakam, one of the most picturesque spots anywhere, with its large white mosque on the shore set against the dark volcanic bluffs of the Mamelles. It's a easy 15 minute stroll from ISD to Ouakam, up the Corniche, the main north-south artery linking Almadies-NGor-Yoff in the north to the Plateau and downtown Dakar.

But what do they know of us, and what do we know of them? Not much.

I've been diving regularly out of Ouakam, and have now made some pretty good connections there, as previously described. Wanting to introduce life at the plage to my 6th graders, I arranged a visit with Frederique late last week, the aim being severalfold: to visit the fresh fish/live lobster processing facility; to introduce students to the potentially important archaeological site down near the beach; and to visit and collect water samples from the community well, as a springboard for discussing water quality testing, monitoring, and water treatment.

Students visited by homeroom last Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. See Ouakam2 for video clips of these two visits.

Photos (top to bottom): photo1: drawing water from the community well; photo2: runoff from the community of Ouakam flows directly, untreated, through this pipe to the sea, the groundwater of which is the source of the community well; photo3: our new student from Cameroon, Ekwopi, wanders through the very lush oasis of vegetation fed by the water runoff; photo 4: ceramic and shell material in situ along the beach, likely hundreds of years old, left by the ancestors of the Lebou, thus of potential relevance and importance; photo5: shark heads (hammerheads) on the beach (a topic to be covered upcoming), fascinating for the kids, tragic for the local ecology; photo6: shark head (unidentified species), the rest harvested for the meat, dorsal fin (for shark fin soup), and liver (used locally as a medicine); photo7: another shark head, I suspect of a black tip, reportedly about two meters long, again the meat had been harvested; photo8: a large crab.

Ouakam Dive Saturday: Diving With Hunters

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The sea temperature has dropped, and the blustery off-shore winds have begun, a pattern that will remain with us through the spring. I was without a wetsuit yesterday when I swam out to my usual dive areas beyond the Ouakam cove along the Mamelles. The water was chilly.

I did a little filming (see photos 2-4, including the interesting jelly) before Arona and his boat team stopped by in their large piroque and invited me to check out a couple of their favorite dive sites.

Like driving in an automobile, getting around by piroque compresses the landscape. We zipped along the Mamelles headlands, heading south, and stopped about 500 m off Restaurant Chez Fatou in the Almadies.

I must explain that the traditional Senegalese piroque is long and narrow, with a heavy, dense keel, necessary for tracking in a straight line and hauling it, without damage to the hull, up and down the beach, where the boats are stored. The piroque feels tippy, but I found it relatively easy to enter and exit with my snorkeling gear.

While my hosts were exceptionally kind, they were not indulging, as I might be with a novice. Arona quickly had his gear on and was over the side swimming. I watched how he exited the boat, thinking okay, got it, he eased his weight over the gunnel and slipped in, to avoid a sudden weight shift. I did the same.

The sea here was cool to cold, there was an abrupt current, the water was reasonably clear and relatively shallow, perhaps 4-6 m. There were pinnacles of rock here, rising several meters off the bottom, attracting larger fish stocks, no doubt the reason why this was a preferred dive site. There were thiof, grouper to us, larger and in greater numbers than I'd seen. Arona later commented that next time he'll bring along his spear gun.

We then headed north, past the Mamelles, past Ouakam cove, to a location again about 500 m from shore, just south of Club Olympique.

Getting into the piroque was less the challenge than I had anticipated. Arona and another who was in the water with us, lifted themselves over the gunnel with ease, like kids with zero percentage body fat. Me, okay, it took a bit more hoofing, but I was in, obviously lacking finesse, feeling more like a clod than a fit dancer, but who cares, they didn't.

The boat team was comprised of about eight people. While I didn't get everyone's name and relations, Arona explained that they worked together, but weren't necessarily family. Two acted as divers and scouts, locating the fish. The oldest member of the team operated the outboard, directed the deployment and hauling of nets, and even assisted with diving. Then there were the younger flunkies, the swabs, who hauled stuff -- the anchor line and nets. I observed that even the three young swabs had a pecking order, with the youngest receiving the brunt of the ordering. Hauling the anchor line was one of his chief duties. There were few smiles from him.

The seine net was deployed at this second stop, in a large circle. Being new to all of this, I mostly stayed out of the way, filmed the guys working in the water, and tried to sort out the logic of the operation, being that I didn't see much on the bottom worth harvesting.

A diver collected a armful of mussels from the tops of a pinnacle. The mussels are quite large here, up to about 8 inches in length, clearly bigger than anything I've seen from the North Sea or the California coast.

Note the yellow stems in photo 7. Arona said they were corals, that he sees them often, but were of little relevance to the work as a hunter.

At a third stop, things got exciting. While I was still in the piroque, a diver in the water excitedly indicated that there were fish, and that the net should be deployed immediately around him. The boat accelerated, angled sharply as the net was dropped. Over the next hour, a second net was set-up in tent-like fashion inside the larger seine net, entrapping the fish. The center net (which must have been drawn in at the bottom, though I did not observe this) was hauled first, and contained a load of fish. Very exciting, for me. A day's work for the others.

The catch consisted of primary two varieties of fish -- parrotfish (which are on the market here, not so in Florida), and another smaller fish. There was plenty of by-catch, such as puffers, which were all thrown back. The poor puffers are victims of their own defense strategy. Funny to see them fully inflated, struggling on the surface, flapping their little fins, like motorized balloons, gradually deflating, then disappearing.

I was overextended by these dives, exhausted, and chilled. I'm in good diving shape but, as I mused while in the water, I was tagging along with group of marine cowboys on a round-up. I was the Billy Crystal character from City Slickers riding along with veterans. I certainly share their love for the sea, that's clear, and am familiar with the vocabulary. Still, my personal interest has been more in things small, the ecology of a square meter. This is my advocation, not my profession. Still, it was and is a privilege to witness and document their work.

Once back on the beach, I helped haul the boat up the beach (what little help I could offer, more a gesture), and shared in grilled fish and mussels with a half dozen members of the boat team, joined by Frederique.

Frederique and Arona walked with me back to our flat, and we chatted with Randi for a time before they departed, all sweet and convivial. We have much more to talk about.

Language is an issue, as is culture. Arona's learning English, I'm struggling with Wolof and French, and Frederique's the intermediary, for now. There's much to learn from each other, more than will fit herein.

You'll find six video clips on you tube of this day at

clip1 clip2 clip3 clip4 clip5 clip6

ROV Update: Moving To On-Board Batteries & Relays

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Our first sea dive is scheduled for next Saturday at Ile de Madeline. We'll be deploying both of our new vehicles, the first a reconstruction of what we had last year (a real work horse, that has already been very successfully pool-tested), and a second, more advanced model, to be pool-tested this coming week.

The more advanced model features new technology for me. Two batteries are being installed on-board the vehicle (to eliminate the problem of voltage loss), along with a system of relay switches, to be encased in wax in a small Otter Box. The aim here is to go deeper, as deep as our thrusters will allow before they implode.

This vehicle also features a commercial hydrophone -- an underwater microphone.

Stay tuned for loads (hopefully) of media next weekend.

Over The Rainbow: A Chance Encounter Opens A New World On Plage Ouakam

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Photos (top to bottom): photo1: a green lobster tail; photo2: Plage Ouakam; photo3: the GIE Ouakam Peche processing factory building; photo4-6: tanks circulated with seawater for storage of lobster.

On my many recent trips to Plage Ouakam, I have on several occasions been engaged by locals inquiring into what I was doing, curious about the camera housing. Yesterday was one of those times. When the curious young diver discovered my language deficiency, he had the presence of mind to call for Ms. Frederique Corneloup, an English-fluent French woman working on the plage.

It was a fortuitous meeting.

We sat in the shade for a time, and chatted over a cup of cafe Touba. Frederique explained that she has been working with a business on the plage that is exporting fish, lobster and abalone, purchased from local fishermen, taken from local waters.

I had a half hour earlier spotted my first lobster, a small one, beneath a rock a hundred meters from shore.

Turn back the clock to about a year ago when Randi and I were returning from a visit to Ile de N'Gor, and on the beach were drawn to several large buckets full of what looked like abalone. Abalone in West Africa? Impossible. But they sure looked like abalone, though all of relatively small size.

Frederique confirmed that there are, in fact, a species of abalone living locally, as well as green lobster, located more to the south end of the peninsula, around Cap Manuel. The little company she was promoting, located right on the plage, in a building I've passed a dozen times, was exporting hundreds of kilos of lobsters and abalone to markets in Europe, Asia, and South Africa.

Frederique was exceptionally welcoming, and guided me through the processing facility. She encouraged my active participation both in the business, and the plage generally. I was always welcome, she said. There was a shower inside that I could use, if I liked.

Randi and I met with Frederique again this morning, received the grand tour of the plage, and were introduced to and welcomed by many. We share a love of the sea, that is clear, and a familiarity with all things marine. I would no longer remain a local curiosity. I have lost my anonymity.

Five hundred doors immediately swung open.

I met the secretary of the local fishermen's association. We talked sharks. He explained that hammerheads congregate in schools off Pt. Almadies, returning with the cold upwelling (along with a bunch of other species, including grouper and tuna). He offered to take me out to see and film them. He has plans to create a sanctuary around the cove, closed to all fishing, marked with rock piles and buoys, to protect the juvenile fish stocks living in the inshore waters. I offered to assist by filming the operation, and he responded with a bear hug, declaring that I was sent by God.

We dined at Abdulye's Modern Restaurant, had Nescafe and an egg sandwich, very tasty, very convivial.

I have inherited one hundred Wolof teachers.

My cultural bubble? I kind of like my cultural bubble . . . I like my privacy, my anonymity, the familiarity and protection it affords . . .

I may have to rethink those Wolof lessons . . .

Of tremendous potential significance to the local community (and my students) is the layer of shells and ceramics I discovered last week, and investigated in greater detail today. This historical/archaeological layer runs along the base of a hard-pack rise immediately above the beach, likely revealed by the heavy rains we've had this summer. A student-led excavation of a limited section is quite possible, though I would obviously need local permission, and endorsement by the IFAN/Archaeology Lab and its director Ibrahima Thiou.

Wow. Mind racing.

Ironic, isn't it? A robbery on Thursday, and the discovery of a treasure on the following weekend. Dorothy has landed in Oz.

Note video footage of the plage and the GIE saltwater tanks here.