I’ve just been catching up with the on-board diary of Oceana catamaran Ranger, which is currently sailing around the Canary Islands for two months of marine research. Lanzarote was the first destination with exploration of the SE coast and Bocayna Strait, you can see some extracts from their diary in Lanzarote and their photos below, for the full version please go to the Ranger’s Canary Islands 2009 Diary.
SE Lanzarote 24th August 2009
To be able to work with the ROV, we scouted for a spot sheltered from the wind, to the SE of the island. We focused our attention on sampling the areas surrounding Punta la Tiñosa where there is a proposal for an LIC - Lugar de Importancia Comunitaria an area proposed to be protected and included within the European framework in the Natura 2000 network. In this area we found black coral (Antipathes furcata, Antipathella wollastoni, Stichophates sp.), white whip coral (Viminella flagellum) and (Alcyonium glomeratum) as well as cnidaria other and sponges that we have not yet been able to identify. The submersion with divers took place in the same area, specifically in a place known as “The blue hole” where the divers go through a small rocky tunnel at a depth of some 20-27 meters. They also filmed and photographed an area of garden eels (Heteroconger longissimus).
SE Lanzarote 25th August 2009
Early in the morning, we submerged the ROV for approximately 3 hours. We traced a perpendicular transect to the coast, from 356 m to 55.4 m depth, covering a distance of only 0.4 nautical miles, approximately. The archipelago’s last platform is so narrow in some places that the seabeds drop suddenly to great depths. This allows us to see the different depths occupied by different species in one dive. The NE wind started to blow in the afternoon, force 6, so we had to forget about our idea of a second dive with the ROV. The divers dove off the shoal of Playa Grande beach and, thanks to the collaboration of Jose from the Squalo dive centre, they did a night dive off the small dock on Playa Chica beach. When we returned to port, we invited Vidal Martín Martel, the director of the Cetacean Museum of the Canary Islands and president of the Society for the Study of Cetaceans in the Canary Islands to come aboard the Ranger, so we were with him and his team discussing the importance of protecting the seabeds of the archipelgo.
Estrecho de la Bocayna 26th August 2009
Today we changed our location and travelled south, to the Bocayna Strait, to carry out two dives with the ROV, one on each side of the strait. We documented black coral, seaman’s hand coral, yellow coral, pandora and monkfish, although in this case, the most impressive site was a field of glass sponges (Asconema setubalense) at 376 meters depth. These sponges, which can reach up to 1 meter in height, are usually found off the coast of Portugal, hence the name (Setúbal, Portuguese city). This is the first time this sponge has been identified in waters of the Canary Islands.
Estrecho de la Bocayna 27th August 2009
We were docked at Marina Rubicón to the south of Lanzarote. We set sail from this port to continue with the task of documenting and identifying the sea bottom of Estrecho de la Bocayna. The southern part of the archipelago is more protected from the trade winds that blow during the summer. So for now, these are the spots we are sampling. Nevertheless, we keep hoping that the winds will die down so we can approach the more exposed areas at the northern part of the islands. The ROV submersion took place at the eastern part of the strait, to the SE of Pta. Papagayo (on Lanzarote), and the divers dove at Isla de Lobos to the NE of Fuerteventura and off of Playa Mujeres to the SE of Lanzarote.
Estrecho de la Bocayna 28th August 2009
We were not as lucky today with the ROV submersions. The first thing today we tried taking a sampling in the SW area of Estrecho la Bocayna in an area where the slope descends rapidly from 100 m to 600 m in only half a mile. When we reached the spot, a NE wind was blowing at force 4, so we decided it would be better to move to another spot. The second attempt was in a more sheltered area to the SE of Isla Lobos (NE of Fuerteventura). This island owes its name to the fact that it used to have the largest colony of monk seals (Monachus monachus) on the Canary Islands which the locals called lobos (wolves). After dive the ROV to just 400 meters, we found a species of black coral that we had not found up to then, Paranthipates larix. Since we were not having very much luck with the robot, we dove to the south of the island, and the divers dove in an area known locally as the river depths. This bottom is known for some mushroom-shaped geological formations where there is a large number of different species of fish such as damselfish (Chromis limbata) and Canary damsel (Abudefduf luridus), cardinal fish (Apogon imberbis), yellowmouth barracuda (Sphyraena viridensis), horse mackerel (Pseudocaranx dentex), amberfish (Seriola rivoliana), striped seabream (Lithognathus mormyrus), two-banded bream (Diplodus vulgaris) and zebra seabream (D. cervinus), saddle bream (Oblada melanura), salema (Sarpa salpa), dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus), painted comber (Serranus scriba), ornate wrasse (Thalassoma pavo), planehead fish (Stephanolepis hispidus) and catalufa (Heteropriacanthus cruentatus).
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