Month of May , 2007

How do you estimate the number of dolphins and whales in an area? How do you know if they are residents or are just visiting? How do you know if the pods that you see are related by blood or by other ties? And how do you know if they form permanent pods or if they change? There are so many questions to be answered and, in the vastness of the ocean, studying animals that only spend part of their time on the surface, the answers are difficult to find.

In its latest video newsletter Watersportland reports again about Morganonline. This time the story centers around the trip from Brest to the Canary Islands and the local fishermen of the Canary Islands. There are two items about Morganonline; from 0:38 - 5:24 and from 9:32 - 13:35. You can download the video newsletter from www.watersportland.nl or view it directly by clicking on the photo. The video is in Dutch.

Finally the April newsletter is here. It is somewhat later than usual, one reason being that the webmaster visited the Morgan and its crew in May. More about that visit later. April was a good month for Morganonline. After being stuck for 4 months in Brest the Morgan finally reached the Canary Islands. Now the real work can start. Some of the first results you can see in this newsletter.

Being part of Morganonline is more than a job. There are so many facets to Morganonline that it is difficult to explain to people who do not see us in action. Days of computer work are followed by days of being out and about talking to people, filming, diving. We were very glad therefore when a member of our team, our good friend and webmaster, Ben Lippolt, came to stay on board the Morgan for a week in Tenerife.

Morganonline filming goats?

Yes, even goats could make an appearance in a Morganonline film. On the trail of finding and filming invasive species, Susana Saavedra, specialist on invasive species, arranged for us to visit a goat farm to film goats.

Most people hate sea-urchins. The only contact they may have with sea-urchins is one of pain when they step on them by mistake. Now that the Diadema antillarum, or Lime Sea-urchin, is featuring in one of our films, we have spent time watching them and learning about them.

Did we ever think that filming and making documentaries was easy? If so, that thought disappeared really fast on day one of a 10 day film making workshop. Our friends and colleagues in film, Pieter Huisman and Laureline Smith (www.eyesealand.com), stayed on board making this one of the most intensive workshops that I had ever been too.