The Kimberley, Part 1 – Lets Meet the Team

A few weeks ago, completely out of the blue, I was invited to join a research trip to Camden Sound to take water chemistry samples.

Why am I being asked to do water chemistry? I’ve been in search of water chemistry data for the Kimberley to help provide a context for my otolith geochemistry results. Otolith geochemistry is based on a number of assumptions and one assumption is that the water chemistry at each sampling site is constant, so any changes we see in otolith chemistry is due to movement of the fish rather than changes in the water. The Kimberley region has some of the highest tides in the world (comparable to the Severn!). It’s also a tropical environment with the year divided into wet and dry seasons which suggests, to my inexpert mind, that the water chemistry may be quite variable over all sorts of time scales.

To try and see if this is the case I’ve been emailing all sorts of people in various institutions in Western Australia to try and get water chemistry data, but to no avail. No-one seems to have done any water chemistry in the Kimberley. Luckily, my pleas reached someone who was planning a trip to Camden Sound, which is home to some of my samples. They remembered my request and invited me on their trip. Despite feeling completely unqualified for the task, I jumped at the opportunity.

Research vessels are expensive to run so whenever they go out they have to make the most of their time at sea. Unsurprisingly, therefore, I wasn’t the only person on board who had things to do. We were sailing on the RV Solander, a purpose-built research vessel owned and operated by AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science).

RV Solander with one of the tenders being made ready

The main aim of the trip was information-sharing between the Dambimangari Rangers and researchers. We had two rangers, Pete and Dale, who had come to learn sampling techniques they can teach their colleagues, and to do some surveys of beaches for turtle tracks and litter. We also had David and John who were filming this information-exchange to create videos for teaching purposes. The expedition leader was Andrew from AIMS who was doing camera surveys of coral reefs. His second-in-command and Master of All was Marcus. Becky was a volunteer who was there to help the researchers and became an unintentional film star. And finally there was me, ready to play water chemist and help out with whatever needed an additional pair of hands.

After a 22hr steam to Camden Sound we anchored up and got to work. We would spend about a day at each site and then steam to the next one either after breakfast or dinner. A lot of the work was doing camera surveys. Marcus, Pete, Becky and I were the slow-vid team while Andrew and Dale were the sediment samplers and camera team. Marcus was in charge of our tender, taking us to the survey sites and doing all the data recording, while we got to tow the camera rig which was a camera pointing down to take photos and a GoPro on the front giving a live feed of what was ahead. It was on a rope that fed to a small screen on the boat so we could, in theory, see where the bottom was and avoid any obstacles.

Becky bringing the camera rig back on board

One of us would put the camera in and out of the water while another would take the rope and control its depth, using the live feed as a guide.

Pete and Becky watching the underwater video

We would normally do 3 transects each taking 10 minutes or until the water got too deep for the camera, whichever came first. Apart from Marcus, none of us had done this sort of thing before so it took us a while to become a well-oiled machine but we got there. On the last day, admittedly, but at least we got there!

The other main objective was filming and I kept out of its way as much as possible, being much happier behind the camera. It was fascinating to see the mechanics of it though. 

David and John filming Becky, Pete, Marcus and Dale retrieving a BRUV (baited remote underwater video)

 

While this was all an enormous amount of fun, it wasn’t my real purpose there. My real purpose was to take water chemistry samples. I am not a water chemist so how did I get on? Find out in my next post!