August 18 Citizen science

 These wee stretches of iso (amongst other things) have drained my enthusiasm for writing - sorry to say my reporting has been pretty light on, but I’m shaking myself up to get my mojo working again. So …. here are some little tidbits to share. Something that might interest you is the Citizen Science projects we can get involved with on board. Of course ,there’s iNaturalist, an online group for sharing and identifying plants, animals and fungus. Also there are projects for identifying whales as well as for measuring micro plastics and phytoplankton. I’m quite interested in phytoplankton as these organisms form the base of aquatic food webs and are key players in the global carbon cycle. Globally they account for at least half of the oxygen production, despite amounting to only about 1% of the global plant biomass. Impressive little creatures. I'm interested in most but the project I’m particularly interested in is a NASA project, part of Globe Observer. I’m signed up to upload my photographs of clouds at specific times ie., when the satellites fly over; ground pix are used for comparison. A really cool project for nerdy me. 

Joselyn Fenstermacher

One particular person who continues to inspire me is our expedition biologist, Joselyn Fenstermacher. She’s a treasure. As well as having an impressive list of interests and achievements, Joselyn has a Masters in Botany focussing on desert plants. She is my absolute go to person (when I’m not in you know where!).  

Ian McCarthy

On board we are also very fortunate to have as our expedition naturalist, Ian McCarthy who has filmed on many of the big David Attenborough series and has won awards for his filming on Life In The Freezer, Blue Planet and Human Planet. Like Joselyn he has an impressive list of skills and achievements. We’re pretty lucky having these people on board.