In spring 2022, I set off for seven days of Alpine touring with my brother, sleeping in a different mountain huts every night.
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I learned to sail in 2017 while I was living in Qatar. Summers were hot and I needed a "refreshing" outdoor activity. I was quickly addicted. I then moved to Hawaii, and discovered the joys of sailing in the Pacific Ocean :-) Check out some of the recent videos of Reactor, a J-29, on which I started crewing recently. I had only been in Qatar for a few months and I was asked if I wanted to join a few days out in the field to work on whale sharks. I was told that every year, a huge aggregation of whale sharks can be observed in the offshore Al Shaheen oil field, and apparently it was that time of the year again. My answer was naturally YES!!!!!!!, although I casually mentioned that I was hoping that my first field days in Qatari waters would be on coral reefs. But whale sharks it was, and I was totally content with that. I was joining a team that was putting together a whale shark photo ID database for the region, so that they could track which ones were returning to the aggregation zone every year. I was asked to help with collecting images. We set off a few days later early morning at sunrise and headed off to the Al Shaheen oil field. The ride was a long one but once we got there it did not take long before we saw some surface activity in the distance, revealing our target for the day. I started counting the whale sharks I could see from the boat and I was getting increasingly excited with every one I was counting. This was a big aggregation and they were close to each other. I had helped with other whale shark research in the past, but I had never seen that many in such as small area. I was now desperately itching to slide into the water and get an underwater view of these gentle giants. Receiving the signal from the team leader that we could get started, I rapidly found myself in the water with mask, snorkel, fins and camera, and saw the first whale shark heading my way. It was beautiful and I just floated there for a bit, watching in amazement. Suddenly remembering what I was there for, I got my camera ready and started taking pictures. I took pictures of big ones and small ones, males and females, skittish ones and mellow ones. I took 700 pictures that day from about 60 whale shark individuals that we came across. It was a memorable day. |
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