Our journey started in May when we headed down to Nice for the One Ocean Science Congress and the United Nations Ocean Conference. Fast forward to mid July and we are remembering our past few weeks full of excitement onboard the Malizia Explorer and bracing ourselves for the upcoming missions that are taking us to Dakar, Senegal and Cabo Verde!
July was a big month for us onboard Malizia Explorer, as it marked the first time we actively took part in political and scientific events since launching our vessel a mere two months earlier. Moored in Nice for the OOSC and the subsequent UNOC, it was a great pleasure to invite policymakers, scientists, and activists onboard to share space, science and dialogue.
Team Malizia was heavily involved in various events surrounding the OOSC and UNOC3. You can read more about all our activities
here.
Generally, it was exhilarating to be in Nice during these high level conferences, as they opened the floor to some genuinely interesting and fruitful conversations around political mobilization
and action for the Ocean. We were honored to be involved, lined up alongside research vessels we’ve long admired. It’s surreal, in the best way, to now be standing side by side with
them.
Another highlight of our time spent on the Mediterranean coast was our christening in Monaco. We were joined by many friends, family members and long-time supporters, some of whom have been with us since the very beginning of Team Malizia. It meant a lot to have them by our side for this next chapter. With guests such as His Highness Prince Albert II and Her “Deepness” Sylvia Earle (who officially christened the boat), it was a day full of joy and shared love for the ocean, with all of us wishing this boat fair winds on her missions and voyages.
For the second half of the month, we followed the coast all the way to Valencia to pick up a group of scientists including Simone Panigada and his daughter Viola from the Tethys Research Institute, supporting a mission to monitor whale migration as they head north into the open Ocean. The team will observe the whales' migration in order to understand their seasonal behaviour and collect robust data to track which Ocean corridors are of crucial importance to the whales. We’ll be sharing more about that soon, so stay tuned.
Once this mission ended, we performed some maintenance checks and quick fixes before pointing the Malizia Explorer south, heading into the opposite direction of the whales we had met a few days before and were now following on the “whale tracker”. Our ultimate mission this year will start in Ushuaia, the jumping-off point for our Antarctic mission at the end of the year. However, as the end of the year is yet a long time away, the trip south offered a great opportunity to contribute to other scientific efforts along the way.
Our first mission kicked off on the 21st of July in Dakar, Senegal, where we welcomed a team of Senegalese Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOPs). Together,
we’re visiting three offshore areas of high ecological value. The goals: assess biodiversity, evaluate naturalness and sensitivity, and better understand the ecosystem services these areas
provide. At the same time, these efforts are to support capacity building for a new generation of Senegalese scientists and technicians. This area-based research is aimed at helping inform
government bodies on science-based marine conservation, specifically in support of expanding Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in line with the global 30x30 target (protecting 30% of the ocean by
2030).
Once this mission wraps up, we’ll be sailing west to the islands of São Nicolau and Santa Luzia in Cabo Verde, which are two relatively pristine marine environments that have seen little tourism or invasive fishing over the past years. It is expected therefore, that these hypothesised “healthy”ecosystems can act as a baseline which in future can offer a comparison with more impacted islands located nearby.