September Research Days

I found myself a research assistant for several weeks in September and had a very research intensive few weeks traveling around the western coastal part of Ceara, meeting many new people, finding loads of seahorses, and exploring some of the most remote parts of the state. So this is my research assistant Tom, he's from Sao Paulo. I met him in August and he had some free time in September before traveling to Chile, and since he was interested in my research, I convinced him to tag along for a coastal adventure!

Our first stop Mundau. About 4.5 hours to the north-west of Fortaleza by bus, Mundau had ripping currents and an estuary only traversable by motor-powered boat. It was also surrounded by sand dunes, creating beautiful vistas.

This is Raimundo, local fisherman, our guide and attempted boat driver. So we get in Raimundo's boat, pictured above, and ride for about 5 minutes until the boat engine dies. The current is so strong, the boat starts floating backwards. I toss the anchor, but it's not long enough and we keep drifting backwards! Finally once we are back to where we started, the anchor catches and we try and flag down another boat to come and rescue us.

Here is the rescue boat. So after this disastrous start to research in Mundau, things calmed down and we went with Raimundo and his brother in this boat and sucessfully completed research for the next couple of days.

Oh look at my new little research assistant. and look at what he found!

In one spot we found 19 seahorses! The second highest number I've found in one day! How exciting!

We also met some nice fishermen in Mundau, who said this area is awesome for catching shrimp. Interesting way to go fishing huh?

Here is Tom pretending he is a fisherman bringing home the big catch, even though he's never been fishing before in his life!

From Mundau, we traveled by buggy (see next blog entry) to Itarema, where we managed to get an invitation to stay with the President of the Fishing Cooperative there and got the royal treatment! We also go to do some research and go on adventures with her kids!

Meet Renata and Sabrina my tour guides and the President of the Fishing Cooperative's kids. I'm actually headed back in a few weeks to do more research with them! We paddled our way around Porto dos Barcos, Itarema hunting for seahorses.....

we toured the 6 different beaches of Itarema....

had some fun with the camera....

Next Tom and I moved to Amofala, home of Project Tamar in Ceara and a place with no internet and no cell phone service.

We made use of Furioso the Kayak, even though he still has a hole; and we found more seahorses!

The tide was in the afternoon and we enjoyed many a sunset kayak while doing research in Amofala and in Torroes (estuary near Amofala). However in between Amofala and our next destination, Patos we had a few setbacks. Tom got sick with fever and stomach bugs and I learned that Patos was ridiculously hard to access and spent several days trying to organize transportation.

Welcome to Patos. This is the sigh you see when the road ends, beach, barraca (bar/restaurant) and an abandoned soccer field.

Patos was a 45 minute motor-bike ride away from Amofala and with the little bag of research supplies on the back was quite a hike to get to. Patos doesn't have much commercial activity going on. It's mostly fishermen....

with some oyester farming.

Patos looked like the middle of the desert and in conjunction with the water running through it was quite an image to behold.

We talked to some friendly fishermen who said that sometimes on a good tide they can catch 50 seahorses per day! Wowza! I didn't bother asking if they had permits, or if they knew seahorses were endangered, etc. And after doing research here, I'd believe them. There was tons of awesome habitat for seahorses in Patos. Although interestingly enough despite all this awesome habitat, we were only able to see 2 seahorses.....hmmm.....

Anyway our local guide for Amofala, Torroes and Patos was this awesome guy named Cal-B. He's a passionate environmentalist and the vice-president of the fishing cooperative where the woman from Itarema is president. We couldn't have done the research without him. So thanks for everything Cal-B!