We are “Citizens of the Sea”

🌏 As Scott and I travel and sail through the South Pacific Ocean, and enjoy all that the sea has to offer, we want to give back, scientifically speaking. We have found and paired up with an organization for testing these waters while on our passages. I am excited to say that our first sampling was just the other day on our sail west from Fiji to the small island country of Vanuatu.

🌎The Pacific has a vast expanse of marine ecosystems, and is a vital contributor to biodiversity and ecosystem health. From providing us oxygen through marine microbes to sustaining billions of people with seafood, we all know the ocean plays a crucial role in supporting life on Earth.

🌎“Citizens of the Sea” a Non profit from New Zealand, is on its second year spearheading efforts to bridge this knowledge gap. They have connected with us adventurous leisure sailors exploring island groups such as Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. There are 26 sailboats participating this year, and we are outfitted with special tools and apps for data collection. We gather environmental DNA by dragging this torpedo behind Kalea for a few minutes everyday while on offshore passages. Our mission is to help document the rich biodiversity of each region we sail through.

🌎 We, as sailor scientists are collecting this data to help the lab identify 1 billion DNA sequences from 600 samples across the Pacific Ocean. (Assisting this program provides data for only 10% of the cost of traditional ocean data acquisition.) We are proud to partake! 🌎

Want to read more? Click link https://www.citizensofthesea.org/news/the-importance-of-biodiversity