Join a Bahamas reef survey or other "working vacation" for the eco-minded

SAN SALVADOR ISLAND, Bahamas — Through the fog inside my dive mask, which is suctioned to my face so hard that my nose feels like a bulldog's, I wink stinging salt out of one eye and peer down through the water at a wrinkled brain the size of a foot stool.

Nearby is a handful — so to speak — of Dead Man's Fingers. Not far from that is a healthy patch of Creamsicle-colored fire coral that I suddenly realize, due to the downward swing of an Atlantic Ocean swell, is only a few perilous inches from my belly.

In a frenzy of kicking flippers, I shoot away to safety, just missing the fire coral's nasty sting.

Clutching tote board and pencil, counting coral like a salty census official, I'm having a remarkably good time. Really.

The brain and the descriptively named purple "fingers" are types of coral, by the way. Coral is what brought me here, and with coral I've become obsessed.

Not just me. I'm in the company of seven other volunteers from the United States and Canada sharing in the research duties on an Earthwatch Institute expedition studying the health of coral reefs.

Earthwatch, founded in Boston in 1971, is among the leaders in a field that goes beyond basic "ecotourism" trips that take vacationers to see birds, beasts and biospheres. The nonprofit group backs peer-reviewed scientific studies all over the world and recruits volunteers to perform supervised research in the field. Volunteers' tax-deductible fees pay the bills for the scientists and staff who lead them.

As is often found in the natural world, it's a symbiotic relationship. Researchers get vital help, and volunteers get what can be an unforgettable travel experience.

Close to history?

Symbiosis is also what has brought us to San Salvador's Lindsay's Reef on this Monday before Thanksgiving, to a strip of powdery sand edging a bay with so many exotic hues it's like a paint chip from Turquoise Depot.

It also happens to be a few hundred yards from what many believe to be the beach where Christopher Columbus first set foot in the New World — new to Europeans, anyway. To the northeast, the next stop is Spain.

We're here to help find out what makes coral periodically expel the color-giving algae, called zooxanthellae, that live inside the cells of coral polyps. The algae get food from the coral's waste products and corals benefit from carbon compounds produced by the algae's photosynthesis.

When something upsets the coral and causes it to expel the algae — a phenomenon called bleaching — that symbiosis falls apart like a tequila-bar marriage. Bleaching weakens coral, and may kill it.

A week of snorkeling on a remote island of the Bahamas sounds like a dream vacation, but this is also serious work for our group. We range in age from 20 to 60, from Florida, New York, California, Mississippi, Minnesota, Washington and British Columbia — strangers until we boarded a trio of small charter planes for a two-hour flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to remote San Salvador. Our work backgrounds range from college food-service worker to former nuclear-plant operator.

At Lindsay's Reef, we take a reef census. Half of us wade into the shallows carrying square-meter frames of PVC pipe with brown twine crosshatched between the pipes. In wetsuits, masks and flippers, we spend the next 90 minutes randomly tossing the frames into the water. Where they sink and land on the reef, we use a pencil and waterproof tote board to record what's beneath each intersection in the twine: hard coral, soft coral, algae, sand, rock, etc.

It's work, but it's not bad work. Beneath the water, lacy lavender coral fans sway slowly in the current as if waved by a fine Parisian lady on a hot August day.

Earthwatch expeditions

Besides the Bahamian Reef Survey, the 2006 Earthwatch Institute catalog offers 136 other research expeditions spread across 47 countries. Next dates for the Bahamas project: June 28-July 8 and Nov. 18-25.

Other projects

Research categories range from archaeology and paleontology, to plant science, to zoology. This year's expeditions visit every continent except Antarctica.

Costs

The Bahamian Reef Survey cost for 2006 is $1,995 for the eight-day project or $2,095 for the 11-day project, for non-members. (For this and all projects, subtract $100 if you pay $35 to become an Earthwatch member.) As with all expeditions, fees cover lodging, meals and transportation during the expedition, but do not cover transportation to the research site. Note: A round-trip charter flight from Florida to San Salvador last November added $410 to the trip cost.

Least expensive projects in the 2006 catalog: two days analyzing gray-whale migration data at the University of Bath, England ($595 non-members). Or study caterpillar survival in Louisiana ecosystems damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ($695 non-members).

Most expensive: 14-15 days on a riverboat surveying wildlife on the Peruvian Amazon ($4,395 non-members).

More information

For a free 154-page Earthwatch Expedition Guide in the mail, or for more information, call 800-776-0188 or see www.earthwatch.org.

Other resources

A helpful reference for eco-minded travelers, including links to ecotours and "do-no-harm" travel resources, is the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations, www.nationalgeographic.com/travel
/sustainable/travelers.html.

Other team members stretch a 10-meter line between spikes driven into the reef — spikes that are left there month to month so that researchers may revisit the same areas three times a year. Team members skim the surface or make short dives along the transect to record every piece of bleaching coral: such as brain coral, which looks just like a brain; rose coral, which looks like a rosebud; or mustard hill coral, the color of Dijon and with the bumpy texture of cauliflower.

We also record water and air temperatures, take water samples and test visibility.

Started in 1992, this is thought to be the longest running study of its kind, contributing solid data on how coral responds to changes in water temperature and other environmental factors, aiming in part to answer the question of whether global warming is killing the world's coral reefs.

Be safe, or ...

John Rollino, a self-described "large Italian" in his 30s who works for an environmental consulting firm out of an office in Manhattan, is the project's principal investigator. He's also our team leader.

Our group includes experienced scuba divers and one member who is snorkeling for the first time. The first day, Rollino lectures us on the beach that safety is his No. 1 concern. The nearest hospital is on Nassau, 200 air miles from little-populated San Salvador, whose population swells by a third when a charter jet brings a load of tourists to Club Med, the island's only big resort.

"The clinic here can help you if you have a cold, but that's about it. Don't let us push you. It's always better to stop early than need a medevac," Rollino says, his speech thick with his Queens upbringing.

During our week on the island, we're billeted at Gerace Research Center, a former U.S. Navy submarine-tracking base that is now operated by the College of the Bahamas as a center for research in marine sciences, geology, archaeology and biology. Besides Earthwatch, numerous American universities house students there for educational trips.

The Ritz it's not.

"Don't walk under the old water tower, it's badly corroded and parts do occasionally fall off it," facility manager Dave Trydahl warns during an orientation. All the rusted tank holds is an osprey nest, its occupants frequently scolding us from on high.

The local women running the cafeteria seem to use the Navy cookbook left over from the 1950s (think pancakes and bacon — lots of bacon). Our transport is on open-air benches on the back of vintage flatbed trucks, which carry us all around the 5-mile by 12-mile island on what is grandiosely called the Queen's Highway — a narrow, unstriped strip of pavement bordered by palmettos, sea grape and sand burrs.

Want to get away from it all? San Salvador feels like you've sailed off the edge of the world.

Guiding forces

We quickly work into a routine of watching the weather and waves. They dictate which reef we'll work each morning. Most evenings, we hear lectures on coral or geology.

As we left Florida to start the trip, the television squawked warnings about Tropical Storm Gamma in the Caribbean. By Tuesday of our project week, stormy weather arrives. "That's what the sky looks like before a hurricane," says Forrest Glick, a team member who grew up on Maui, as he scans gathering clouds. We're unable to work the reefs as surf pummels the beaches.

Instead, we do beach surveys, using measuring poles and levels to gauge the beach's steepness and the distance from vegetation to water. This indicates how much wave action has affected the beach and nearby reefs since the last study.

Happily, the storm passes. Still, it takes a couple days for waters to calm. For fun, we climb to the top of the island's 150-year-old lighthouse on Dixon Hill. Unlike modern American lighthouses, it still has keepers who light and maintain it. Inside, amid the sour tang of kerosene, we get an up-close look at the burner and clockworks that rotate giant Fresnel lenses.

From there, it's a short hike through woods of gumbo limbo trees and cactus to Lighthouse Cave. A ladder leads down into the 125,000-year-old limestone cavern with stalagmites and stalactites. A short distance in, a saltwater pool conjures images of "The Creature From the Black Lagoon." Several of us wade in and explore with headlamps to a back chamber, reached by a low passage where the water laps my chin and the smell of bat guano is strong. A tiny bat flies in my face, just surprising enough to elicit a "wahoo!"

In the far chamber, we turn off our lights. It is totally black. The only sound is fluttering bat wings.

"What if the flashlights don't come back on?" someone asks.

"Then we have one massive game of 'Marco Polo,' " Rollino replies wryly.

Surveying a success

Despite the weather, we accomplish significant reef surveys. At French Bay, a partner and I count more than 700 heads of mustard hill coral.

We experience "aha" moments, such as picking up a sea hare — a type of sea slug — and provoking its defensive cloud of exotic purple ink. We watch a long, skinny cornetfish hide in a clump of sea whips, pretending to be just another swaying reed.

Evenings, we lounge on a patio to sip the local Goombay Punch, swap stories and swat no-see-ums. Mornings, some of us rise early for bird watching near an inland lagoon or a hike to an old shipwreck.

By week's end, Rollino has sufficient data to declare that a bleaching "event" is occurring this season in the reefs at San Salvador. He plans to share his data with other coral scientists.

Our team ends the week at the tiny Short Stop cafe with a special meal, ordered several days in advance because the island's food stocks are so limited. Crispy fritters, fried chicken and grilled fish fill our plates, and ice cold Kalik, "the beer of the Bahamas," flows freely. Dessert is guava duff, a local specialty.

"That guy who brought in the food is probably the same guy who went out and caught this fish," Trydahl tells us, noting the island's everybody-pitches-in economy.

Some members of the group are already speculating on their next Earthwatch trip — maybe to join Rollino's "sister project" planned for a postage-stamp island off Belize in 2007?

Repeat signups are common with Earthwatch. One of my roommates, gray-haired and flat-topped Larry Ruegger, of Safety Harbor, Fla., tells fond stories about Earthwatch expeditions to Australia, Belize, Ireland, Turkey and a previous visit to the Bahamas. Why does he keep returning?

"Traditionally you get to see what I consider the real country and the real culture," he says. And while you learn about a place, you also contribute to it.

After a week in the water, I'm seriously pruney. I've my own set of Dead Man's Fingers and a slightly smashed nose. But it's been educational — and fun.

Really.

Brian J. Cantwell: 206-748-5724 or bcantwell@seattletimes.com