A Boatload of Stuff
by Ben Horton
Expedition Granted Competitor

A new adventure is just a week away. A group called the International League of Conservation Photographers has arranged to send me to a desert Island in the Gulf of Mexico for nearly two weeks. The Island is called the Alacranes.

Alacranes is about 65 miles north of the Yucatan Peninsula, and is another critically endangered marine ecosystem. The Island is part of the largest reef system in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been mostly ignored by the scientific community, and a quick Google search reveals very little about it. While I'm there, I'll be collecting data on invasive species, and reporting back to the "ILCP" and a group out of Santa Cruz called Island Conservation. Along with the data, I'll be trying my best to tell the story through photographs. It's a reef system, so the photographs will mostly be taken underwater.

The remoteness of the Island, and the difficult nature of taking photographs underwater mean I'll be taking a boatload of equipment with me. That last sentence was meant to be taken quite literally.

Cameras need waterproof housings to be taken underwater, and computers to process the images. I also need a power system to charge all of it, so I'm taking Brunton solar panels and portable batteries to store the energy.

Unlike my proposed expedition to Rio Sirena, I'll be mostly alone. I'm taking my dad as an assistant, for company, and for the added safety of having someone else around while diving. In Sirena, I will be taking a scientist, a videographer, a boat and captain, and an assistant.

The gear is about the same, give or take a few items specific to the project, like the shark tags and tracking device that I'll need to record the daily movements of the sharks in and out of the river system. Other than that though, the waterproof cases and their contents are more or less identical. People rarely get to see what goes into an expedition like this, and have practically no idea the amount of preparation that goes into it. Of course, the gear would be far less if all I needed to do was survive, but I need to work while I'm there, and of course, if dad isn't having a good time, the trip could be a whole lot more daunting!

Although this trip is very important, I'm also keen to dial in my system for working with the sharks of Rio Sirena. The Rio Sirena trip is my own project, and the ecosystem of the Rio Sirena area is on the verge of collapse. I want to be as ready as I can be, so that when all is said and done, we might just be able to save it.