Coming from the freezing and murky-green water of Monterey Bay, the crystal clear blue water in the Gulf of Aqaba feels almost sinful. Swimming around in a 5 mm shorty wetsuit is only for show since the water is 27-28 degC (~80 Fahrenheit). So far there has been no currents or surge so you practically float around effortlessly. Completely weightless and at peace.
Puffer fish hiding among the corals
Polychaeata
Blue spotted sting ray
Soft coral
Surrounded by the endless deep blue are thousands of bright colors. Everywhere, shooting up and down, behind you, to the left, to the right. All 360 degrees are full of vivid colors of green, yellow, orange, pink, red, turquoise, another yellow, blue, purple. And in all shapes and patterns; spots, stripes, dots, streaks.
Clown fish
Blue Christmas trees - or Polychaetas
The soft corals sways gently back and forth while fish swims in and out between the branches of their solid cousins. Looking for shelter, looking for food. In between the branches of the corals colorful little Christmas trees appear; red, blue, yellow, purple. Hard to believe that there is a worm on the other end.
In the sand snails, hermit crabs and rock fish slowly wander around. Camouflaged to perfection. Except the Nudibranches. Naked snails. For their own protection they shine in vivid colors. "Don't eat me. Don't come too close. I might be poisonous. Do you dare try?"
Chromodoris quadricolor - or a Pyjama Nudibranch
Parrot fish
The Ocean is a magical place. Things don't look anything as they do above. Above the surface desert dominates. Grey, yellow, orange, dusty. Under the surface colors and life; Blue, green, red, yellow, pink, orange, purple. The creatures are strange. Adapted to a different world.
It is a peaceful, meditative world. If you haven't yet - you should go dive.
The broomtail wrasse (Cheilinus lunulatus) is a reef fish endemic to the Red Sea. The wrasse family is a diverse group of fish adapted to mostly eat benthic (bottom-dwelling) invertebrates. The broomtail is a great example of the beautiful coloration that many members of this family exhibit. This guy mostly hangs out in this area and seems to enjoy munching on urchins. In this video he still has a small spine embedded near his mouth! Wrasses also like to eat mollusks and other small shelled creatures living in the substrate.
This individual was unusual in behavior, following us around as we set up plankton nets for a colleague's experiment. He stayed very close to each of us throughout the dive, swimming in circles around us and settling down next to me whenever I stopped and rested on the seafloor. When I put my finger out he actually rubbed up against it! Most other wrasses keep at least a few feet of distance from divers, so it was very interesting to see one so close, eye to eye.
Last Wednesday, we took a wonderful full moon hike through the Red Canyon, a beautiful erosive channel carved into the sandstone in the hills above Eilat. The sandstone is indeed deep red due to the high concentrations of iron oxide (rust), but after dark the landscape was transformed to a blue-gray world of shadows and stars.
Google Maps overhead view of the canyon
We were led on the tour by IUI biologist Gil Koplowitz, who is also an avid hiker, diver, and nature photographer. We started off the hike with a dose of strong Turkish coffee and then headed down the steepening ravine, which also grew narrower and more winding. Every curve grew darker and more more mysterious.
Gil lights the way ahead with his headlamp
Our group became more boisterous as we grew more accustomed to the strange nighttime environment. Some started singing songs together in the dark. I mostly appreciated the moonlight and scenery, as well as some of the plentiful insect life in the plants of the canyon.
The full moon rising above the edge of the canyon
A bewildered grasshopper waits for us to lose interest and move on so he can go about his business.
Gil set up his camera to take a long exposure, and using only moonlight, was able to achieve some remarkably clear, bright pictures. We could only see in black and white, but by leaving the shutter open for longer, the cumulative moonlight over several seconds was enough to create a full-color picture that appeared to be taken with sunlight! Moonlight is merely reflected sunlight, after all.
Our group in one of the few photos where we all succeeded at sitting still for the required few seconds. Photo by Gil Koplowitz.
Having scrambled in the surprisingly bright moonlight for a couple hours, everyone was growing a bit tired, not from the temperatures, which were refreshingly cool in the high 70s, but simply because it was nearing midnight. At precisely the right time, our looping path around the edges of the canyon led us back to our cars, where we took one more look back into the darkness we had just traversed and then headed home to sleep.
While staring out the window during the beginning of our drive to Timna, I caught a glimpse of a large manmade feature next to the road. This filled me with excitement and glee, which probably made little sense to the other passengers in the car.
As we drove past, I saved the GPS point and snapped this quick photo out of the car window.
I was pretty confident that we had driven by an agricultural drainage ditch. But this was larger than any ditch I'd ever seen.
Later that day, an investigation of satellite imagery confirmed that it was likely indeed a ditch. Whatever it was, it was big.
My interest in the ditch was due to its potential as a site for something very close to my heart: skateboarding.
Drainage ditches are really fun to skate. A gently sloping concrete trough is an indescribably fun place to play around with a four-wheeled wooden toy. Good, skate-friendly ditches can be hard to find. The concrete needs to be smooth enough to roll on, and not filled with debris or water. The ditch should be both empty and dry, so any recent precipitation needs to have evaporated. It needs to be large and steep enough to gain some momentum while rolling on your wooden toy.
Even if the "skateability factor" is high, the question of access still remains. Is the ditch behind closed gates or a barbed wire fence? (Can you climb over the gate? Is there a hole in the fence?) Is the spot a "bust" - i.e. are you likely to be hassled, fined, or arrested by security guards or scuba cops? And in this case: Is there any reason to be concerned if the ditch happens to be right next to the border between Israel and Jordan?
There was only one way to find out. I had to go back.
One day shortly after the initial spotting, Karen and I went for a drive. We took the exit closest to the ditch; turns out there's a desalination plant right there. As a scientist researching desal, Karen may have had some mixed feelings about the spelling on the exit sign.
"Sign making intern, you had one job."
After driving down the off-ramp, we arrived at a T-intersection.
The watching of birds and the crossing of borders sounded fun, but were of no benefit to our mission.
We turned right onto a gravel path.
Scenic views of the "Desallination Installation"
Suddenly, the expanse of concrete banks appeared. We had made it to the ditch!
The ditch in all of its gravel-filled glory. Karen for scale.
A cleaner, slightly steeper section of the ditch further downhill.
It wasn't perfect - there was plenty of gravel and larger rocks deposited throughout most of the ditch. Not enough to discourage me, though - I kicked stuff around to clear out a few different routes, and skated!
Dropping in and hoping my soft wheels absorb the shock of bumpy surprises.
Final assessment
Skateability: 7
Potential for higher skateability if you bring supplies for large-scale gravel sweeping. Bigger and/or softer skate wheels will also help.
Accessibility: 8
Easy entrance, no problems with authorities. If you are in a car, you can drive right up to it. Otherwise, the nearest bus stop is right before the highway turnoff.
*Bonus*
It turns out, we weren't the first people to visit the ditch with skateboarding in mind:
Time is moving along.
The last week and a half I've been nurturing my corals, keeping them happy. Sampling is not until this coming Thursday so I have a little "time off".
And what to do with your breaks here at IUI? Well, the Ocean is right there.. With coral reefs. You sun-screen up, put on your fins and mask and spend the next hour playing The Little Mermaid.
Yesterday I went out and found a coral full of Polychaete. They are filter-feeding worms and some of them are really beautiful!
Their body extends into a tube that is hidden among the branches of the coral. At the tube opening, they display their impressive filter fans. The worms can be long, but the fans are between 2-5 cm. And they are very skittish. If you get too close, they will retract their fans into their dwelling tube before you even perceive it. They you'll have to wait a min or two before they slowly unfolds them again.
It spent almost 30 min at this particular coral, just to try to get some decent photos. Free-diving down, without any weights on and try to stay still enough for my camera to focus on these tiny things, was quite the task!
But they are one of my favorite organisms in the Ocean. They are ancient, simple and incredible beautiful. And free-diving is a good core-workout so there is really nothing to loose by spending a good amount of time photoshooting them. Expect perhaps time to eat your lunch..
On Sunday, our group traveled north to Timna Park, a desert reserve home to fascinating geological and archeological sites and a protected desert ecosystem. We headed out in the morning while it was still cool to drive 30 km to the entrance to the park.
After stopping to take in the impressive vistas at the entryway, we continued into the park, most of which is easily accessible by car with short hikes to each destination.
"Spiral Rock" is an outcrop of sandstone which has been gradually eroded by wind and blown sand from all directions into a spiral shape, with extensive honeycomb weathering visible as well.
We then continued along to The Chariots, a series of carved petroglyphs in the surface of sandstone cliffs created by Egyptian miners and soldiers working in the area thousands of years ago. Timna has been mined for copper since 14,000 BCE, with Egyptian underground mines appearing around 6,000 years ago. The carvings depict scenes of hunting, warfare, and nature. Present inhabitants of the park such as ibex are visible as well as ostriches, which no longer inhabit the Timna Valley.
After walking back from The Chariots, we drove to the Timna Oasis for lunch, an artificial, groundwater-filled reservoir full of fish and birds stopping for a refreshing break.
Two pale rock sparrows resting in a palm tree.
A white-spectacled bulbul also sheltered from the heat.
Once we'd lunched and eaten a well-deserved ice cream (with temperatures now rising over 100 Fahrenheit) we proceeded to Solomon's Pillars, a wind-carved sandstone feature. Named for the biblical King Solomon's Mines, these pillars actually host an Egyptian temple and more petroglyphs.
The cracks in the rocks were a refreshing break from the heat.
Photo from Charlotte Wynn
Photo from Charlotte Wynn
Climbing towards the crack in the rocks.
An Egyptian petroglyph
Detail of previous petroglyph
Egyptian religious site.
Panorama of the Timna Valley, with the Timna Cliffs visible (made of dolomites and sandstone), the sandstone PBR "Mushroom and a Half" to the right.
The day wasn't getting any younger, and the heat was now nearing 108 Fahrenheit, so we drove to our last destination, the "Mushroom," a large hoodoo, sandstone carved by wind, sand and precipitation to appear precariously balanced (which is why such formations are sometimes called PBRs, or "Precariously Balanced Rocks").
Walking down towards the smelting sites.
Yours truly with the Mushroom
The Mushroom is surrounded by ancient copper melting sites up to 16,000 years old. It was humbling to see evidence of such ancient craftsmanship, considering I can barely light a stove in the modern day. I also enjoyed the epic vistas visible from this site. We all left contented but a bit overheated, dusty and ready for showers. Timna is a must-see for anyone looking to learn about the stark, beautiful desert environment and long history of the Negev.
DAY 1:
1. I have so much to learn.
2. To learn I will become a sponge.
3. Perhaps a barnacle... I'll stick to people and watch and learn with them.
4. Snorkeling in Eilat doesn't really require a snorkel. The water is so clear!
5. Air conditioning is my favorite invention.
6. Tridacna hunting = long walks on the beach.
Before and after tank cleaning. Karen's Experiment.
Clean tanks/setup for coral incubation. Karen's experiment.
Gallery of Corals & Shells. Find the Tridacnas... Dan's Experiment.
WEEK 1:
4. Corals are calcium skeletons. Polyps are the live bits.
5. Corals poop. A LOT.
6. Perfecting the art of suction cleaning is challenging. I am getting there. I will win.
