For the last week, Dr. Nochetto and I’ve been traveling to the fishing villages to meet with lobster divers from this region, the reason Matias and I are here in the first place. Harvesting divers exist around the world, although it seems to predominate in the tropics. One of the major harvests is the spiny lobster. They certainly collect other things, but lobster seems to be the primary money maker. The Brazilian divers dive similarly to the other two groups we have began to work with, but with a twist again—there is always local adaptation.

In Honduras, the divers dive off of industrial boats with 40 to 60 divers on board, in deplorable conditions, far from shore. In Isla Natividad, the divers work in teams of three, one boat captain, one line tender and one diver per boat. They still dive well beyond any acceptable or established limit, but they represent the more positive end of the spectrum. The divers here in Brazil dive with two divers on a boat, two line tenders and a boat captain. They only have a single compressor between them and only a small propane gas cylinder converted to a volume tank. If the compressor shuts down for any reason, their air supply is extremely limited. And this doesn’t account for completely inadequate filtration, hoses or other equipment. They work for a boat owner who takes half of the profits, but maintains the boat and the equipment. The crew splits the rest of the money—not sure if the divers take more than the tenders.

The problems: these divers are diving for 1 to 3 hours at depths in the 90 to 120 foot range and sometimes much deeper. They have little understanding of the signs and symptoms of decompression sickness and no medical support. While they aren’t diving as remotely as the Honduran divers, the local medical care has no idea how to handle an injured diver, not understanding oxygen first aid or the need for recompression therapy. The director of the public health program in Rio do Fogo told us yesterday that “thank God we’ve never had to use the oxygen.” They should be using oxygen all the time, and definitely any time a diver feels a problem. The only chamber in the area is operated by the Brazilian Navy. They will treat divers, but it doesn’t seem like they like to do it.

The secondary problem here is the overharvesting of the reefs. These men are cleaning out the ocean bottom of viable lobster. In some places, the divers take undersized lobster and females with eggs. The depletion of the resources, and this is true in all cases of Harvesting Divers, is causing them to dive deeper and deeper, putting themselves are greater risk.

An unusual twist to the lobster diving here in Brazil, it is against the law to hunt for fish with spear guns or collect lobster using compressed air. But, once the divers have collected the lobster and brought them to shore, it is not against the law to keep these lobster. The only way authorities can enforce the law is if they catch the divers in the water with fish and lobster in their hands. We’ve had several discussions about the creation system like is done with Brazilian wood to certify that the wood as harvested in a responsible legal manner. Any restaurant caught serving lobster that was caught using these unsafe and exploitative means would be fined.

Sergio Viegas, the director of DAN Brasil, is looking to establish a simplified training program here to educate the divers to better understand the signs and symptoms of decompression sickness. He also wants to educate the medical community on how to care for divers when they are injured. Whether the idea of fines for restaurants is the best approach or not, no one knows. What is certain, though, is that there are no simple answers and it will take involvement from many different groups to correct this problem—environmental organizations, the government, healthcare providers and DAN.

For more information, check the recent National Geographic highlight.

You can also see a collection of other images in this online folder..

Northeast Brazil, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, is by turns peaceful and hectic, dirty and lovely, crowded and wide open. Of course, this can be said about just about any city of course, if you know where to look. There are areas on the beaches where you feel like it is the end of the world and other times on the city streets in traffic where you don’t understand how they can fit one more car, motorcycle or street vendor into a space—until someone comes in and offers to clean your windshield or sell you a steering wheel cover while you are sitting at a stop light.

Dr. Matias Nochetto and I have come to Natal, Brazil to meet with and learn about a group of harvesting divers—more about that in the next blog. Part of understanding what drives these divers to dive as they do, though, involves understanding where they live. So, after 30 hours of travel time, we made it here in time to hit the ground running.

While Natal is a reasonable-sized city, packed with people and shopkeepers continually sweeping the streets in front of their stores to keep the wind-blown dust and dirt out of the inside, the villages are much simpler and quieter. While this is nice and idyllic, there doesn’t seem to be much to do in the villages either—farming and fishing are about it. Farming is limited to subsistence agriculture as the major crops in the country-side seems to be sugar cane.

In the suburbs and villages, it’s not unusual to see men riding horses or donkeys pulling carts. Not that they are everywhere, but it’s not as unusual as you might think. In the last 10 to 15 years, I was told, motorcycles have become cheap and readily available replacing the need for animal help. An unintended consequence of this is that villagers are simply turning their donkeys lose rather than keeping them and feeding them. Of course, the animals thrive on their own, but they are now wandering the streets and becoming road hazards..

I ran out this morning to get new laces for my hiking boots. I had to get them ready because I am heading back out into the field on Monday.

I’ve been home for a couple months now—since July. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to get on the road, and life has certainly been interesting in the interim, but sometimes after you have traveled to the places, conducted the interviews and taken the photographs, you have to compile all that information and tell the story. That has been my focus lately.

The trip to Isla Natividad and the two trips to Honduras (see earlier blog posts) this year were part of what we are calling the Harvesting Diver Project. Around the world there are divers who harvest lobster, conch and other invertebrates from the sea using scuba or surface supplied air systems. They pay a terrible price for this work, often ending up paralyzed or dead. Their incidence of injury is at least 100 times greater than recreational divers and where severe injuries are rare for the average diver, they are the norm for harvesting divers.

When I made those trips, I could only allude to the situation in this blog because I didn’t want to jeopardize my ability to publish this story. Last week, National Geographic chose to spotlight the Harvesting Diver Project on its website. Next month, Alert Diver Magazine and AlertDiver.com will have an even more complete version of the story. In the meantime, you can see a short video I prepared from those three trips.

The harvesting diver examples in Honduras and Mexico are not the only high-risk harvesting diving that goes on, unfortunately. Dr. Matias Nochetto and I are heading to northeastern Brazil to meet with divers doing similar work, using a third style of harvesting techniques. I am sure it will be interesting and heartbreaking all at the same time. I invite you to follow along next week. I am not sure about my access to the internet, but assuming I can get online I will be posting next week and into the following week about what we see and encounter on this journey. The attached .kmz file will activate GoogleEarth and show you where we are headed.

I will freely admit that I am fortunate to be able to travel like I do and find adventure around the world. But there is adventure just down the street, too. So, my simple question before I pull out my passport and head to the airport is this:

Are your boots ready?.

If you ever wanted to define the concepts of bone-jarring and butt-numbing it would be the van ride I just finished.

There are regular airplane flights to Isla Cedros, a small island just north of Isla Natividad. But, those are booked up weeks in advance since the plane only holds a dozen or so people. To get us back and forth, we hopped in the shuttle van run by the fishing cooperative that runs between Bahia Tortuga and Ensenada. On the way down to the island this was great, there were just four of us in a 12 passenger van. I got to stretch out across an entire seat by myself and sleep. The way back was a different story. We had 11 people in the same van with all of our luggage. Much tighter fit and much less sleep.

Including stops to stretch, food breaks and such, the ride took a total of 14 hours. And the first couple hours worth of driving is little more than dirt road—and occasionally the dirt road that was carved out beside the “pavement” was more acceptable since the latter was so full of potholes we couldn’t see straight and were worried about dental integrity.

When the three of us got back to Ensenada where we left Mary’s car, we planned to grab a hotel room and get a few hours of sleep before heading back to San Diego. Arriving back in Ensenada around 2:30 in the morning on Saturday night threw a wrench into our plans though. We couldn’t find a room. After trying several places, we decided to just head for the border.

Crossing the border back into the US was a bit more interesting than the drive down, but not significantly. Although even at 4 am there were lines of cars. I can only imagine what it is like later in the day. We had to wait about 15 minutes until it was our turn. We duly handed over our passports, answered a couple questions from the Border Agent and we were on our way. The most interesting thing about the entire process was the people running around between cars and the food cart set up in the road between the lines. An industry has developed of street vendors selling food and drinks to people waiting to cross the border. I guess the wait can get pretty long at times.

All together, the trip back to San Diego took us 20 hours. Exhausting. But still worth it.

This entire project is shaping up to be an interesting, powerful and moving story about what human beings can and will do themselves and the risks they will take to feed their families. Overfishing and the depletion of their natural resources is driving them deeper and making it more and more likely that these divers—in Mexico, Honduras and elsewhere around the world—are going to continue to get hurt and die so we can have lobster, conch and other food from the sea. But, at what price? Matias has said several times “Everyone got upset when we realized how many dolphins were dying in tuna nets? Where is the outrage when men are dying and becoming paralyzed for lobster?”

I’ve only alluded to what this project is all about in this blog, in my posts from Honduras and now Isla Natividad as I didn’t want to interfere with my options for telling the story to a wider audience. It will ultimately end up in print, online and as a live presentation. Stay tuned..

To quote the sage of the age, Bruce Springsteen, “the poets down here don’t write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be.”

As a photographer, my first instinct is to grab my camera whenever something catches my attention. But, sometimes I just have to tell myself to sit and enjoy something. The last night on the island I watched an incredible sunset. The sun was already below the horizon, but the last strains of orange were still in the sky. It turned from violent to purple to black. There was a small home in foreground lit up against the night. It was very striking, calming and moving all at the same time. And I left my camera in the bag. I guess I could have captured it to share, but this time I just wanted to enjoy it.

There is a small but classic lighthouse on the far end of the island. It was built in 1935 and enjoys a view from just about the highest spot on the island—about 400 feet above sea level. It’s still operational, although the light keeper quarters below it are abandoned—as is true with most lighthouses. As we were talking about alternative sources of income for the island, eco-tourism being one of the most obvious, we all agreed that the light house would make an amazing bed and breakfast or lodge. The views are breathtaking and it’s just a cool structure. And the better surfing spots are just down the hill.

It became a running joke all week about the “conveniences” on the island. Giving someone directions “Do you turn left or right at the Starbucks?” or “Just take a taxi if you need to get over there.” Neither of which exist on the island of course. With a total population of 400 or so people, you don’t need them. And everyone we met was willing and happy to help out as much as they could. There was never any hesitation. A cup of coffee? Just ask. A ride somewhere? Hop in.

The diving and fishing is run by a cooperative on the island that takes care of everything. They organize the diving, provide utilities for everyone, process the catch and sell it at market. And they are already looking at alternatives for their island and the marine protected area it’s in the middle of. They are working with Reef Check to train the divers to monitor the health of the MPA and looking to train them to work with recreational divers in some of the thickest kelp forests I have ever seen.

For people interested in having a coffee shop on the corner and a resort with a spa and maid service, there are plenty of places to visit in Mexico. But if you’re looking for a place where the night sky is inversely proportional to the cell signal, Isla Natividad has some real potential. And it is the sort of place that inspires you to just sit and watch a sunset as the sky turns to black.

When I see things like what I have seen while researching this project, the good and the bad, it makes me take a lot of things (office politics) a lot less seriously. And makes me think people who do play those games really need something more important in their lives. Probably the best lesson of all for me. There is a much bigger world out there than our little problems..

Finally made it in the water yesterday. Like I’ve said before I talk about diving more than I actually dive, but occasionally I do get to blow bubbles.

We were diving with one of the harvesting divers from Isla Natividad to see how he dived and better understand his working conditions. They dive using a hookah system: a hose connecting a compressor on the boat to a regulator the diver wears. They don’t bother to wear fins. Instead, they wear double the weights a diver interested in swimming would wear and don work boots to literally run on the ocean bottom searching for their catch. Each dive they focus on one particular item. They collect sea cucumbers or snails or red algae, depending on the season. This time, the diver was demonstrating how he finds and collects snails.

To watch the diver do his job was very much like trying to chase a rabbit through a thicket, he moved so fast and so randomly. But it was very eye-opening to see how he worked. We were only diving in about 30 feet of water but normally, they dive much deeper and the work of breathing at those deeper depths is dramatically increased. I was breathing hard swimming around trying to keep up with him. I can only imagine what it would have been like at his normal depth.

While I love the ocean, I think I find man’s interaction with it the most fascinating. For me, diving and travel and exploration isn’t just about seeing things (although I do get to see some really cool things from time to time), but it’s about understanding that interaction. People who make their living directly from the ocean, working on it or in it, see the ocean differently than those of us who simply visit it from time to time. The only way to understand that is to work directly with them.

After making two dives, where I got to do very little sight-seeing other than chasing the diver, the boat man wanted to take us on around the island and show off his home. On the back side of the island is a sea lion colony. You could hear the dogs barking a long way off and smell them from almost as far. The closer we got, the louder they barked and the bulls moved back and forth protectively. It was fun to get up close to them, though, on the boat and watch them sun themselves or jump off the rocks into the ocean. They look like big brown Labrador retrievers.

After that, it was back to work. Matias and I put on about three hours of presentations for the local divers, mostly just answering their questions. And that is where the connection in a place like this happens. We stopped being tourists watching and started connecting with the divers as equals, helping them out and understanding what they do, how they live and what they think. Afterward, we were talking that you can’t understand people by standing on the outside. Travel is great, but getting to know people and become friends is the real purpose behind the adventure..