Persian Gulf Island adventures

I've had a jam-packed last few days since arriving in Al Mirfa. We've been visiting islands to the north and I've been nothing but smiles going fast on boats, playing with plants, and taking in the UAE scenery. We're getting to sample at sites that most people aren't allowed to set foot on, so I'm feeling very fortunate, grateful, and so absolutely happy to be a part of this adventure. I'm just now getting a sense of the magnitude of work that went into making this all happen (6 sheiks had to sign off on it, starting with the President, and that alone took 6 months) and it's going so insanely smooth.

 On Sunday, we headed to Bu Tinah (http://goo.gl/maps/QLSTQ). The boat launch in Al Mirfa was intriguing - a mish mash of pretty much everything merged into a functioning dock. We launched two of the EAD's boats (500 HPs baby!) and set off on the hour long boat ride. 

 Bu Tinah is a small island in the middle of a marine reserve, and access to this site is severely restricted. At one point, this island was up for the 'eighth wonder of the world' but it was mostly a huge PR campaign by the UAE. There are corals reefs and large populations of sea turtles and dugongs. Although I didn't see either of them, I did see turtle tracks in the sand. There were also a lot of flamingos, cormorants (I think??), a hawk, and remnants of cuddlefish, a lot of shells, and bits of coral.  The mangroves here were planted 70 years or so ago and have very little disturbance, and there are fringing salt marsh and dune communities. And did I mention that the water is blue blue blue?!

 Flamingo!

 Turtle tracks!

Cuddlefish!

 I had seen most of the plant species on this site before, but I did find seedlings from Halopeplis perfoliata and I found a new species that I've been calling the Tic Tac plant (official ID has yet to occur :) ).

As with all of the other sites, this mangrove patch was different than all others. The trees were huge and dense, but there was little seedling/sapling growth. It still was a challenge to move about; however, the beauty of the trees outweighed any branch poke or Twister move. 

There was a nice peat horizon in the soil here and most of the cores were pretty shallow.

The rangers on the island and our wonderful boat operators/logistics guys/(I'd have a hard time choosing between which one I'd want to be stranded on a desert island with because they're such nice, smart, amazing bad-asses) Hadir and Ibrahim cooked us lunch, which consisted of freshly-caught fish and chicken biriyani. We all sat on the floor, family style, and feasted. It was the most delicious and perfectly filling meal that I've had in a long time and it was extremely hard to get back to work after that.

The next day, we went to Merawaah Island (http://goo.gl/maps/KWZwC). The island is large and we were in need of a truck to get us and our huge amount of gear around. So, of course, Hadir and Ibrahim sourced a landing craft and brought a truck over with us.

 I would consider the plants on the site to be 'dwarf' (especially if you can see Steve above the canopy ; ) ). We collected data on the mangroves and salt marsh and headed back. We managed to fit all 20 people onto the truck, in addition to our gear - talk about a clown car (I wanted to take a photo but was too far smashed into a corner to do so)

 

 Mangrove pneumatophores poking into the salt marsh

Today we sampled on the President's (also the ruler of the Abu Dhabi emirate) personal island, Abu Al Abyadh (http://goo.gl/maps/kztDY). Again, with the amazing work of Hadir (who happens to know everyone in Abu Dhabi), we got through the security check point and drove around for a while to find the right spots to sample. I wasn't allowed to take photos of the palace, but I can tell you that it was huge and beautiful. And there is an insane amount of construction going on (literally the road to nowhere). I've never had such free access to drive around a construction site before. The name of the island means White Father and I honestly felt at times that I was going to end up at the Black Rock Desert.

The Sheik is particularly fond of this little antelope (I think it's a gazelle??) and they are everywhere on the island. Fences have to be put up to keep them from eating the mangrove pneumatophores!

The Sheik also likes mangroves and, if I heard correctly, has planted over 2 million saplings over the past few years. We came across a nursery on our travels.

 The main reason that we were working on this island is because it has a mangrove chronosequence - mangrove stands of different ages. We sampled a 1 year old, 5 year old, and 11 year old stand today, and will hit a ~20 year old stand tomorrow. 

I had the best time today out of any other days today. I was walking around 'Baja style' (shorts, barefoot) measuring plants and pore-water chemistry with such fun people - the banter was constant and epic. Below is Drew from the Smithsonian with a fine little crab that he caught.

 and here is Elorena from Greece measuring a 1 year old barnacle encrusted sapling

Regardless of the sun burn that I got on my legs, I had a great day and it ended with a beautiful sunset over the algal sabkha. Til later...