Tara Pacific Expedition - February 2018
Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation made from a post originally written in French. My apologies for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have been generated during the process. If you are reading French, click on the French flag below to access the original and correct text:
Français Tara. Two syllables that roll from one side to the other... This is the name of an extraordinary boat, an oceanographic sailboat that will be sailing the waters of the Pacific in early 2018. On board, passionate sailors and researchers are trying to unlock the secrets of the coral reefs.
Tara Pacific Expedition
Launched in 2016, this expedition, named Tara PacificThe project will be completed in the fall of 2018. With my reporter's cap on, I was fortunate enough to be able to embark with a team of scientists and spend a week on board with them for a story in February 2018.
I took a flight to the Philippines, where I joined them near Palawan, in the waters of the small island of Pangatalan. In the heart of Shark Fin Bay, we discovered the coral reef restoration work being done by the Sulubaai Foundationcreated by a French couple, before crossing the China Sea to Vietnam aboard the Tara...an unforgettable adventure.
Upon my return, I wrote a series of articles in Ouest-France, the newspaper I work forwhich were released in February and March 2018. I have also published a long-format report in the magazine n ° 15 Dive! (May-June 2018) which has just been released on newsstands.
To discover above, my report for the magazine Dive! Eight pages in issue 15 of May-June 2018.
Here are the links to all these articles published in 2018:
→ Tara Pacific examines coral to protect the ocean and humans
(West France supplement "La mer notre avenir", March 13, 2018)
→ Live aboard Tara : a great human and scientific adventure
(Sunday West-France, February 25, 2018)
→ They bought an island to save the coral
(the evening edition of Ouest-France, March 15, 2018)
→ Tara Pacific, an extraordinary expedition for coral
(Magazine Dive! No. 15May-June 2018, on newsstands or in digital format).
They bought an island to save the coral
Frédéric Tardieu summed up the birth of his environmental project in Pangatalan, which was to become the Sulubaai Foundation : "Originally, we had a dream to erase the damage done by man on this island.... Today it has become a struggle to make this tiny place on Earth a lung of biodiversity. »
Originally from Marseille, he and his wife Chris created this foundation in the Philippines in 2012, one year after they set their sights on the small island of Pangatalan, near Palawan. At an age when others are beginning to think about retirement, the couple left everything in France to devote themselves to the restoration of the island, whose reef and vegetation were devastated.
In 2016, the Tardieu family and the Sulubaai Foundation team succeeded in transforming an area of about 40 hectares around the island into a maritime protected area (MPA), where fishing is prohibited. They have reconstructed an artificial reef with coral cuttings. They have surrounded themselves with marine biologists, hosted scientific missions, and raised awareness among the inhabitants of the villages of Shark Fin Bay about the protection of mangroves and the coastline, both on land and underwater...
I tell the whole story in an article published on March 15, 2018 in the digital evening edition digitalOuest-FranceI'll give you the link here:
→ They bought an island to save the coral
Discover below, in addition, the video report on Pangatalan and the Sulubaai Foundation, made during our stopover by my sister Noëlie Pansiot, correspondent on board for Tara :
More about the Sulubaai Foundation
UPDATE, MAY 2019. I also invite you to listen this episode of May 22, 2019 from the excellent podcast On the roads of Asiawho gives the floor to Fred Tardieu (player below).
He tells with infectious enthusiasm of the incredible adventure he and his wife Chris embarked on, with the help of young diver and marine biologist Thomas Pavy, to transform the island and obtain the status of Marine Protected Area (MPA) around Pangatalan :
UPDATE, FEBRUARY 2020. The 20 H of TF1 broadcast, on Sunday, February 16, 2020, a report on Pangatalan and the environmental missions in progress promoted by the Sulubaaï Foundation, in particular the repopulation of reefs thanks to post-larvae of fish.
I put you below the video of the report published on Facebook by the company ECOCEANbased in Montpellier and specialized in this field:
UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 2020. As for me, two years after the report I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I returned to Pangatalan in March 2020, during my holidays this time, just before the border closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
I was able to dive around Pangatalan in the Shark Fin Bay and discuss with Frédéric Tardieu the current and future missions of the Sulubaaï Foundation, including the new project Sea Academywhich is to last three years, until 2023. Objective: to develop several small MPAs (Marine Protected Areas) on a human scale, to restore coral and mangroves and, above all, to bring back fish using innovative methods .
In September 2020, the French Global Environment Facility (FFEM) officially validated its financial support for the Sea Academy project. This news allowed me to devote a new article in the digital evening edition digitalOuest-France to this formidable initiative, which brings hope to marine ecosystems. The link is here:
→ Sea Academy, an academy of the sea for Filipino fishing villages
Other images of the adventure
This fantastic experience of February 2018 in the Philippines took me a little further, as far as Vietnam. Because after the stopover in Pangatalan, the schooner Tara crossed the South China Sea earlier than planned and I stayed on board... which was not on the programme initially!
That's how I discovered what it was like to spend several days on the high seas, on a round-hulled sailboat, when you're not used to sailing at all. I didn't think I was prone to seasickness, but I've become very humble in the face of the open sea again...
🤮 😂
Maybe I'll tell you about it some day...
😎
