WDC Blog - From the Front Line

Dusk is falling in Alicante and this is the time to recapture the day, respond to an average 60 emails from various offices and to the odd private mail that reaches me in the race village.

There is not much time for contemplation with the builders still adding some finishing touches to the media center that is constantly growing and improving. And while my working day here starts before 7.30 a.m. I can be sure to meet some member from Team Russia or other crews already on their way back from the gym as soon as I am getting closer to the village.

We have rented a flat in order to save on accomodation that provides the additional benefit of taking my very rusty Spanish to new heights. So within three days I was able to learn the following phrases: ¿Por qué no funcionan las llaves? Why do these keys do NOT work?, ¿Podríamos por favor tener agua en el grifo? (Could we please get some water in the sink?), ¿Qué pasa con la luz (What happened to the light (during blackout), and ¿Va a funcinar alguna vez este ascensor? (does this lift ever work? (answer: no)) For most other questions I already know the answer which usually turns out to be a shrug followed by a not too convincing “mañana”.

However, the closer I get to the race village the better it gets and if it was not for the incredible helpful staff of the media center and of the team from Alicante 2008 /2009, I would not know where we would be. But I know that I would already be floating dead in the harbour, belly up, without our Spanish campaign assistant Zaida. She has been bridging cultural gaps, running the pavillion, organising volunteers and sorting out food orders for Team Russia in order to repay some of the favours they are constantly doing us.

Everyone is frantically working, decisions need to be taken on the spot and there are very few moments of calm before dozens of kids rush in the pavillon, briefly stopped in its tracks by the sheer beauty of the large black and white whale pictures on display of American artist Bryant Austin. But not for long.
There are Orca pictures to be drawn, fotos to be taken and a quiz to be completed in order to get their dolphin diploma, leaving them with a neat little business card as a junior expert on whales and dolphins.

If it was not for the kitchen and the great cooking of Ben and Ian from Team Russia, the volunteers would be starved by now. We have had approximately 4000 people in the exhibition and we are expecting similar numbers everyday day come October and the start of the in port race.

Until then, lifesize orcas have to be build and press packs need to be filled before we can take advantage of the close proximity to a sea which is unknown to most the home of nine different species of whales and dolphins. I am only hoping that in the weeks to come I will find some time to do some exercise before some well intended volunteer tries to drag me back into the ocean in order to save the one (largely unknown) common campaign belly whale indigenous to Alicante.




Nicolas Entrup
Geschäftsführer

Niki Entrup, our German MD, reports from the Spanish port of Alicante
 
Most people still don’t associate the Mediterranean Sea with an important habitat for a variety of whale and dolphin species. Even when speaking to locals in coastal communities some might be surprised to find out that nine whale and dolphin species are resident in the Med and this is certainly true when speaking to many people in Alicante.
 
Accompanying a TV crew from Austria, together with a journalist from Austria’s largest daily newspaper, we headed out to the Sea from Denia (around an hour drive north from Alicante), Wednesday the 17th. The boat left in the direction to Ibiza. It took us around one and a half hours when Maggie first spotted “something moving at around 11 o’clock” (when try to spot cetaceans from a vessel, people are asked to shout the direction of the spotting to the others relating to the time on a watch with 12.00 o’clock being the front of the boat).
 
We anxiously continued waiting for another 15 minutes, when a large group of striped dolphins suddenly appeared in a distance of around 500 Metres. The following half an hour was pure magic. Around 40 striped dolphins, split into three groups enjoyed the boats presence, coming close to inspect us while the engine was already turned off. Once the group already swam southwards and we started the engine, it took just a few moments, when some returned to enjoy bowriding close to the boat. A spectacular trip left the journalists and crew excited and made them refuse to eat tuna and swordfish in the evening as they learnt about the intense overfishing that occurs in the Mediterranean, one of the key problems whales and dolphins face.
 
Friday, Andreas Hanakamp from Team Russia was interviewed about changing marine ecosystems after spending many years at sea, as well as about the cooperation of Team Russia and it’s environmental Partner WDCS.
The programme, a 25 minutes documentary, will be aired on the 4th of October in Austrian TV, ORF.
 
 
Nicolas Entrup
Managing Director
WDCS Germany

UK IT Manager Lindsay Bruce has just come back from an extended visit to our US office where he set up a new Fieldwork database and Photo ID system. He regrets not having posted anything on the blog whilst there, but the hard-working team in the US had him working 24/7 on their amazing fieldwork program. Now he's back and got through the backlog of emails, another BIG project has just landed on his desk - the 2008-9 Volvo Ocean Race.

One of the privileges of working for WDCS is the broad array of projects that you get to work on. As well as the day to day business of maintaining our global communications network, there are many individual projects that need special attention from our IT team. The variety of projects is mind-boggling, and we get to work in areas that regular commercial IT staff only get to dream about - fieldwork, acoustic research, whale watching, media libraries, and - on occasion - something REALLY big.

The Volvo Ocean Race is a REALLY big idea. The 37,000 mile 8-month long race is the pinnacle event in the sailing calendar; a grueling marathon crossing some of the wildest, most inhospitable seas in the world. The competitors will pass through regions where whales and dolphins are living on the edge; driven back by increasing pollution, commercial shipping, fisheries bycatch, hunting, and climate change. WDCS is campaigning for a worldwide network of Marine Protected Areas, safe habitats for key populations of whales and dolphins at risk. We are immensely proud to be Team Russia's marine environment partner for the 2008-9 Volvo Ocean Race, helping to raise awareness of the plight that whales and dolphins face, and sailing under the banner of "We sail for the Whale".

For me personally, this is a fantastic project. I've always loved the sea, ever since I was a boy skipping stones across the waves on the beach by my grandparents house in Argyll, Scotland. The raw energy of the open sea, its mystery, dangers and the incredible abundance of varied life beneath and above the waves. But that life is now in great peril.

The race is on to save whales and dolphins. Will you help?

For more information and to find out how YOU can make a difference, visit www.whales.org

Game on.