National Geographic BlogWild

Greetings from Costa Rica, faithful BlogWild followers. For the next three weeks, I’m headed to sea.

National Geographic Fellow Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle, and a team of leading marine scientists from Central America and across the globe have gathered here. Destination: Cocos Island—Isla del Coco, ringed by some of the most shark-rich waters anywhere—and the submerged and all-but-unexplored summits of Las Gemelas (“The Twin Sisters”) seamounts.

I got together with environmentalist, advocate, and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Alexandra Cousteau at headquarters yesterday afternoon to discuss something she thinks about lots and speaks of with passion: Water. Over the last half-year, Alexandra's Expedition: Blue Planet has taken her to India, Botswana, the Middle East, the Mississippi River, and Cambodia chronicling "the interconnectivity of water... what it means to live in a world where water is our most precious resource."

Here's good news from the Indian Ocean: Three new marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Maldives will help shelter exquisite manta rays, along with whale sharks, the ocean's largest fish. The newly protected waters also harbor an abundance of other reef sharks.

President Obama is grabbing the bull by the horns (and the fisheries by their quotas) and taking action on the ocean. The President swiftly responded to a request by the Joint Oceans Commission (JOC) to revise United States ocean policy.

In a week that began with World Ocean Day, some of the planet's most renowned oceanographers and marine conservationists kicked off the annual Explorers Symposium at National Geographic headquarters. The event celebrates the Society's 2009 Emerging Explorers, and gathers pioneers in a host of fields—anthropologists, archaeologists, conservationists, photographers, educators, oceanographers, epidemiologists, paleontologists, geneticists, geographers, linguists, urban planners, and more—from across the globe.

Whether you live near the coast or far from any shore, if you—say—breathe, your well-being depends on a healthy ocean.

Friends of the sea gathered last night at Nat Geo headquarters to commemorate World Ocean Day with a preview screening of the new film The End of the Line. A panel discussion with the filmmaker, marine scientists, and a chef and restaurateur who's also an outspoken advocate for marine conservation followed the screening.

Several of the Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) Robert Ballard uses to probe the deep were on display Monday at the ribbon-cutting for his new Inner Space Center. They're an essential part of Ballard's "telepresence" exploration scenario, which I described in an earlier post. The most rugged of the submersibles can descend more than 19,000 feet (6 kilometers) beneath the surface of the ocean, collecting samples and transmitting high-definition video from the abyss.

Space has its Houston. Now the ocean has a "Mission Control" of its own, in the form of the spectacular Inner Space Center at the University of Rhode Island (URI) Graduate School of Oceanography in Narragansett. The center, unveiled today as part of the new Ocean Science and Exploration Center and Pell Marine Science Library, is the realization of a decades-old dream by Titanic-finder, oceanographer, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, and URI professor Robert (Bob) Ballard.

What's it like to be a million oar strokes from your destination, tossed alone in a tiny boat? Ask Roz Savage, the one-time management consultant turned full-time rower, environmental advocate, and inspirational speaker. Roz departs Hawaii today bound for Tuvalu on the second leg of her trans-Pacific journey.

She's already knocked off the Atlantic, a 103-day, 2,935-mile (4,723-kilometer) ordeal in 2005. Storms broke all of her oars and claimed her stove, stereo, and cockpit navigation instruments. Her satellite phone failed with nearly four weeks left on the journey. Undaunted, Roz rowed on.