The reef diaries
The Reef
It's a living, breathing thing - bur can the scientists protect the reef?
Kathy Sykes's diary about the challenge for the Reef programme, from the BBC/OU series Rough Science 5
We all set off to Chumbe island - a tiny, empty island with a lighthouse (which I’d used as a reference point for the programme where I was trying to navigate to a shipwreck).
The challenge is deliciously absurd - protect a bit of reef - a reef ‘burglar alarm’.
Specifically, Ellen and I had to place and make the buoy to support what ‘the boys’ were making. A suitably ‘female’ task!
We lined up a baseline on the beach, needing to locate a place out at sea 300 metres out. When we first went to the beach it was raining but it soon brightened and before long we were being burned to a crisp.
Next, we made up a lethal board with nails stuck in - to line up and find when the angle between the outer two flags was 19o. We didn’t explain this to death - since I’d done it in the ‘shipwreck’ programme. The method may not have been accurate enough to locate a shipwreck - but it’s good enough for getting approx 300m from shore. (300m is the island’s defined exclusion zone - intended to protect the land + marine life).
We located the point in the boat - & could do nothing but muse upon how deep it might be.
So I’m to build the depth gauge, & Ellen will make the raft.
I started to play around with a tube & a balloon - trying to see if I could hear the balloon pop underwater. Basically - I need to make something that makes a noise when it hits the bottom - or release something that I can then see.
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Content last updated: 26/01/2005
