Dives funded by Darwin Plus and the RSPB were made around Gough Island in 2014 to study the island's marine wildlife.

Pioneering Dives off Gough Island

Report from James Glass and Sue Scott

A full version of this report with high resolution images appeared in the August 2014 Tristan Newsletter

A team of three Tristan Islanders (Head of Fisheries James Glass, Norman Glass and Rodney Green) joined biologist divers (Sue Scott, Rohan Holt and Holly Latham) to travel aboard MV Edinburgh to carry out a successful diving survey of the marine life around Gough Island. The expedition left Tristan on 24th January and arrived at Gough the following day.

The team completed many dives surveying various locations in depths to about 30 metres. The work was part of a two-year marine and fisheries project funded by Darwin Plus and the RSPB which also part-funded a new rigid-hulled inflatable built to the fisheries department specifications, and which proved ideal as a diving platform in the waters around Gough. This 8.5m RIB named Jasus tristani has enable the fisheries department to work independently. It was the first dives made by Tristan Islanders at Gough Island.

MV Edinburgh departed Gough on 14th February and returned to Tristan the following day.


Photos from James Glass show: Left- Norman Glass and Rodney Green keeping warm aboard the new RIB Jasus tristani; Centre - Norman Glass studying a rock face during a dive (Photo Sue Scott); Right: Rodney Green and Norman Glass preparing to dive off The Glen.

Photos from Sue Scott show:

Above Left and Right: The mother ship MV Edinburgh at sunrise

Above Centre: The project RIB Jasus tristani with Head of Fisheries James Glass

Left: the survey RIB being craned onto the MV Edinburgh after a day's diving, with boat handlers Norman Glass and Rodney Green. Gough Base in the background.

Right: Diver surveying overhanging rock covered with anemones, tubeworms and sponges, and a soldier (false jacopever)

 

 

Left: A Tristan lobster at Gough,
with diver's lights behind

Right: Colourful klipfish on a green seaweed which is abundant at Gough but scarce at the northern Tristan islands
     

 

Left: A bat star in deeper water with sponge and jewel anemones

Right: A subantarctic fur seal near vertical rock wall covered with large barnacles, slipper limpets and seaweeds

 

 

Overhanging rock covered with marine life, with giant kelp in the background. Kelp thrives in the cool waters around Gough, but is near at the limits of its temperature tolerance at Tristan, and may be an indicator of climate change.

Gough's own 'coral reef' - leafy coralline seaweeds in shallow water at Penguin Island

Tristan lobsters in a crevice surrounded by jewel anemones