Less than 1,000 people have the privilege of visiting Cocos Island, a World Heritage Site, each year. The Imaging Foundation group has joined the ranks of those fortunate few. While diving on the island we saw hammerheads, mantas, White tips, Galapagos sharks, silky sharks, blacktips, sailfish, wahoo, massive schools of jacks, turtles, and a plethora of tiny creatures that rivaled any Spielberg creation. Many of us spent our time underwater capturing still and video imagery, while others simply drank in the beauty and excitement of each underwater episode. Particularly noteworthy were the crepuscular dives. Voracious hunting packs of white tips and jacks foraged the reefs as our group witnessed the massacre!
Our mother ship, the ship shape Sea Hunter, circumnavigated the island. We saw hundreds of waterfalls and never tired of the dramatic, plush, sheer cliffs that define the island's topography. We hiked on the island and bathed in one of the pristine waterfalls. This was no easy task. The trip to the fall was arduous and we all felt a sense of victory as we let the water fall upon our shoulders. From the pool we spotted two endemic birds, the Cocos Finch and the Flycatcher.
This expedition was not all fun and games! So much was accomplished. Our eighteen team members dove together and worked together as we furthered the IF mission. Below is a partial list of Cocos completed tasks.
- Data Collection - Avi and the Undersea Hunter team have been collecting copious fish counts for over eleven years. Interested team members added additional data by counting fish numbers and taking ambient temperature readings around the island.
- Data Analysis - The data, so carefully collected and tabulated by the Undersea Hunter crew, was recently entered into a database by scientists. They kindly gave us this work and we integrated the data into graphs. This information is available for public use and will be used for educational purposes.
- Image Enhancement - A huge part of the expedition task load was taking digital RAW images and running them through the conversion process. Many images needed to be rotated and modified. The resulting images needed to be saved as JPGs and then incorporated into the correct position (serial number) within the pre-existing catalog.
- Nonprofit Image Catalog - If we are going to offer our images to other nonprofit educational and environmental organizations, they must be carefully organized. This often requires species identification, application of genus and species names, geographical identification, image captioning and application of keywords. Sounds challenging? It was at first, but everyone pitched in and we were able to meet our goal. Approximately 12,000 images were added to the catalog, with a final result of close to nearly 90,000 images available for nonprofit and student perusal.
We assigned participants to different focus groups, trying to pair each volunteer with a topic that fit their skill set and interests. We reviewed the current Imaging Foundation website and defined a list of suggested changes and developed content. You are seeing many of the changes now as you peruse the website. We wanted a more informative feel and were striving for a more consistent, polished look.
We also examined the Imaging Foundation, Public Relations and Promotion plans. The group discussed funding options and developed a pyramid and goal structure.
So much was accomplished. Our hope is that this work will provide a launchpad for future Imaging Foundation expeditions and directives.
We Thank Our Cocos Expedition Sponsors! |
