TV Alert: NG Oceanographer Sylvia Earle Tonight on the Colbert Report

Watch Stephen Colbert joust with oceanographer Sylvia Earle tonight on Comedy Central (11:30 p.m. EST). In her 62 years studying sea life, the National Geographic Explorer in Residence has spent 6,500 hours exploring life underwater. She’s the only untethered diver ever to have dropped 1,250 feet to the ocean floor (though the bulky hardsuit looked more like a killer robot than a deep sea diver).

For years, “Her Deepness,” has been the world’s leading advocate for ocean conservation. Besides teaming up with Google to launch Google Ocean, the only complete, interactive map of the planet underwater, this year she’s launched a campaign to create a global network of marine reserves to allow sea life to recover after a century of over-fishing.—By Daniel Grushkin

National Geographic ADVENTURE: When did you realize that the ocean was being badly depleted by human activity?
Sylvia Earle: It has gradually dawned on me. The attitude of infinite resources in the sea was widespread. When I started out as a scientist years ago I just wanted to study my plants and the fish and the ecosystem because they’re beautiful, and that was my passion. In hindsight, the clues were all over. Even the decline of all the big fish was obvious by the mid 1950s.

Explorer Jon Bowermaster on Kayaking the World's Oceans

Jon Bowermaster’s OCEANS 8 project spanned a decade and took him and his teams around the world by sea kayak—and six of the expeditions turned into feature stories for ADVENTURE. One, "Storming the Islands of Fire and Ice," is featured in our (great) just released anthology, The New Age of Adventure (order a copy). We asked the contributing editor a few question while he was (appropriately) on some tiny, nearly unpronounceable atoll in the South Pacific.

How did the OCEANS 8 begin?

I asked the National Geographic Expeditions Council for funding for the Aleutian Islands trip in 1998. This was soon after the EC had been formed, and I was among its initial grantees. We went to the Aleutians in the summer of 1999. 

What were you looking for in each trip?

Essentially we used adventure—in this case sea kayaking—as a way to get places that would be difficult to reach otherwise, in order to bring back stories about bigger issues, including environmental, cultural, and political stories. Of course, having great adventures along the way—from the Aleutians to Vietnam, French Polynesia to the Altiplano, Croatia to Tasmania, Gabon to Antarctica—that was a personal lure, too.

Perham, 17, Youngest to Solo Sail Around the World

It’s official. British teen Mike Perham is now the youngest person to sail solo around the world, swiping the crown from American Zac Sunderland, who completed his journey only a month ago.

Perham clocked in at 17 years, 5 months, and 2 weeks old, besting Sunderland’s 17 years, 6 months, and 15 days old. However, because Perham had to seek repairs at various ports due to technical problems on TotallyMoney.com, his Open 50 yacht, the Guinness World Records has classified his feat as “assisted.”

Assisted or not, we're impressed.  After the 24,000 mile trip from Portsmouth, UK and back, Perham told Reuters he is looking forward to a “good meal and a very good night’s sleep.”

But he better watch his back, as a slew of younger sailors are already eyeing his record. —Laura Buckley

In the Bahamas, Invasive Fish May Become Dinner to Restore Ecosystem

Text by Alyson Sheppard; Photograph: Wolcott Henry, National Geographic Animals

Populations of lionfish, a football-size predatory fish native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, are exploding in coral reefs in the Bahamas, threatening to destroy native fish schools and the local snorkeling, diving, and kayaking businesses.

Continue reading this story >>

'Poo Canoe' to Cross English Channel

Text by Alyson Sheppard

It sounds like a classic adventure: Two young guys, who happen to work at a Welsh paper company, plan to paddle across the English Channel. The twist? They are doing it in a canoe covered in paper made from sheep dung.

Lawrence Toms and Lez Paylor built their aptly named "Poo Canoe" to raise awareness of Sheep Poo Paper, an environmentally friendly (and hopefully sturdy) material created out of recycled feces. They took an old wooden canoe frame, covered it papier-mâché style with a few layers of the poo paper, and then waterproofed it with local beeswax and soybean resin. After a few leaky test runs, they will make the treacherous voyage to raise money for the Wales Air Ambulance.

Follow their exploits here.

Adventure Video: Killer Whales' Cunning Seal Hunting Technique

Text by Laura Buckley

We now have 40 Wild Chronicles videos, hosted by National Geographic's own Boyd Matson, up on our site. In each episode, top explorers and field scientists traverse the globe, from Antarctica to Iceland, to report on the state of the natural world.

One of our favorites is "Antarctic Orca Hunting"—not because we particularly enjoy watching these killer whales find their food source (read: kill), but because nature is just plain fascinating. The video begins with a brief overview of summertime in Antarctica, where the balmy 30-degree water is the food court for its inhabitants. But the main action happens around the 3:30 mark, when a group of seven orcas hunt together, a feat rarely captured on video. The whales circle around a lone seal stretched out on a small ice floe—begging the term "sitting duck" to be renamed—and employ amazing techniques to not only kill the seal, but teach the youngin' orcas how to hunt. Fascinating stuff.

Adventure in 60 Seconds: Last Week in Exploration

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo

MOUNTAINS

It was a busy week in the Himalaya last week, where, despite strong winds and bad weather on numerous peaks, determined climbers summitted on Everest, Lhotse, Kangchenjunga and a host of other mountains.

In an often male-dominated world, it was the women who stole the show. Edurne Pasabán is finally safe and resting back in Camp 3 on Kangchenjunga after a nearly 72-hour descent that is being compared to her 2004 summit of K2, in which she lost two toes to frostbite. Check out the video of her reaching the summit and the emotional return to Camp 3 at the website for her television show Al Filo de lo Imposible.

Pasabán wasn’t the only woman on Kangchenjunga. Polish climber Kinga Baranowska also stood on the peak, or at least a meter from it out of respect for the gods, as is the custom when climbing in the Himalaya. “It was the hardest climb of my life!” she told Explorersweb.com. Unfortunately, the ascent proved too much for Romano Benet, the husband and climbing partner of Nives Meroi, who decided to abort her try for the top so as not to put him in danger of developing HAPE.

As Meroi was falling behind in the race to become the first woman to summit all 14 8,000-meter peaks, Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner was over on Lhotse shouting “Gipfel erreicht!” (translation: "Summit reached!") and in doing so, drawing even with Pasabán. Congratulations to both of those women, and our thoughts go out to Pasabán, who is flying back to Spain today.

It’s never boring in the Himalaya, and no place less so than the circus on Everest. So many teams have summitted during the last week that one gets the impression that they are in danger of crowding each other off the fixed ropes. Our other favorite lady, Melissa Arnot, who, you will recall, was kept off the summit with the first half of the First Ascent team due to a stomach bug, summited on the 23rd with Dave Hahn's team (watch a video). For the entire list of Everest summiters, check out explorersweb.com.

SPACE

Those crazy kids on Everest might be pretty high in the sky, but they’ve got nothing on the astronauts who finished repairing the Hubble telescope this week. “Not everything went as we planned, but, pulling together, we've been able to do some incredible things," mission commander Scott Altman said. According to the BBC, the team employed a lot of improvisations, as well as healthy dollops of elbow grease. But after 166 combined hours of work, the Hubble is ready for action and should go back online by the end of the summer. If all goes according to plan, we will be enjoying the beautiful and informative images is captures for another five years.

OCEANS

Elbow grease is another common ingredient for those endeavoring to row across the Indian Ocean. The last few days have not been kind, with high seas hampering the progress of the galley-folk in the Indian Ocean Rowing Race.The latest victim (in a race that has barely gone a week without losing a boat) was team Southern Cross, who capsized this morning, but managed to right themselves and are now back on their merry way. Follow the carnage on the race website.

Sarah Outen, who is attempting to become the first woman to row solo across the Indian Ocean, is also feeling the effects of that weather as she is just popping her heard out of her cabin for the first time in 40 hours. Now she has to make up all that ground she lost in the storm. Get rowing, Sarah, it’s going to be a long weekend.

Roz Savage, in her bid to become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific, set out last night on the second stage of her journey, some 2,600 miles from Hawaii to Tuvalu, Polynesia.

Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo

MOUNTAINS

There was death and glory in the Himalaya this week with multiple summits and no shortage of danger for the men and women on the cusp of their summit pushes. The unsteady western shoulder of Everest’s fabled Khumbu Icefall gave way on the 7th, creating a large avalanche. Explorersweb.com reports that Lapka Nuru Sherpa is feared dead, and climber Alex Gavan has decided to abort his summit attempt due to concerns about the condition of the icefall (mounteverest.net). According to The Adventure Blog, the same story is playing itself out on the north side of Everest, where an avalanche has swept fixed ropes off the mountain and delayed the efforts of anxious climbers (theadventureblog.blogspot.com).

Over on Kangchenjunga, Spaniard Edurne Pasabán is hunkered down in Camp 3 as the winds howl. She hopes to be able to summit in two days, but will be forced to retreat should the winds persist (mounteverest.net). In doing so, she would be the second woman to summit Kangchenjunga this winter, after Korean Oh Eun Sun pushed through incement weather to top out yesterday. Below them both, Italian Nives Meroi (one of her competitors, you will recall, for the first woman to climb all 8,000-meter peaks) has just arrived in base camp.

Lest you think all the action was happening above 8000 meters, American alpinists David Gottlieb and Joe Puryear dodged rock falls and snow storms to bag the first ascent of Jobo Rinjang (6,778 meters) in Nepal. Read about all the fun on climbing.com.

POLES

The Arctic has quieted down a bit since John Huston and Tyler Fish reached 90 degrees, but Pen Hadow and the Caitlin Ice Survey grind on. This week, they finally got a re-supply of rations after ten days of waiting. According to their blog, they were down to 90 grams a day of fruits, nuts, chocolate, and cereals and had stopped drilling ice samples due to exhaustion and cold. They report being full and happy again after the plane touched down bringing them rations, news from home, and even some cold (of course) beer. (news.bbc.co.uk).

Most people figured that Olly Hicks’ journey to row around the world (via an Antarctica circumnavigation) was over when he called off his attempt due to poor weather and technical problems relating to drift and the design of his boat. Well, he has spent the last three weeks or so trying to get back to terra firma. It wasn’t happy rowing. But he’s back on land now trying to work out his sea legs and you can read about all of his travails on his website (virginglobalrow.com/blog.html).

Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo

MOUNTAINS

Headache, heartache, and triumph in the Himalaya this week with lots of acclimatization, bad weather, and even a couple of summits. Edurne Pasabán is sitting in camp 3 on Kangchenjunga, which she says on her blog is “Bonito, pero duro” (pretty, but hard), as she gets over the headaches and shortness of breath that are par for the course (edurnepasaban.com).

The same can be said for just about everyone doing the acclimatizing rounds on Everest. The First Ascent team members who aren’t super human (the minority in a group that includes Ed Viesturs, Peter Whittaker, and Dave Hahn) are taking advantage of the down time to practice hiking with their supplemental oxygen (watch video dispatches). In between headaches and oxygen masks, they took a few moments to remember expedition member Pete Whittaker’s uncle Jim Whittaker who on this day in 1963 became the first American to summit Everest. On the newly opened north side, a lot of teams are regretting that they used the new road (built for the Beijing Olympics) to get to base camp. According to the Adventure Blog, it has allowed them to arrive so quickly that at least one team has had to descend due to theinability to acclimatize.

Over on Manaslu, bad weather forced Spaniard Carlos Pauner to turn back just 60 meters from the summit, while the Portuguese man o’war Joao Garcia pushed on and topped out a day later, along with Koreans Hong Bo-Seong, Kim Chang-Ho, and Seo Sung-Ho. Summitting later in the week was Czech Radek Jaros (mounteverest.net).

OCEANS

Things were just as difficult at the bottom of the world as they were at the top this week with three boats, Hoppipolla, Dream It Do It, and What Ever It Takes, being knocked out of the Indian Ocean Rowing Race due to wear and tear (theoceans.net). Another boat, Old Mutual Endurance and its single crew member, one gritty brit named Simon Prior, were capsized in high seas, but quickly righted themselves and remain in the race (indianoceanrowingrace09.com).

In the South Pacific, Enric Sala and Mike Faye attended a black-tie affair with sharks (ocean.nationalgeographic.com/blog), which might sound a little dicey, but is really a walk in the park compared to getting stranded on a guano island, as they did earlier this month (ocean.nationalgeographic.com/blog).

POLES

With everyone’s favorite Midwesterners John Huston and Tyler Fish off the Arctic ice, that leaves the long-suffering Caitlin Ice Survey hunkered down in their tent awaiting a food re-supply. They are currently rationing their calories to 1,000 a day, so let’s hope those planes come soon. On the up-side, all this sitting and waiting has made for some good conversation in the tent, according to teammate Ann Daniels (news.bbc.co.uk). The optimistic navigator is currently giving some of her own rations to the guys because they spend much of the day on the ice manually drilling for ice samples to compensate for the death of the radar machine that was supposed to electronically measure the thickness of the ice.

Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo

MOUNTAINS

The party is heating up in the Himalaya. Explorer’s Web reports that Nobukazu Kuriki and Alex Gavan have both announced Everest assaults sans supplemental oxygen form the north and south sides, respectively. 

Meanwhile, teams and gear are trickling in from all over the world and heading for their respective base camps. Ed Viesturs and the First Ascent team are filming their hike to Everest and checking in with locals at every tea house along the way (watch a video). 

In western Nepal, Nives Meroi, who you will recall rerouted due to political unrest in the Kangchenjunga region, now finds herself snowed in at the base of Annapurna. Ditto for our intrepid Brazilian friend Joao García on Manaslu, who reports on mounteverest.net that “avalanches roar like freight trains in front of us."

THE POLES
A big dance went down on Baffin Island when the Baffin Babes got a break in the weather and decided to blow off steam by creating an open-air discoteque using an MP3 player, Shakira, and a lot of imagination (www.humanedgetech.com). 

A little bit of whimsy is an important thing for an explorer, especially when your sleeping bags are “wet like sponges” as are those of the Caitlin Arctic Survey team (www.bbc.co.uk). The warmer weather causing the melt hasn’t been all bad though. Pen Hadow and co. are making their best times yet. 

And the boys from the Victornox North Pole Expedition crossed 85 degrees north this week, skiing hard and doing the odd bit of ill-advised polar cave exploration (www.forwardexpeditions.com). 

SEAS
Finally, the oceans were a sailor’s delight this week with calm seas, fully functioning equipment and records being set all around. Twenty-five-year-old Paul Ridley became the youngest American to row across the Atlantic ocean after battling sea sickness and salt sores the entire way—someone get that man a bottle of rum (www.cnn.com). 

Sarah Outen re-launched her bid at the Indian Ocean and, according to her website, is surfing right along with some favorable swells. 

Her countryman Olly Hicks is currently in the Southern Ocean approaching New Zealand in the midst of an uncharacteristically high pressure system that has made the sea look like oiled glass. Check out his priceless meditations on life, solitude, and sea creatures on his daily blog.