"After the blink of an eye at home, it was on to one of the most contrasting environments
that probably exists anywhere on this planet. I traveled to our world's driest desert, that
being the Atacama desert of Northern Chile, where quite literally nothing grows! Well, we did find one living small shrub clinging to life, close to the ground, in four days of searching!
Adjacent to this desert is the world's richest current, that being the Humboldt Current. Streaming north from Antarctica the Humboldt spawns a supercharged diversity and abundance of life just offshore of the Atacama.
Going out to sea one day in that environment was pure magic and not something I'll soon forget.
In this setting, there is a place called Mejillones which is one of the primary ports in the world for the exportation of minerals from all over the nearby and not-so-nearby desert. The Humboldt Current brings a great abundance and diversity of whales, dolphins, and porpoises to the coastal sea, just as the mining brings a great abundance of ships to the massive industrial port complex.
The inevitable result without intervention is the unintentional collision between the ships and the whales.
In fact, in the past two years, multiple whales of different species have washed ashore, sadly deceased from yet another ship strike.
So in we formed a partnership with a brave woman from Spain by the name of Ana Garcia (and her team at Cifimac) who has studied these whales for the past six years.
Teamwork between us led to the creation of a proposal to guide all ships into and out of the port at Mejillones in the safest manner possible for all the whales while adding the absolute minimum time and distance to the ship's transits.
This official handing over and acceptance of our Whale Guardians™ Official Document included a trip on a Chilean naval ship (which was present to commemorate a historical maritime victory) and
a ceremony that included Whale Guardians™, Cifimac, the Mayor of Mejillones, Regional government officials, naval officials, and members of the local mining industry. This was a big victory for the whales & Whale Guardians™, our partners at Cifimac, and all the people of this region.
For me personally, a new cetacean species was added to my life list, as I twice got a glimpse of the rare Burmeister's Porpoise, a very big thrill for me."
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