In the summer of 1991, there was a fascinating development in the coelacanth world. A large pregnant female was trawled up by a Japanese commercial fisher, not in Comoran waters, but apparently (Shakur would maintain that she was trawled off the Comoros where the ship was fishing illegally) off of Maputo, Mozambique ,on the East African coast.
This giant weighed in at 98kg and was 178 cm long. (Courtesy: Robin Stobbs) The catch was significant for two reasons. First, the location hinted at the possibility of coelacanth populations directly off the African coast, as JLB Smith had once surmised. And second, the gravid female contained 26 perfectly formed fetal pups. Prior to this discovery, females had only been found to contain as few as five eggs. This discovery would revise thinking on coelacanth reproduction and birth rates. Dr. Fricke, and other members of the C.C.C. were able to document and investigate the find, but for other scientists, coelacanth work was drying up after the jump start we had helped to give it in the 80's.
One of 26 fetal pups. (Courtesy: Robin Stobbs) The problem was that from the time of the C.I.T.E.S restrictions on the export of coelacanth specimens, the bodies of accidental catches were simply piling up in Moroni cold storage, browning into freezer burned "Cairo mummies." This was the situation in the early 90's. A couple were given away as political favors, and the C.C.C. was able to extract others working through and around the formidable paperwork. The rest of the scientific community interested in such things was cut off.
I turned my attention to this problem as a way of continuing my involvement with the fish. What if we could keep a coelacanth alive locally- in the Comoros- for educational exhibit and scientific research purposes? C.I.T.E.S. would not be violated. Scientists could go there. This was the purpose of the Dennis Thoney coelacanth tank proposal, but as with most proposals it went nowhere.
My video production facility was doing well, and I had created another robot- not the one I had dreamt about- as a kid's educational device (Thinky.com). From time to time, I heard from an experienced coelacanth researcher and enthusiast in South Africa, named Robin Stobbs. Robin had worked as senior technician at the J.L.B. Smith Institute and had even been an acquaintance of J.L.B's wife. We exchanged ideas on how we might implement a low budget tank setup in the Comoros. Dennis's proposal calling for an air conditioned room to hold down the water temperature put the plan way beyond my personal budget.
One idea, suggested by Robin Stobbs, was to create an evaporation cold house using rock walls which are continually wet down. Apparently, such houses are used for storage in parts of Africa and elsewhere. As the water evaporates from the walls it cools them down much like a canvas water bag. A problem with this was where to get the water and who would do the constant saturating of the stones. Another idea emerged: instead of having a cold room, use an insulated tank. That way only the water inside the tank would have to be kept cold. As a suitably sized tank would be too expensive to transport to the Comoros, I had a second idea. Have a tank liner made and ship that to the Comoros. The liner would then either be sunk in the ground or an earthern berm would be constructed around it.
The plan seemed both affordable and practical. I had a swimming pool service in Westchester, N.Y., that was also part of an aquarium shop, produce the liner and supply the insulation and other pumps and accessories that would be needed. We would have to rely on reviving the old cooler unit now at the setup at C.N.D.R.S. It would be sort of like "The Flight of the Phoenix," cannibalizing our old gear to create a new resuscitation station.
A partial list of supplies for the '94 "resus" tank project. In the meantime, life had not been easy for Mombassa within the Comoran community of Marseilles, France. A lack of proper papers had kept him from getting the work he needed and he prevailed on me to send him airfare for a return to the Comoros. I obliged and Mombassa was back on the scene as a driver for a local businessman.
By the fall of 1994, the resus project was a go and I sent the equipment on ahead using an international freight carrier. Diana- my "couple"- and I soon followed with Explorers Club Flag #4, flying a new way via Johannesburg, South Africa. We arrived in the Comoros on November 11th. Conditions there seemed to be deteriorating. Heaps of trash remained uncollected in Moroni. The American Embassy, its personnel, its warehouse, and the Peace Corps were gone, perhaps casualties of cost cutting at the end of the cold war. Gone also was Jean Louis Gerod, whose S.C.U.B.A. diving business succumbed to higher costs, competition, and a dearth of tourists and white mercenary sport divers. And gone was Michel de San and his F.A.D.S., the latter swallowed by the sea, or scavengers in dugout pirogues. We were on our own.
One of the first things we learned was that the Fricke dive team was also there with the submersible Jago! Quite a coincidence, which set us wondering if our paths would cross. Mombassa quickly signed on as our expediter. The first requirement was to find a proper site, protected, but near the sea for water changes. Salt water standing stagnant in a tank begins go stale and breakdown after several weeks. This had happened with the set up both at the Embassy warehouse and at C.N.D.R.S. We also needed electricity to power the cooler and circulator pumps. As the C.N.D.R.S. was our official sponsor and would take over the project when we left, we did our scouting with the new director, Madame Massadi. In the Moroni area there was a possible spot but too near traffic. There was a new fisherman's center just opening out near the Ylang Ylang hotel. It had water and power, but the access road was so rough that I could not envision a bashe getting in there with a fish transporter crate- the device needed to get a coelacanth from the water to the tank. Mombassa solved the site question. He knew of an empty house lot across the road from Itsandra beach not too far from Moroni. He could arrange to rent the lot from the owner and pay for power from the house next door. We checked it out and made the arrangements.
After four years in the tropics, much of the old gear had turned to gunk. Photo:Robin Stobbs
At C.N.D.R.S. the old setup was being used as a laundry shed by museum staff! The plan was on. After clearing and leveling the ground, we brought the gear in from the airport customs warehouse.
The site for the "resus" tank is levelled.
The first item was a tent I'd sent over, a replica of one I used as a production tent in New York. Once the tent was set up, the rest of the work took place inside.
We solved the resus "housing problem" by bringing over a tent! Mombassa found a stone mason who could build our retaining walls from concrete blocks available in Moroni. This meant out tank would be above ground, nor would we need the earthen berm. The back of the house lot was a cut coral bank that would work as a heat sink against the back side of our liner. There were delays with the mason and his helpers, but all in all the job was done with lightening speed for the Comoros or anywhere else.
Stone masons at work on the retaining wall. When the retaining wall was finished, we added plastic film insulation from the roll sent over, then inserted the black 8'x11'x4' plastic liner.
The insulation in place for the 1,000 gallon tank. Helpers used a small gas water pump to get water up from the beach, across the main coast road and into the tank. That took several hours and could only be done when the tide was in. Insulated plywood boards were then placed over the tank to keep heat from entering the water from above. Now came the time to run the circulation pump and turn on the cooler: the moment of truth. By recirculating the same water through the cooler over and over again the tank temperature dropped from 79F to 68F in about 24 hours. A complete success! To finish things off, I made a wet/dry filter out of a plastic barrel and chunks of wet coral. The system worked and the new resus station was up and running. All it needed was a coelacanth.
The "resus" was ready for occupancy!
A stone's throw from the sea. The day after we arrived in the Comoros, we had a meeting set up with Madame Massadi at her office at C.N.D.R.S. I was having severe "stomach problems," and Diana arrived there before me. When I finally made it in a weakened state, not only Diana and Madame Massadi awaited me, but a tall French gentleman as well, who introduced himself, speaking perfect English as Raphael Plante. "Of course I know who you are," I laughed, "You make the dives in the submarine!" I suspect Dr. Plante was there to see what we were up to. He seemed relieved that we were not trying to catch coelacanths, only to intercept accidental catches for resuscitation. After a pleasant conversation he said he would look into an invitation for us to visit the mother ship Deep Salvage I, from which the Jago was making dives.
This invitation did come on November 19th. Diana had left by then. I was invited to accompany some Comoran journalists on a visit to Deep Salvage I, from which the Jago submersible was making dives to coelacanth caves off Singani. The night before, Raphael Plante gave a lecture on coelacanths at C.N.D..S. which Mombassa and I attended. I paid rapt attention while Mombassa slept fitfully. For the visit to Deep Salvage our small group was driven down the coast to a point opposite the ship.
Ralph Plante calls in the Zodiac. There the ship's Zodiac picked us up between swells surging against the jagged lava shoreline. "Cover your camera from the spray!" said Raph. I was a timid passenger, being driven from a location that I knew like the back of my hand, from five years earlier, in a boat that I practically had a Ph.D. in. But I was on my best behavior, because all things said and done, what a thrill to finally see this operation in progress!
Pick up by Zodiac There was some small talk on board the mother ship waiting for Jago to surface from a dive with Hans Fricke and Jurgen Schauer, the pilot, inside. I met Karen Hissman who had joined the submersible team since the first discovery dives of 86-87. She had a degree in biology- her name was already showing up on scientific coelacanth papers- spoke English well, and was very critical of any capture efforts. There was a well built blonde German diver sunning himself with little to say. He came to life when the submersible popped to the surface. The Zodiac went out to it. He jumped in the water, secured a line to it, checked it over- sort of a mini version of a Mercury spacecraft splashdown. The Zodiac towed Jago back to Deep Salvage I, where it was secured to a davit hoist to be lifted aboard. It's occupants had remained inside, but in this last stage Hans Fricke and Jurgen Schauer straddled the little yellow bug as it was swung onto the deck calling out, "How was your lecture, Dr. Plante?" (Plante couldn't speak German, nor Fricke, French. So they spoke to each other in English!)
"Raph" Plante guides Jago to its resting spot on deck. As a machine head myself, I was dazzled by the contraption that Fricke and Schauer had assembled- scarcely larger than an old Volkswagen "Bug-" a bathysphere mounted on four pontoon tanks, with one bug-eye, and an assortment of appendages and thrusters.
Jago in 1994. After they landed on deck, Jurgen, sensing my genuine interest, was happy to explain things to me, while Hans chatted with Raphael and the journalists. Hans was very up. They had just seen a female coelacanth exiting her cave for a night of foraging. She left the same time every evening, like clockwork.
Comoran journalists interview Fricke and Plante.
Behind them is the container transporter for Jago. I met Hans Fricke almost casually a few minutes later. "I'm the devil- the one who was trying to catch the fish!" I said on shaking hands. "Oh, never mind about that!" he answered magnanimously. Then something odd happened. Dr. Fricke beckoned me away from the others- his own team- and said, "Be sure the water is cold. They must have cold water." He was referring, of course, to the resus tank. That gesture made an impression on me. I had brought along a couple of our original Channel Angler T- shirts to present as tokens of thanks for the invitation aboard. I thought they'd probably chuck them after I left. But many years later I saw Hans wearing one of them. It must have meant something. He said then that he liked "the quality" of it. I thanked Diana for smothing the way in the initial contact with Raph Plante.
Over the remaining time of this visit in the Comoros, I saw Hans Fricke and Raphael Plante a couple more times when they came ashore for various purposes. Hans made a proposal to the Comorans to reintroduce F.A.D.S. if the fishermen would agree not to fish at the shallower coelacanth depth. That made good sense. Raphael Plante proposed a Coelacanth Marine Park from Singani down through Insoundzou where the fish would be protected. After they had visited the resus tank in the works, Hans proposed to me that I assist in the operation of another such "station" as he called it, down the coast at Insoundzou in the proposed Marine Park where more of the fish are caught. I would have gone along with that. But none of these proposals bore fruit. Several international conservation organizations and the World Bank all let Fricke down, and he became as cynical about them as I had about almost everything surrounding this fish, excepting- to play on a philosophical term- the "fish-in-itself."
Profs Raphael Plante (L), and Hans Fricke (R) inspect the "resus" under construction. This time, Thanksgiving in the Comoros came and went without my even acknowledging it. When the resus unit was up and running, there was a further development. Madame Massadi introduced me to a Comoran businessman who was in the process of buying the Coelacanth Hotel- our original home in the Comoros back in '86. Now, this man was very keen on having the resus unit moved to the hotel. It would help him secure his bank loan. This was to happen a few months down the road. I liked the idea not only for its symbolic value but because it would guarantee a high level of maintenance for the "resus station," once it had a touristic draw at the hotel. I entered into negotiations with the C.N.D.R.S., the businessman, and Mombassa. C.N.D.R.S. required a certain monthly stipend to oversee the project. The amount was not very great. The problem was money wire transfers to the Comoros went through France and could take months to clear. The resus station would require monthly payments for rents, power, and Mombassa. Mombassa refused to work for the amounts the C.N.D.R.S. would be paying him. Mombassa could cash my U.S. checks. I decided to fund the resus with direct payments to Mombassa pending the move of the facility to the Coelacanth Hotel. This would turn out to be a mistake and even now there were hints of trouble as some of the helpers on the project were claiming to have been short changed by Mombassa. But now, flushed with the success of the installation and a hoped for rapprochement with the Fricke group, (I offered to alert them, as well as others, if a resus succeeded.) I returned to NYC for Christmas, 1994.
Yet again the E.C. Flag is unfurled! Photographer unknown. Seven months later, caught in the early dawn of July 18th, 1995, by Athoumani Mbelizi ( our "Otoman") , fishing from his dugout pirogue, a 1.05m, 32kg coelacanth was later intercepted by our newly dubbed "Coelacanth Rescue Station Project." The fish was placed in the Itsandra resus tank where it lived for ten hours before expiring on the morning of July 19th. As the fish that went to C.N.D.R.S. was D.O.A., this new fish was the first coelacanth in history to have been so maintained in a pre-established life support system, and so also the first coelacanth to have lived on "land," an important achievement for a fish closely related to our early come-ashore forebears. However, before the interception, the fish languished in the 80 degree F surface waters off Grand Comoro island for more than fifteen hours (ToT), slowly asphyxiating in the heat. Where had Mombassa been? The viability of the resuscitation tank, which was still at Itsandra, had yet to be properly tested.