Looking for Nemo Expedition

Getting Ready

Location: Irvine, California

Summer 2003
by Wayne and Karen Brown

We are preparing for our next underwater expedition. This time our expedition is beginning just as most of you are starting back to school, in September. This expedition will be a lot of firsts for us...We are making our first expedition to explore the islands and atolls of the Central Pacific. We are also going to be crossing the equator by ship for the first time. (We have crossed the equator before, but it has only been by flying over it in a jet plane.) And, we are planning to climb the highest mountain in the world for the first time!

On this expedition we are going to meet some animals you probably saw in a movie this summer. If you liked the movie Finding Nemo as much as we did (we saw it twice!), you will understand why we are making a special point to look for clownfish during our expedition. We have seen clownfish before when we explored the Australia Great Barrier Reef (Nemo's home). Many of you have also seen the clownfish we studied when we did The Ocean Adventure assembly at your school, The Australia Great Barrier Reef Expedition.

Clownfish live on other tropical coral reefs besides the Australia Great Barrier Reef, so we are going to look for other places where clownfish may be found and try to learn why clownfish may be found in some areas and not in others.

We will be starting our search for Nemo and other clownfish in the Hawaiian Islands. We will travel across the Central Pacific Ocean from the Northern Hemisphere, crossing the equator, and into the Southern Hemisphere. There we will spend some time exploring the coral reefs of Tahiti. Tahiti is known for having lots of sharks, so we will probably be seeing a lot of sharks during our dives there!

Each expedition requires lots of planning and preparation. We are always trying to carry the maximum amount of stuff in the minimum amount of space. We are always having problems with the airlines not letting us bring all the equipment we want to take with us. Baggage restrictions may limit some of the equipment we were planning on taking with us. Of course we will have our laptop computer, underwater camera equipment, and scuba equipment. This year we will not be bringing our underwater scooters with us, because of the types of dives we will be making and the small planes that we will need to take us to some of the remote places we will be exploring.

We are now on track to begin our expedition on August 30. We will fly from Irvine, California to Honolulu, Oahu. The morning after we arrive we will fly to Hawaii ("The Big Island") for start of our expedition.

During our explorations we will look for clownfish and investigate the health of the coral reefs. We will be in the sky, on mountain tops, underwater, on island rivers, and on deserted islands. In addition to our scuba diving explorations we hope to be flying, kayaking, and hiking. We will be going from high in the sky to deep underwater.

In addition to our expedition planning and research we have been gathering and checking our equipment. This summer we were scuba diving in the freezing cold water (38ºF) of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, in the Bering Sea, and the cold, but not freezing (55ºF) water of the California Channel Islands. (Can you locate thes places on a map?)

We look forward to sharing our adventure with you on this year's Ocean Adventure Online Expedition!

Best Fishes to all our Ocean Adventurers,
Wayne & Karen Brown

Wayne and Karen at home as they prepare to leave for their expedition.

Karen is wearing a dry suit to stay warm in the freezing waters of the Bering Sea. (Notice how the water pressure has crushed the dry gloves on her hands.) You can see the water is greenish and murky.

Here we are in our dry suits after the dive on our way to Adak Island. (Can you find Adak Island on a map?) After our cold water dives we are ready for some warm water diving on our expedition!