Recollections of the Past 30 years pursuing Coelacanths
Jerome Hamlin, creator dinofish.com
I joined a Comorian jounalist at the pick up point for our trip to Jago's mothership, down the east coast of Grand Comoro, near the village of Itsoundzou. A Zodiak appeared driven by one of the ship's crew. With the boat timing its approach to the craigy lava shoreline according to the swells, we jumped aboard along with Raphael Plante. A few minutes later we were aboard the mothership. The Jago was underwater but due to surface shortly. The first person I met was Karen Hissman, the young German Phd, now in charge of Jago logistics, while her partner, Jurgen Schauer remained chief Jago pilot. Karen had been the one who came up with the sign "Coelacanths, let them where they are!" that has been placed in the fish trap of Toba Aquarium back in 1990. She immediately informed me that she was against the capture of coelacanths. Q.E.D. I was there to observe, not to argue.
Then the sub appeared. Now as a sub admirer and gadget lover, this thing was unbelievable. I practically had an orgasm watching the compact device being raised aboard by a davit. Hans Fricke had emerged from the hatch and was standing on top of it in a t shirt and shorts with pilot Jorgen Schauer. Hans was raving about the dive and what they had seen (some coelacanths, naturally!) When I met him I said immediately, "I was the one trying to catch the fish." "Never mind about that'" he answered and motioned me down the deck away from the others. There we had a little chat. I gave him one of our NY Aquarium/ Explorers CLub T shirts, I had brought along for the purpose, and some information about the breathig rate of caught coelacanths that I had observed. He found that interesting. We rejoined the others. He gave an interview to the reporter. Then, as Jago was being hosed down by Karen, and after I met pilot Jurgen, friendly and calm with an affinity for rock music, the journalist and I returned to shore. The sub had made quite an impression on me. (It would be six more years before I went on that sub, but that's a whole other story.)
Jago back on the mothership (1994)
We now had to do site selection for where we would locate our recussitation set up. Operating on a shoestring budget, we could not buy or rent space. We visited a government fisheries facility where indoor space could be made available. It even had electric power. Perfect except for one thing, a bumpy access road. The plan for intercepting a coelacanth catch involved carrying it briefly in a porpoise stretcher to a lined wooden box about six feet long which would be in the back of a van with enough sea water inside to cover the fish. The van would then drive to the resus facility. The van could not traverse that access road to the facility without spilling the transport box water contents, possibly even losing the fish. Another site was better. This was a small cleared building space off the main road close to the beach at Itsandra- where coelacanths were caught, sometimes a couple a year, from fishing canoes.
With Mombassa's help- once again- we retrieved the materials shipped ahead from customs, and arranged for very capable stone masons to build a retaining wall to hold our pool liner and insulation foam. This was housed in a tent I had sent over. I was able to use the water cooling machine and water pumps left from earlier visits. All this was done in only two weeks, although Diana had to leave before it was finished.
