Live Webcast this morning!

[OCdiving Deb]

Oil Rig Ecosystems off OC - Grace, Eli, Edith, etc are in the News!

There will be a live webcast at 9 AM and 10:45 AM THIS MORNING at www.preservereefs.org and it will be on Good Morning America too, but I don't know when.

This is all from a great article with photos and illustrations in the OC Register this morning about the oil rig ecosystems off OC and their effects on local diving. Get your hands on this article! I won't be able to see the webcast, but if any of you do, write in and tell us about it!

kelphelper

 

[drbill]

We don't get the OC Register out on Catalina so I'll have to search for their on-line version.

I have only dived Platform Grace, but was somewhat surprised at how "artificial" the ecosystem on it was. Maybe I should have expected that on an artificial reef. The absence of fish was something of a surprise although UCSB ichthyologist Milton Love told me there are plenty of fish at the platform's base.

It was interesting to see the number of filter feeders on the structure, and the predators (mainly budibranchs) they attracted. However from an ecological perspective I thought it was a rather unusual system due to the isolation.

I'm sure the scallop harvesters love them, but I'm "strictly" a no take kind of guy (until I get real hungry) and videographer. It is good for the bivalve hunters though and I have no objection to that.

Dr. Bill

 

[Frank O]

kelphelper once bubbled...
I won't be able to see the webcast, but if any of you do, write in and tell us about it!

I tuned in at 10:45 a.m. for a few minutes on a coffee break until I had to go to a meeting. Couldn't get the Windows Media Player version to run under WMP 9 on my machine, which struck me as odd, so I somewhat reluctantly chose the RealPlayer version (reluctantly because I don't like the invasive message stuff that comes along with Real).

It was certainly interesting to see a live feed from a platform, and I hope they do more things like this. A couple of minor suggested tweaks ... I could only hear one side of the Q&A (the guy underwater would say in his full-face mask "That's a very good question," but we never heard what the question was). Also, it would have been helpful to have more info on the (fairly spartan) website -- what was the name of the diver we were watching? Which platform were they at? Etc. (This may have been mentioned at the top or bottom of the show, but if you tuned in midway it would've been missed.)

Those nits aside, though, a cool idea. I wish there were many more of these webcasts out there.