News & Stories

Storytelling from the open seas: an unusual professional placement

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Master of Strategic Communication student Jessica Serna Sierra undertook her professional placement on a voyage that took scientists to monitor underwater species and ecosystems in Bass Strait’s Beagle Marine Park. Here she tells us what it was like doing science communication while living on a boat for two weeks.

There is a story I carry with me and it’s not mine. It was an interview with a writer called José Libardo Porras from my hometown, Medellín in Colombia. He told me that once he used to memorise a poem every day so he wouldn’t feel lonely; wherever he was, on the bus or in the street, he knew nobody was as rich as him, who had all those poems in his memory. I have never memorised a poem, but I like to think my wealth is all the stories I’ve heard as a journalist, that I carry with me wherever I go.

In August this year, I had the opportunity not only to listen but also to experience an amazing story. I joined the crew of the Marine Research Vessel Ngerin (the South Australian Research and Development Institute’s coastal research vessel) and scientists from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) at the University of Tasmania on a voyage to Beagle Marine Park. The scientists and crew were conducting a monitoring survey to underpin the park’s management. They ‘flew’ a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) beneath the MRV Ngerin to video the amazing sponge gardens on the seafloor and spot any changes in their condition since the previous survey.

Research voyages such as this offer a great opportunity to share science stories. My role was to tell these stories as part of a professional placement with the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program Marine and Coastal Hub. The hub provided funding for this voyage as part of a project that is helping Parks Australia assess management effectiveness in Australian Marine Parks.

Days on board the MRV Ngerin

Scientists need a routine, to perform the same tasks in specific ways to be able to compare results. However, in fieldwork, nature challenges all the rules and that’s when adaptation becomes relevant. Dean Eyre, the engineer on the MRV Ngerin, explained it in a beautiful way: “The ocean asks you to live the moment. If you resist the movement, you get sick, but it all flows when you start moving with the boat.”

From the moment we sailed from the calm waters of Beauty Point to the sloppy August seas of Bass Strait, between Tasmania and Victoria, I knew movement was at the heart of this story. The motion tested my gut strength, but the first beautiful sight of dolphins swimming alongside the vessel reminded me this voyage was also about enjoyment.

The days on the Beagle voyage would start around 7am when Nathan Cummins, the first mate, and Laura Holmes, the vessel’s manager, would lift the anchor to sail to the first transect site. Meanwhile, the ROV pilot Justin Hulls would prepare the equipment for the first deployments at the back deck; and in the kitchen, the team would start getting together around a delicious breakfast prepared by the chef, Kelly Pearson. About 8am the leading scientist, Dr Jacquomo Monk, would talk to the skipper, Tim Bailey, to confirm the weather conditions and the position. “Dive, dive, dive” was the signal for the team on the back deck to deploy the ROV and start descending closer to the seafloor. Every evening, we would go back to an island’s cove to anchor for the night.

The system might appear simple from the outside, but it required high levels of coordination and concentration. Using two hooks, the team would lift the robot and carefully lower it into the water.

Marine scientists
Laura Holmes and Jacquomo Monk

The ROV was connected to the vessel through a thin (2.5mm thick) yellow tether that transmitted images and data from the robot to the control centre for the team to monitor. From the screens, Justin, Jac and Ashlee Bastiaansen – also part of the scientific team – would fly the ROV and ensure that the cameras were capturing images along a transect. It was essential that someone always held the tether to keep it away from the vessel’s propellers - that job was skilfully done by the volunteer technical officer, Sarah Jessop.

The ROV is a sophisticated robot. It is equipped with seven cameras, and it was custom-designed by the New Zealand company Boxfish to meet the requirements of the IMAS team. It can dive as deep as 300 metres and for Justin – nicknamed Spud – piloting it is like playing a video game. The difference is with the ROV he must play without dying because he wouldn’t respawn. It’s not an easy job but he does it with ease and still doesn’t lose his sense of wonder at everything he sees on screen.

Following the action

My role also involved cameras. I followed the team around, trying to cover every angle: taking photos, asking questions, identifying stories. From time to time, they would ask me what I would do with all that material, and sometimes I didn’t have an answer. I just knew I was experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the potential for stories was everywhere, and to process of creating them could come later. Of course, I went aboard with a content plan developed with the Marine and Coastal Hub communication team. It was incredibly helpful to have support such as reviewing the images I uploaded every night to an online folder, offering fresh eyes, and giving me content ideas.

The voyage was a challenging experience both personally and professionally. I felt frustrated when my body and mind couldn’t keep up with my expectations. Taking seasickness pills every day took a toll, leaving me with a sense of low energy to the point that I had to stop everything and just go to bed. Fortunately, I had the support of a team that looked after me and gave me the space I needed to breathe, look at the horizon and wait to feel better.

I am not a photographer or videographer. Most of my professional experience has been in print journalism and in Spanish, my native language. However, one of the lessons from this experience is that having internalised skills for storytelling can help to navigate different formats without losing focus on communicating stories effectively. The journey also showed me that embracing cultural and linguistic diversity is a way to ask more and better questions, which ultimately enriches the journalistic process.

One thing was certain: of all the offices where I could have done my professional placement, this had the best view. Every sunrise and every sunset were different; I saw varying tones of yellow, pink, orange and even grey surrounding us on foggy days.

We spotted the wonders on the ocean’s surface – shy albatross that would come around, seals and minke whales – and dived the ocean’s depths where fantastic rocky reefs support sponges of diverse colours and shapes, providing shelter and food for other marine species. We even had the chance to set foot on Deal and Erith islands, two of the Kent Group. These remote and isolated places are high-points of the remnant land bridge that, during the last Ice Age, linked Tasmania with mainland Australia.

Spotting the sharks

This was an appointment everyone on board was anticipating. When the scientists conducted the first survey at Beagle Marine Park, in 2018, they saw a gathering of Port Jackson sharks resting on the seafloor, and they wondered if it would happen again or if it was a one-off event.

It happened on Saturday 10 August. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of female Port Jackson sharks appeared on camera, again resting on the seafloor at 65 metres depth. The smile on Jac’s face was proof that the hard work of planning an expedition, where everything can change all of a sudden, had paid off. This kind of science is often about patience and being in the right place at the right time.

The Port Jackson shark is a curious animal. The dark lines along its body resemble a hand-drawn harness, perfectly delineated, and its mouth a crumpled paper where a pile of pointed teeth lean out. As Jac explained, it is a friendly species that rests during the day and feeds during the night on animals such as squid, octopus and crustaceans. Females lay spiral shaped eggs and screw them into rocks to keep them safe. Hannah Santolin, compliance officer at Parks Australia who also participated in the voyage, took the first photographs of the sharks on screen to share them with her team. For some reason that the scientists are still trying to answer, Beagle Marine Park is important for this species. Nevertheless, their presence is a reminder of the importance of marine protected areas and continuing to protect this habitat is crucial.

Port Jackson sharks
The Port Jackson sharks

“A girls-only shark slumber party” was the headline on the media release that went viral. The story was translated into Portuguese, Spanish and Italian and shared on at least 30 news platforms, including popular science outlets such as IFL Science. This was when all the images I had been filming made sense. I put together a video for the media kit, in which I asked the voyage leader about the ecology of this species and the relevance of the work that we were doing on the voyage, and it reached 48,000 views on YouTube.

A few days later the crew gathered in the vessel’s dining area, not watching the Olympics or playing cards like any other day but watching our story on SBS International.

Jessica's YouTube video: Port Jackson Sharks at Beagle Marine Park

The cherry on top of this, my first voyage, was when the dwarf minke whale we had been observing from a distance for days came close enough to be filmed by Ashlee while she was learning to ‘fly’ the ROV. In Australia, minke whales aggregate in the Great Barrier Reef and migrate along the east coast, reaching Bass Strait and waters around Tasmania. I was happy to learn I had two things in common with this giant: first, that this species is also found in South America, where I am from; and second, an apparent curiosity for closely observing what was happening on this vessel.

This research is supported with funding by the National Environmental Science Program Marine and Coastal Hub and a grant of sea time from the Southern Coastal Research Vessel Fleet (SCRVF), with funding from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

The SCRVF is a partnership between the South Australian Research and Development Institute and the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development in Western Australia, with funding from NCRIS and support from the CSIRO Marine National Facility, to provide the marine research community with better access to coastal research vessels in Southern Australia.

If your passion is to find and tell great stories, read more about our Master  of Strategic Communication.