Storytelling is one of our oldest human behaviors. Across every culture and continent, people have used stories to share values, pass down knowledge and make sense of the world around them. The tales that survive, retold across generations, kept alive through memory and ceremony, aren’t arbitrary. These coastal legends carry essential wisdom.

For countless coastal communities, that wisdom is related to the ocean.

Here are five coastal stories that are important parts of different oral traditions and teach us about our ocean.

Scotland: Selkie Stories

Early written records from the coast of Scotland describe seal-people who shed their aquatic skins to walk among humans on land.

These are the selkie. Their stories follow a familiar arc. One is discovered on shore, their sealskin is stolen and they are bound to a human life. They marry, raise children, but remain melancholy, always watching the water. When the skin is finally found, they return to the sea without hesitation.

It’s not difficult to see where the concept took root. Gray and harbor seals have strikingly humanesque features like expressive eyes, complex vocalizations, mothers who nurse their pups. Early coastal communities observed those qualities, and the selkie story began to spread. It produced a cultural taboo against the excessive hunting of seals.

Today, the selkie is one of Scotland’s most recognized figures. Conservation organizations have adopted the selkie as a bridge symbol of cultural identity and ocean protection. Gray seal populations in Scottish waters continue to face pressure from abandoned fishing gear and historical culling practices, behaviors the selkie taboo was designed to prevent.

Pasifika: Wayfinding

Pasifika is a collective term for the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Islands. For more than 3,000 years, they’ve managed to pass along extremely complex knowledge on how to navigate the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

Their secret weapon? Storytelling.

They shared stories of the demigod Māui and his canoe, Waka-a-Māui, then navigated by their corresponding constellations in the sky. Tāwhirimātea was the god of wind and storms. When his eyes appeared in the sky (as the Pleiades cluster), it meant that it was a good time to start a long voyage. Stories like these gave navigators a framework for planning their journeys and navigating the distances.

Wayfinding is a science. The people of Pasifika developed their knowledge system through thousands of years of empirical observation, experimentation at sea and rigorous knowledge transmission. The names and stories were a medium of storing and sharing this knowledge, and an effective one at that.

Mexico: Chalchiuhtlicue

Chalchiuhtlicue is the Aztec goddess of rivers, lakes, seas and the ocean, as well as the protector of fishermen and navigators. In Aztec cosmology, she was one of the most actively worshiped deities.

In different stories, she is portrayed as both a creator and destroyer, as surges of water can result in abundant harvests or devastating floods. Today, Mexico’s Pacific and Gulf coasts are among the world’s most biologically rich but storm-exposed marine environments.

Chalchiuhtlicue’s tradition reflects an understanding of how water has the potential to be life-giving or destructive depending on amount and location. Mexico’s Indigenous cultures understood water as the foundational substance of existence, from the ocean to the hydrological routes that fed agricultural soil.

Vietnam: Grandfather Whales

The coastal communities of Vietnam have long shared stories of whales as divine protectors, often referring to them as Cá Ông or “Grandfather Whales.” 

It is believed that when fishing boats are lost in a storm, whales physically rescue the crew by sending them toward shore. Several fishing villages in Vietnam still celebrate the Whale Prayer Festival twice a year. Because the whales are so revered, fishermen report whale encounters. Whales received sacred funerals whenever they are beached.

These coastal villages demonstrate a relationship with whale species marked by reciprocity. Sperm whales, humpbacks and gray whales, in fact, show behaviors that are consistent with the stories about rescue. They may approach distressed swimmers, encircle capsized vessels or even support injured kin. When a whale dies, gratitude and grief are expressed. The practice of providing a proper Confucian funeral to beached whales reflects the way that a whale carcass can still sustain hundreds of species after death.

Caribbean: Mami Wata

Many cultures in the Caribbean have carried a belief in Mami Wata. She is an ocean deity, often depicted as a mermaid, who goes by several names: La Siréne in Haiti, River Mumma in Jamaica, and Yemonja in Brazil. Her reinterpretation across several cultures maps how her oral tradition was carried across the Atlantic by enslaved Africans and adapted in different Caribbean settings. Mami Wata is depicted as a beautiful woman, skilled at music, who can be both generous and dangerous. This dual nature is parallel to the Caribbean. It is one of the world’s most biodiverse marine environments, supporting coral reef ecosystems of extraordinary productivity, but it is also a region of violent tropical storms, dangerous currents and unpredictable weather.

Sightings of Mami Wata are thought by some scholars to be related to sightings of manatees. The large, slow marine mammals with humanlike eyes and nursing behavior may match the characterizations of the deity. When the belief in Mami Wata began to decline, so did manatee populations. This reflects a phenomenon researchers call the “sacred species” effect. When a creature holds deep spiritual significance in a culture, harming it carries social and moral consequences that can be more powerful than legal ones. This provides an element of protection that is sometimes more effective than law.

Long before satellites tracked ocean temperatures, people who lived alongside the water were paying close attention. They noticed which creatures signaled safe weather and which behaviors led to abundant catches. They encoded those observations into the stories they told—deities, creatures, warnings and rituals that traveled across centuries intact.

These aren’t relics. Many are living traditions, still practiced and still relevant. And when held up alongside what marine science has since confirmed, the parallels are striking.

The stories contain lessons

What connects a fisherman’s reverence for seals in Scotland to a Vietnamese community’s funeral rites for a beached whale? Around the world, people understand that the ocean is not only a resource for extraction but also offers a relationship to be maintained.

Ocean Conservancy operates on the same understanding. This drives our work today, from protecting marine ecosystems and rebuilding fish populations to fighting the pollution and policy decisions that put our ocean at risk. Right now, aging offshore oil and gas infrastructure is corroding on the seafloor, threatening many of the species that cultures around the world hold dear. The companies that build this infrastructure exploit loopholes to avoid cleaning it up. But we can change that. The proposed Offshore Leasing Standards and Accountability Act before Congress now would require oil and gas companies to take responsibility for their operations before, during and after they drill.

The ocean has always been worth protecting. Add your name and help us pass the Offshore Leasing Standards and Accountability Act now.

The post Lessons from Coastal Legends appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.

Lessons from Coastal Legends

¡Hola y bienvenidos a Chile!

We are Paula and Tim, Team Chile of GAME 2026. For the past four months, we have been working together to investigate how different underwater soundscapes (i.e. natural and human-made sounds) affect the settlement of benthic organisms and the formation of hard-bottom communities in a field experiment. We are based in Concepción, Chile (latitude -36.8 and longitude -73.0), and therefore have a rather unique position within the GAME network as the only location on the Southern Hemisphere.

Concepción has a mild Mediterranean climate with a strong ocean influence. The summers are warm, while the winters are cool and rainy, but never cold enough for snow due to the city’s low elevation and coastal location. However, if we want to see snow during our stay here, we only need to reach the nearby Andes Mountains that are just an hour away. At this time of the year, the day-time temperatures typically range from 11–15°C, while at night the average is about 5–8°C. The Pacific Ocean actually remains cool throughout the entire year due to the upwelling of cool deep water, and the winter sea surface temperature is about 11–13°C. This means that swimming is a definite no-go right now. Of course, we tried it on various occasions, but only to back out soon every single time. One of Concepción’s greatest attractions are its diverse natural surroundings. There are beautiful Pacific beaches, rolling hills, native forests, green landscapes, rivers and waterfalls – and all of this is within easy reach. To the east, the snow of the Andes provides excellent opportunities for skiing and hiking. To the west, we can enjoy surfing and diving along the Pacific coast (once the water warms up), exploring nature trails, or simply admiring breathtaking scenery. Altogether, Concepción offers a wide range of outdoor activities for everyone.

In 2026, we are the only GAME team that works on the Southern Hemisphere and the only one that is located in the Americas. This distinction comes with both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it means that we have to get up earlier than anyone else for the weekly GAME Zoom meetings, which take place every Wednesday at 1 pm European summer time. Furthermore, we are also the only team experiencing winter while everyone else, in Europe and in Asia, is enjoying summer. On the other hand, we were in the ideal time zone for watching this year’s World Cup matches.

Now, in the austral winter, the days in Concepcíon are just starting to get longer; the rain, however, more frequent, and grey skies have become a familiar sight. Actually, our record were two straight weeks without seeing the sun, but having constant rain instead. Fortunately, our morale remains high, and this is achieved in no small parts by increasing quantities of coffee and hot chocolate, which we drink whenever and wherever possible to boost our frozen spirits.

The first month of the practical phase of the project was dedicated almost entirely to the preparation of our experimental setup. We spent countless hours identifying suitable field sites, solving logistical challenges, assembling equipment, and navigating the realities of conducting marine ecological research in Chile. Fortunately, the staff at the CENDYR Náutico facility and the Marine Science Outpost of the UCSC near Caleta Lenga provided tremendous support. They helped us to establish our experimental setup by providing local expertise on tidal conditions or allowing us to use their kayaks for the final deployment of our constructions.

However, not every challenge came from the scientific side. For example, the local sea lions seemed determined to remind us that we were visitors in their territory. Sadly, these sea lions are less the cute, curious, and cuddly kind and more the gigantic, grunting, and grumpy kind. Every trip to the experimental site involves negotiating space with our new noisy neighbours, who rarely appeared impressed by our presence. On sunny days the negotiations are often fruitless, while they are frequently watched by curious tourists, who regularly come to the pier to watch the marine mammals.

After this first month full of challenges, we were finally able to begin the experiment. It is designed to compare the effects of two very different underwater soundscapes on the settlement of marine organisms. Rather than investigating the effects of the two soundscapes simultaneously, we run two subsequent experiments using the same experimental setup. It consists of two frames: one for the sound application and one that is experiencing the natural, un-manipulated acoustic environment of our study site. Each frame supports a circular ring as its main structure, which carries the settlement panels on which marine invertebrates and algae establish during the experiment. To minimize the influence of the played back sounds on the second set-up, the two frames are placed as far apart from each other as possible. One is at the very beginning of the pier and the other one at its end.

Sixteen settlement panels are attached to each ring, which are equivalent to the surface of a ship hull or a rocky cliffside, and which provide a suitable surface for the colonization by marine sessile organisms. The establishing communities can be very diverse and identifying every species that settled on the panels can be a slow and sometimes painstaking process. However, this is part of our work and every time we come across a species we haven’t seen before, curiosity and excitement take over. We then feel just like little kids making a new and awesome discovery.

Paula is a marine biology student at the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción. Before joining GAME, she had already gained experience in marine acoustics through projects supervised by Dr. Iván Hinojosa. Participating in GAME has pushed her well beyond her comfort zone. To attend the initial course in Germany, she left South America for the first time and travelled to Europe, which was an exciting but challenging experience. The journey was filled with many firsts – from her first intercontinental flight and her first European spring, to meeting Tim and the other members of the project in person for the very first time. The introductory course at GEOMAR provided an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and learn new techniques. Beyond the scientific experience, it also allowed her to explore new cultures, visit beautiful places, and grow both personally and professionally. As English is not commonly used in everyday life in Chile and opportunities to practice it are limited, the course also gave her the chance to improve her language skills and gain confidence while working alongside students from around the world. Everything felt completely new, even going to the supermarket in Germany became an adventure. Making mistakes while choosing ingredients or accidentally buying the wrong sauce for lunch, became something fun to laugh about and remember. In March, travelling within the country became one of her favourite adventures. At first, she chose the safest option and bought bus tickets, but during her last days before leaving again, she challenged herself to take the train and travel anywhere without thinking too much. That sense of independence and discovery made her feel unstoppable. Exploring new destinations, discovering different architectural styles, and visiting Chilean friends living in Berlin made the experience even more special and unforgettable.

Germany had always been on Paula’s list of places to visit. Not only because of its history, but also because of the opportunity to study and collaborate internationally. Back in Chile, the project now provides another personal challenge for her. Most of her previous work experience took place in laboratories and offices, meaning that the winter fieldwork in coastal Chile, which we need to do now, is something that is unfamiliar to her. It is not completely new, but was definitely not part of her everyday routines so far. Every field day comes with a little bit of uncertainty: Will the weather cooperate? Will the sea be calm? Will everything go according to plan?

Working outdoors means adapting to whatever nature decides to bring. The job can be physically demanding and mentally exhausting. Sometimes Paula finds herself feeling seasick on the pier, trying to focus on the work and there are moments when the idea of sitting in a warm office, drinking a coffee, and staying far away from the waves sounds like the best scientific strategy ever created. However, she is determined to embrace this experience with curiosity, enthusiasm, and the best energy possible. After all, not every researcher gets the chance to work surrounded by the ocean, gain new insights into marine bioacoustics, and collect stories that will last far beyond the end of the project. Every working day is simply another part of the adventure, and, fortunately, conducting the project in her hometown means having family, friends, and local contacts nearby whenever a helping hand is needed.

Tim is a Master’s student in the programme “Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution” at the University of Tübingen. Outside marine ecology, his main passion is handball. Within days after arriving in Chile, he joined the UCSC university handball team and is now helping them pursue qualification for the Chilean national championships. This sounds highly prestigious until one learns that the number of competitive handball teams in Chile is considerably smaller than in Germany.

During the first months in Chile he also made an intensive effort to relearn Spanish – which he had forgotten after his schooltime. Progress has been steady: he can now confidently introduce himself and can understand approximately every second or third word of a conversation, provided that it is spoken slowly enough. Nevertheless, this has not discouraged him from speaking Spanish whenever possible. Unfortunately, his inability to properly roll the letter “r” still reveals his foreign origins almost instantly. Despite occasional linguistic mishaps, he is thoroughly enjoying to experience South America for the first time and is looking forward to discovering more of Chile in the months ahead.

In the first months of the practical phase, opportunities for travel were limited due to the demanding preparation of the experiment. Between building frames, preparing equipment, scouting field sites, and carrying out the first sampling events, there was little time left to explore the country. However, now that the experiment is running smoothly and sampling events are more structured, there is finally enough time to enjoy life outside the field. Tim interpreted this newfound free time somewhat differently than expected and promptly booked a two-week trip to Rio de Janeiro—partly in search of warmer temperatures and partly because renewing his visa required leaving the country. After several weeks of cold, rainy Chilean winter weather, Rio offered exactly the kind of break he had hoped for: sunshine, beaches, mountains, and the unmistakable energy of one of South America’s most iconic cities. However, this experience made the rain in Chile seem only slightly less grey.

Before heading to Brazil, he also spent a weekend exploring the volcanic landscapes around Pucón. Hiking through forests, lava fields and snow-covered mountains quickly became one of the highlights of his time in Chile so far and confirming that Chile’s reputation for spectacular nature is well deserved.

With several weeks of fieldwork still ahead, there are already more adventures on the horizon. A trip to Buenos Aires is planned for the end of August, and before returning to Germany, Tim hopes to visit both, Patagonia in the far south and the Atacama Desert in the north. Few regions in the world offer such an incredible variety of landscapes within a single country, and after spending most of the winter along Chile’s central coast, seeing more of what Chile has to offer has become one of his goals for the remaining weeks of the project.

However, back to the experiment: For the first two months, our underwater loudspeakers continuously played recordings of container ship noise, recreating a busy shipping environment to our settlement panels. However, by now we have officially entered the second phase of the experiment, in which we replaced the anthropogenic noise by recordings of natural reef sounds. Over the coming weeks, we are looking forward to seeing whether the establishing communities differ between these two contrasting acoustic worlds.

Applying the two different soundscapes in separate experiments, has given us the opportunity to work closely together throughout every stage of the experimental work. We have been able to support each other during the harder tasks, double-check our work and decisions, and by this learnt from every step of the process. This collaboration has been essential for improving our methods and preparing us to carry out the second experiment in the best possible way. Working as a team has not only helped us overcome difficulties more easily, but has also made the journey much more enjoyable, with the phrase “It is what it is” becoming our team mantra to remind us to stay positive and adaptable when some things became challenging.

As if to test whether our team mantra really holds up under pressure, nature decided to throw us one final challenge. Just two weeks ago, a severe winter storm with wind speeds exceeding 100 km/h swept across the coast of Talcahuano. The combination of strong winds, high waves, and an exceptionally high tide pushed the water level over the seawall and straight into the crate containing all of our playback equipment, dragging it into the ocean. What had taken weeks to assemble was suddenly soaked and destroyed. After a brief moment of disbelief (or maybe two or three moments), there was only one option: rebuild everything. It took us around five days, plenty of patience, and more than a few nerves before the experiment was running again. Fortunately, we managed to get everything back into operation with only minimal interruption—proving once again that sometimes “It is what it is” really is the only way forward.

Our experiment will be continued until approximately mid-September. As we now move into the final weeks of fieldwork, we are excited to see how the project develops and what the data will ultimately reveal about the influence of underwater sounds on the diversity and composition of hard-bottom communities. We are especially curious about the final results of the second experiment, as the outcomes of the first phase were quite unexpected and contrary to what we had initially anticipated. These surprising results have made us even more eager to understand how marine organisms respond to different underwater soundscapes and what new insights the second experiment will bring.

Together, we have challenged ourselves to achieve two important goals: successfully completing this project and winning the endless battle to pronouncing the “R” sound in both of our new native languages. So far, the first one seems much more achievable than the second.

The work has been demanding, the weather at times challenging, and the sea lions consistently uncooperative, but the experience has already been incredibly rewarding. We are both very grateful for the opportunity to participate in GAME 2026 and look forward to sharing more updates as the project progresses.

Meet Team Chile: Science, Sea Lions and the South American Winter

Selamat Datang and welcome to the hot and sweaty country of Malaysia! Ever since we, Leonie and Najwa, have arrived in Penang, the northwestern island of Malaysia, in April this year, it has been a constant 30 degrees with an average humidity of 70%. However, it feels both hotter and more humid than that. Unfortunately, the weather will not change much during our stay as Malaysia lies very close to the equator (at latitude 5°N). Thus, it has no seasons, but a nearly constant temperature and day/night rhythm of 12 hours.

Beginning to adapt

The sun is just peaking above the sea when I (Leonie) have to leave my house. The bus leaves (more or less) always at the perfect time to watch the sun slowly rise over the ocean. I use the 30 min bus ride, which costs me about 2 Ringitt (or ~20 cent), to wake up and prepare for the day ahead at the Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (CEMACS). During the bus ride beaches, restaurants, cafés and small towns pass by in the window. Especially, one secluded beach and its beach house, which is for sale, make the bus ride go by fast – thanks to daydreaming about living there. When I arrives at 8 am at the entrance to the National park, in which the institute is located, Najwa is already waiting for me. She only needs a 5 minute car ride to get there from home, since she found an apartment close by. Now we just have to wait for the boat to take us to the institute within the national park. Technically, a 40 min hike through the park would also do the trick, but both of us are not ready for such a sporty activity at 8 in the morning and a daily boat ride is so much more fun anyways.

CEMACS lies in the heart of the Taman Negara Pulau Pinang, the national park of the island of Penang in northwestern Malaysia. Because of that, it’s quite a way to the big city of Georgetown and thus sources of noise, disturbances and pollution are far away. This is especially important for this year’s GAME project as we aim to find out whether underwater soundscapes influence the formation of hard-bottom communities.

We are trying to find answers to this question in the warm and salty ocean right in front of the gates of CEMACS. For that we deploy large metal frames that carry settlement panels into the sea. Two of those frames will additionally be equipped with an underwater speaker with which we can playback – in principle – any kind of sound we like (trust me, it was tested and it was a good day). To distinguish between the experiments that the two of us will conduct, we will use different soundscapes. One will focus on anthropogenic noise, i.e. the sound that is emitted by either a fishing or a container vessel. The noise will be played back at random times during the day, but will accumulate to a total of 30 minutes every hour. The other team member will focus on a natural soundscape that will be recorded at a healthy underwater location close by. The settlement panels will be retrieved regularly in order to find out how and if the playbacks are affecting the composition of the establishing hard-bottom communities.

Sounds easy enough, yea? Technically it is, but the nature can be treacherous around here. Jellyfish, like the Ribbon Jellyfish (Chrysaora chinensis), are daily visitors and as pretty as they are, as much does it hurt to get stung by them. After some painful incidents, we now wear full body coverage whenever we are in the water to minimize the skin contact. One person, who stands on land, is always watching the water surface to give a warning in case one of us comes too close to one of the jellies. It’s important to always have someone watching, since we don’t see a lot when we are in the water ourselves. The visibility can be so poor that you cannot even see your hand in front of you. Which is why we struggle to detect the up to 50 cm long tentacles that can sting us. The jellies drift with the currents and like to hang around the jetty, where our frames are deployed.

But even on the land, it’s not entirely safe. Since CEMACS is in the middle of the national park, it is not uncommon to see animals around the institute. The cats and even the lizards are rather cute to look at but the monkeys and the mosquitos? A nightmare! Before the morning boat even leaves at 08:10 both of us already have 5 mosquito bites, a constant buzzing in the ear and are always itchy. Want to have your lunch by the water on the beach? Think twice because monkeys can and will steal your food. Even the laboratory is not safe and has to be locked up monkey-proof.

When we are not blasting ABBA or LinkinPark while setting-up our experiment or trying not to get stung by jellyfish during maintenance work in the water, we can actually enjoy Georgetown. The city is about 1 hour by bus from our living quarters and offers the exact opposite of CEMACS. It is loud, full, bright and brimming with life (humans, not animals). Due to its rich mix of Malay, Chinese, Indian and indigenous cultures clashing together, you can find every kind of food downtown. From delicious savoury food over sticky fruits and drinks to sweet desserts. You can find these tasty items all over the island often in hawker stalls or cute restaurants. Of course, you can also go shopping wonderfully (much to the dismay of Leonie and her limited baggage weight for the flight back home) or just walk around the town and get swept up by the street murals, salty breeze and picturesque buildings.

Do we have to restart?

The deployment of our frames went smoothly, attaching and retrieving the HydroMoths (i.e. hydrophones) went smoothly, and the preparation for the sampling week went smoothly. Probably, everything went a bit too smooth in hindsight, because when the sampling week arrived, nothing went smoothly.

We seemingly lost our entire control frame (i.e. frame without sound playbacks).

During our daily boat ride towards CEMACS we have normally perfect view to see the white buoys of our control frame floating in the distance. Except on that Tuesday. The weather was a bit rough over the weekend and it was still windy and wavy, so we tried to argue that the glare of the sun plus the waves are messing with our eyesight. Surely, we would see it once we get out there to take off and analyse our panels. But when our boat reached the exact coordinates, at which we deployed the frame, there was nothing. No buoy. No rope. No frame. No hint whatsoever. Immediately, we got into the water and were searching the area with the help of two colleagues. But still, we found nothing. The visibility was not in our favour and Najwa got stung by a jelly, what didn’t make the situation better.

After we had to realize that the possibilities were high that our frame got either stolen by someone or it got washed away during the storms, we accepted defeat. Over the next couple of days, we were analysing the panels from the frame with sound playback (aka speaker frame) and discussed options with our supervisors. Upon agreement we started one more search and rescue mission. This time we were dragging an anchor across the seabed for quite some time. Clammy hands, shallow breath and elevated heartbeat. Everyone on the boat was on edge after 30 min of searching. Our colleague held up his hand. The boat stopped. He got something. To everybody’s surprise he pulled up our control frame!! It was completely covered with barnacles, so that the frames and panels were barely distinguishable but we got it back. It obviously became to heavy for the buouys that we attached to it and sank to the seafloor. Immediately, we got to work: Pulling the frame onto the boat, cutting off each panel to inspect it in the lab and cleaning the frame (which was equally stinky, disgusting and difficult).

Now the hard work began: analysing the panels. We first weighed and photographed them to estimate the biomass and the degree of coverage on them. Then each and every panel needed to be inspected through a stereomicroscope to identify as many organisms as possible. Most of the panels were covered with barnacles, to be precise it was Amphibalanus amphritite. But apart from that we also found some worms that built themselves tubes on our panels (probably individuals from the family Sepulidae and Spionidae) and were thus sessile too, some bryozoans, colourful tunicates and a lot of small shrimps, crabs and flatworms that were roaming around. Just within four weeks, the sad-looking grey PVC panels have become a location for the smaller animals of the ocean to settle and start their lives.

Before we deployed the frame again, we attached a total of 13 buoys and have now a little buoy party in the water which never fails to make us giggle. They are supposed to prevent the frame from sinking again.

The natural soundscape dilemma

Now that Leonies experiment is running (more or less smoothly) it is time to concentrate on the preparation for Najwas experiment which will focus on the natural soundscape.

At first, CEMACS and Penang seemed like the perfect place to begin collecting natural soundscape recordings. We believed it would provide a healthy, natural, and undisturbed underwater acoustic environment. However, despite being located in the national park with little human activity per se, Penang is one of Malaysia’s busiest coastal regions. The constant movement of ferries, fishing boats, tourist vessels, and commercial shipping creates a persistent layer of anthropogenic noise beneath the water. Instead of capturing the quiet rhythms of marine life, many of the recordings that we made were dominated by human activity. It became clear that Penang was not the ideal location for getting an undisturbed soundscape on tape. But where can we find that?

The search led us to Langkawi, an archipelago of 99 islands located just 100 km north of Penang near the border with Thailand. Renowned for its clear waters, rich marine biodiversity, and relatively low levels of coastal development in certain areas, Langkawi offered a far more promising environment for natural underwater acoustic recordings.

Within Langkawi, our attention turned to Pulau Anak Datai, a small island situated off the northwestern coast of the main Langkawi Island. It’s surrounded by coral reefs, rocky shorelines, and lush tropical rainforest. Compared to many of the more popular tourist destinations in Langkawi, Pulau Anak Datai experiences considerably less boat traffic, allowing its underwater environment to retain a more natural acoustic character. These conditions make it an ideal site for our needs.

With the study site finally selected, the next challenge was deploying the HydroMoths.

The recordings were scheduled over five consecutive days, with two HydroMoths deployed simultaneously to maximize the number of sites we could survey. To secure the HydroMoths underwater, we brought along two concrete blocks fitted with metal poles from CEMACS. These were previously used by another GAME team, and at the time, they seemed like the perfect solution. The concrete blocks were heavy, stable, and, most importantly, gave us peace of mind. We were worried about the HydroMoths moving with waves and currents, creating unwanted handling noise in the recordings. We were also concerned about the possibility of losing the devices whether due to storms, strong currents, or even someone discovering and taking them. But due to the seabed at Pulau Anak Datai being covered in rocks, corals and just life, it was difficult to position the blocks securely. The handling became a struggle, above and underwater.

No, we needed to adapt. Field work has a funny way of destroying the illusion of a thought through plan and pointing out every little flaw. We thought the original plan was fool proof. Turns out, it was not.

After surveying the area more closely and brainstorming some ideas, we purchased ~100 cm long metal poles, which we would simply hammer down into the ground between the corals. We then could attach the HydroMoths onto them. Fool proof, for real.

The new setup was lighter, easier to transport, quicker to deploy, and required only a fraction of the energy needed for the concrete blocks. What initially felt like a major setback showed us that flexibility and adaptability are the most important qualities during field work. And keeping a cool head, which can be the most difficult part.

Najwa is now owner of hours on end of the natural underwater soundscape in Langkawi. In order to actually use it as a playback, though, she has to listen, filter, crop and edit the recordings.

Every obstacle from searching for a truly natural soundscape to redesigning our deployment method became a lesson that no classroom could have taught. In the midst of our experiment, we are still learning to adapt, be patient with ourselves and stay curious about the processes and solutions that fieldwork demand. The ocean rarely follows our plans, but perhaps that is exactly what makes studying it so rewarding. Jumpa lagi! (See y’all!)

Barnacles, buoys and boat engines: researching the effects of underwater sound in Malaysia