The Golden Shadow arrived in Papeete, French Polynesia back in July 2012 and for the past eight months it has been our home, but we said goodbye to Papeete last week as we started our final research expedition in the Austral islands. We will spend the next 2 weeks surveying in the Austral Islands and from there we will not return to Papeete, but instead sail out of French Polynesia and into the Cook islands.
Goodbye to Papeete
Before leaving Papeete we took an evening to share some of our initial research findings with local scientists, representatives of our partner organizations, and government officials. A full analysis of all the data we gathered will take months but we have seen some observable trends during our field work.
We displayed images from some of the remote sites we have surveyed during our field research and were delighted that the French Polynesian Minister for Education, Tauhiti Nena, came to encourage us on our continued scientific journey. It was a great way to say goodbye to Papeete.
Photos by 1 Michele Westmorland, 2 and 3 KSLOF
