The project!

Hello all! Welcome to my summer travel blog and thanks for stopping by. For those of you that haven't heard the full story, I'll give a little bit of background. My name is Tanner Keeling-Garcia, I'm 17, and I work with my family onboard the 165 foot R/V Aquila. This summer I will be traveling to several islands in the pacific in support of a multinational effort to rid these islands of rats. (say what???) You might wonder why anyone would care if there's rats on a couple islands in the south pacific. However rats did not originate on these islands. They are an invasive species, introduced to the islands on accident by sailing ships of eld. Being an invasive species, they face few if any natural predators, and pretty much run amok eating anything and everything, including bird eggs.
So how does one go about cleansing an island of its entire rat population?
Find a really big  boat, the 165 foot M/V Aquila is perfect.

Next step, call up Mike at Pathfinder aviation and order up a couple Bell Jetranger helicopters

Above photo credits: Pathfinder Aviation

And of course, Bell Labs for about 90 tons of bait pellets.



 Where will we be going?
 The baiting islands are Palmyra Atoll,  the Phoenix islands in Kiribati, and Henderson island in the Pitcairn group. We will resupply in Apia, Samoa between islands and in Mangareva, French Polynesia at the end of the project. On our way out to Henderson we will be making a quick stop at Bounty bay, Pitcairn island, site of the Mutiny on the Bounty and home to the descendants of the Bounty crew.

With a little bit of luck, I will be able to do a daily post/picture of the day type of thing from the boat, although satellite internet is rather spendy.
check back soon!