We are happy to introduce you the new yacht we will be sailing for our next expedition to the Solomon Islands : Anna Rose.

Many thanks to the generosity of Simon and Rosie, a couple of cruising sailors from the UK who gave us the opportunity to use their sailing yacht on OceansWatch' expedition.

During the last few day, OceansWatch's crew and Simon and Rosie have been working towards a smooth handover of the boat.

The expedition starts on September 3rd with sailing from Honiara to the Fenualoa (Solomons Islands) to work on our different projects to follow our vision of "Saving the Ocean – one reef at a time".

The team will be training Reef Guardians in Fenualoa.
Our Reef Guardian program is a key component of how we work at village level. This program educates and empowers a team of local conservation minded fishermen to monitor the health of their marine ecosystem and guide their community on how to ensure the sustainability of the resource. The aim of the Reef Guardian programme is to train community members in simple monitoring techniques (using transects) to count key indicator fish and invertebrate species as well as substrate identification and percentage of cover.

Team will be also working on a pilot program of coconut oil production by the local women in 5 villages of Fenualoa. This pilot program is designed to test the equipment ang gauge enthusiam for the project. In each village we shall encourage the formation of a woman's co-operative to work with us to develop the project.

The coconut oil will be bought from them and will be brought to New Zealand where it is available for buying. For more information have a look on the project here.

Looking forward to sail Anna Rose to continue to lead all our projects.