AD 2017 Q4

WATER
PLANET
CLIPPERTON:
A PLASTIC
PARADISE
Text and photos by Alex Rose
Isolated takes on a new
meaning when after
three straight days of
sailing you’re still more
than 12 hours from
your destination. This
is the journey required to visit
Clipperton, the most remote atoll
in the world. The little dot in the
Pacific is more than 750 miles
away from Cabo San Lucas, our
port of departure. It is almost
600 miles from the Revillagigedo
Archipelago (Socorro Island),
which is itself extremely remote by
any normal standard.
Surrounded by coral reefs,
Clipperton encloses a stagnant
lagoon overgrown with algae on
the surface and transected by a toxic layer of hydrogen
sulfide at around 45 feet deep. I traveled to this atoll
as part of the 2017 Big Migrations 2 Clipperton
expedition team headed by Canadian explorers Michel
Labrecque and Julie Ouimet. We carried Explorers
Club Flag #93. For six days our team of 18 dived in
Clipperton’s waters and explored the almost eight-mile
ring of land that makes up the island. This was more
time than most people get at Clipperton, but it still
didn’t feel like nearly enough.
When I first backrolled into the ocean, I was
immediately surprised by the warmth of the water —
87°F at the surface, according to my computer. We
reached the reef at about 45 feet and were greeted by
a large school of black durgon (triggerfish) that glided
over huge, round coral heads. Coral boulders extended
as far as the eye could see, all accompanied by groups
of brilliant red soldierfish and highlighted by purple
coralline algae around the bases. Shelves of Porites
coral also dominated the landscape, providing shelter
for juvenile groupers and perches for coral hawkfish.
A school of grunts swam through my frame, soon
followed by a train of trevally, and a curious leather
bass hovered in front of my dome port.
We saw three fish species that are endemic to
Clipperton: the Clipperton angelfish (Holacanthus
limbaughi), the Clipperton gregory (Stegastes baldwini)
and the Clipperton fanged blenny (Ophioblennius
clippertonensis). Sixty minutes flew by, and before
I knew it we were doing our safety stop in the blue
warmth of Clipperton’s shallows.
Despite the atoll’s natural underwater beauty, I
couldn’t help but notice the copious monofilament
from longlines that were wrapped around the reef. We
recovered almost two miles of line along with 18 hooks
and 43 fasteners over the course of 17 dives as well as a
huge ghost fishing net we dragged up from 50 feet. We
collected as much as we could reasonably carry while
underwater, but this represented only a tiny portion
of what we saw. It quickly became evident that even
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