How a Reef Is Built, One Polyp at a Time
Wanjiru explains how a coral animal the size of a pinhead turns seawater into limestone, why algae living inside it do most of the work, and what happens when the water warms by one degree.
The Current That Feeds East Africa
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Show notes
The current that feeds the coast
Every fish landed between Kilifi and Lamu owes something to a river of seawater few people have heard of. This episode follows the East African Coastal Current from where it splits off the Equator to where it meets the monsoon winds. Wanjiru is joined by oceanographer Dr Hassan Omar and by Mzee Bakari, who has fished out of Lamu for forty years.
- Where the current comes from and how fast it moves
- The monsoon switch and why catches change in April
- Nutrient upwelling and the plankton bloom
- What a fisher notices before the instruments do
- How warming is nudging the current south
Bring your questions about currents to the Witspeak channel and we will answer them next time.
Transcript
Welcome back to Reef and Trench, I am Wanjiru Kamande, and today we leave the reef and go with the flow, quite literally. There is a river inside the Indian Ocean called the East African Coastal Current. It moves warm water, baby fish and tiny plankton up our coast at the pace of a slow walk, and twice a year the monsoon winds change its mood. I have two guests. Dr Hassan Omar measures this current with instruments, and Mzee Bakari has read it with his hands and his sail for forty years. Where they agree is fascinating. Where they disagree is even better. By the end you will understand why your fish is cheaper in some months and why that pattern is shifting. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts. Let us go offshore.
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