New mission at sea - Eric Loizeau reopen is logbook
One year after the "Posidonia Mission" along the French coast, the Race for Water Foundation ambassador and the crew of the zero-emission catamaran MODX 70 Ganany are setting sail again to conquer the Mediterranean. Destination: Sardinia and the Gulf of Naples. The agenda for this second, crucial stage—which marks the launch of the "Posidonia Connect" project—features a major Franco-Italian mission aimed at improving and harmonizing seagrass monitoring protocols in the face of anthropogenic and climate pressures. Between science, awareness-raising, and maritime innovation, Eric Loizeau shares the opening lines of his travelogue for this adventure, which is part of the grand Ocean & Climate Odyssey unfolding across several missions until 2030.
April 22nd,
Under the Mediterranean sun, to protect our oceans and our planet, here is our second "Posidonia" mission, aboard the extraordinary MODX 70 Ganany catamaran (named after the Pacific South Sea marine turtle saved by us in 2017, off the coast of Moorea), a revolutionary expedition and pleasure sailboat, totally autonomous in energy and armed for the occasion by the Race For Water Foundation, to which I belong as a faithful ambassador since 2015! How time flies!
At approximately the same period a year ago, with the same boat and practically the same team, we explored the southern shores of the "Grand Blue" (Mediterranean), between Monaco and Toulon. I recall that Posidonia meadows (for this is not an algae) spread at depths varying between 10 and 40 meters mainly on sandy bottoms. These gigantic mats of marine vines undulating gracefully with the Mediterranean waves already serve as carbon sinks, resolutely capturing masses of CO2 from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen through the magical process of photosynthesis. They also serve as love chambers for fish by facilitating their reproduction and protecting them from potential predators. They also house an entire marine ecosystem, a rich biodiversity that absolutely needs protection. Not to mention that each autumn, at the end of their life cycle, these sea grasses wash ashore along beaches in thick grayish compact masses and thus slow their inexorable erosion. This plant proves to be an effective ally for our climate resilience by protecting our coasts from wave impact during storms.
The objective of this first expedition was to verify the situation of the meadows. Had they progressed or regressed during the forty years that had passed? Indeed, in the 1980s, precise marking of Posidonia sites had been carried out by a team of scientific divers. The results of our mission were mixed and rather negative because we realized that a great majority of the meadow fields had receded and sometimes even completely disappeared! The reasons for this worrying situation are probably exponential pollution (plastics, various solvents, detergents, hydrocarbons, tourism) that aggresses our oceans, but also the mooring of pleasure boats, not to mention unauthorized trawling in protected therefore forbidden zones, and in a general way the effects of climate change which increases water temperature and its acidification.
This lovely May 2026, our field of action and our objectives will be somewhat different. Departing from Marseille, with our team completed by Italian diver-researchers, we will reach the coasts of Sardinia and continue to the shores of Naples and its string of magnificent islands, very touristic and inevitably subjected to different types of pollution. This Franco-Italian mission will also constitute the launch of a broader initiative, "Posidonia Connect," whose objective is to cover in coming years several strategic zones of the Mediterranean Basin, such as the Balearic Sea, the Alboran Sea, the Adriatic Sea, the Ionian Sea, the Aegean Sea, and the Levantine basin.
ERIC LOIZEAU
