DISCOVERING EL HIERRO AND JAPANESE INVASIVE ALGAE

Name: DISCOVERING EL HIERRO AND JAPANESE INVASIVE ALGAE
Uploaded: 2026-03-08T13:01:42.000Z
Duration: 30 min 17 s
Description: Gratelupia turuturu, a Japanese invasive alga, turns up at El Hierro and gets pressed into a herbarium aboard Odin.

8. mars 2026 · 30 min · 3K visninger · Puerto de la Estaca, El Hierro

Hand points to volcanic rocks under bright sun

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Sailing into La Restinga on El Hierro, Canary Islands, the crew of Odin paid €81 for five nights at a well-maintained marina run by maritime police, with hot showers and flat, quiet conditions despite 25–30 knot katabatic winds off the mountains at night.2:15 The port of La Restinga itself is impassable for sailboats — sharp volcanic rock makes berthing impossible — but the surrounding lava flows are accessible on foot.8:49 The crew rented a car for two days to circumnavigate the island, passing through abrupt landscape shifts from volcanic rock and cactus to pine forest, visiting the wind-twisted juniper grove at El Sabinar, natural rock pools, coastal arches, and a summit picnic.6:46 A second day included an ecomuseum built inside an abandoned 1950s village preserved largely intact, with dry-stone vaulted structures and a lava-tube wine cellar.19:57 The scientific highlight: a crew member identifies and explains Gratelupia turuturu, a red invasive alga nicknamed "devil's tongue," introduced to the Atlantic from Japan in the 1970s via imported oyster spat during a European oyster disease crisis.25:44 It now ranges from Brittany to Portugal and the Canaries.26:27 She demonstrates how to press and dry a specimen into an algae herbarium using coffee filters and heavy books as a substitute for proper materials.27:43 The local specialty quesadilla — a dense cake flavored with lemon, anise, and cinnamon — gets a firm endorsement.28:55