A few weeks back, I wrote about some Marylanders plowing through the icy Bering Sea off Alaska to study how it's changing.  Now there's another local who's exploring faraway waters, though he's picked a warmer spot - the Red Sea.

Glenn Page, former conservation director for the National Aquarium here in Baltimore, is part of an international crew on a research cruise investigating coral reefs off the coast of Saudi Arabia.  Since leaving the aquarium, he's founded his own environmental consulting firm.

For the past couple weeks, Glenn has been shooting underwater photos and videos of the Farasan Banks to take stock of the health of the reefs there.  You can read more about the expedition and see photos and video of the work here.  The bright blue coral at right is stylophora.

In addition, Glenn's been keeping a blog about the expedition.  His most recent post, which he sent me today, serves as an Earth Day greeting from the other side of the planet:

Imagine giving up 1/2 of your income, in addition to taxes and payments for house, college etc., just so you can ensure your children have a chance for a future.   That's exactly what the desperately poor Vezo, an indigenous group of nomadic fishing communities of southwest Madagascar, did when they established the first real marine protected area in the Indian Ocean.   They risked everything just for the slim chance to save their ecosystem and indeed, themselves.  Every day is earth day for the Vezo.  As a local leader noted recently, "In order to be Vezo, a person must act in the present, for it is only in the present that one performs one's identity.

Read the rest here.