Yacht Alucia Heads to Bikini
The super yacht Alucia arrived Majuro January 6. Photo: Karen Earnshaw
January 6, 2015: The superyacht Alucia arrived in Marshall Islands Tuesday and is expected to soon voyage to Jaluit Atoll and then on to Bikini Atoll where its crew will do underwater research for a number of weeks. Bikinian Edward Maddison, the atoll’s senior diver, will be present to observe the research.
The 185-foot vessel is owned by America Ray Dalio, who is reported to be worth $10 billion and is the founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. His superyacht is part luxury boat and part a work platform designed for scientific research and as such is equipped with a ton of equipment, including a Triton submarine. Dalio makes the Aluca available to research teams.
The yacht is credited with being the platform for a team of investigators who, after a two-year search, helped find the downed Air France plane off the coast of Brazil in 2011. In 2013, a team of scientists on the boat captured, in North Pacific waters, the first footage of a legendary giant squid known in mythology as the Kraken that can grow up to 55 feet and lives thousands of feet beneath the waves.
According to the US Embassy in Majuro’s facebook page, the Alucia departs for Bikini Atoll on January 16. The vessel will be undertaking transects and water sampling of the lagoons at Bikini and Enewetak for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution through January 25h. In addition, the UK-based Atlantic Productions will be filming the wrecks of the “Nuclear Fleet” at Bikini for future virtual reality presentations. Atlantic Productions last footage, recently completed on the Great Barrier Reef, will appear soon in a feature to be hosted by David Attenbourough.
