Zach Theiler

2 weeks ago | oceanicsociety.org | Zach Theiler

The vessel, named the Bilikiki, the “big canoe” in the local Pidjin, has been gliding through the seas of the Solomon Islands for nearly 40 years. By liveaboard standards, it is a veteran, but the crew assures me few crafts are as smooth, and few as trusted by the local dolphins. “They’re used to the sound of the engine,” Benjamin Kahn, a marine ecologist with Oceanic Society’s partner, Planet Deep, explains to me as we scan the mirror-like waters looking for a breach of a dorsal fin.

4 weeks ago | oceanicsociety.org | Zach Theiler

If the sky is clear, as it often is in Belize, the first thing you will see is an arc of turquoise shining through the surface of the ocean. This is the ridge of the Great Blue Hole, the largest marine sinkhole in the world. It is the ancient remnant of a massive limestone cave that collapsed at the end of the last Ice Age. Today, the shallow ridge is covered in coral and teeming with wildlife from the surrounding Mesoamerican Reef.

2 months ago | oceanicsociety.org | Zach Theiler |College Dublin

Acres of seagrass span out from the mangrove-clad islands of Belize’s Turneffe Atoll, a coral-formed atoll in the heart of the Mesoamerican Reef—the second largest barrier reef in the world. Just off of one such island, snorkelers drift above a prairie-like bed of seagrass searching for seahorses and other shy critters, when the boat captain lets out an excited shout. He points to a line of silt spread across the surface of the otherwise clear water.

Mar 19, 2025 | oceanicsociety.org | Zach Theiler |College Dublin

The boat departs at daybreak from the sandy banks of ‘Utangake, an island within the Vava’u region in the northeastern corner of the Kingdom of Tonga. Though these picturesque islands are ringed by stunning reefs, the boat, filled with eager tourists clad in snorkeling masks and wetsuits, heads further offshore where the swells gently rise, along with a palpable sense of anticipation.