There is a flower growing under the ocean, and most people swim right past it.
Dr Abbi learned to dive in a cold, pitch-black quarry in England. Years later she quit her job and flew to Australia with no PhD confirmed, chasing a plant almost nobody talks about: seagrass, the only flowering plant in the sea.
On the Great Barrier Reef, there is more seagrass than coral. It feeds turtles and dugongs, shelters baby fish, traps sediment that protects the coast, and stores carbon. Yet it rarely gets the attention.
In this episode, we talk about:
🌊 Diving in the dark waters of England
✈️ Moving across the world with no plan
🌱 Why seagrass matters for animals and people
🌀 What Cyclone Jasper did to mangroves, seagrass and inshore coral reefs
🤝 Working with Traditional Owners on their sea country
🐢 Keeping hungry turtles off the seagrass in the Cocos Islands
🎤 Performing a 20-minute stand-up comedy set about turtles
Chapter lists:
3:10 Diving in the dark
05:20 The leap to Australia0
8:36 Why seagrass and not coral
11:28 What is seagrass?
15:48 After Cyclone Jasper20:22 Pressures on the coast
24:30 Working with Traditional Owners
28:39 Science with the community
35:05 Comedy, radio and science communication42:05 A message for the world
🎤 Watch Abbi’s comedy set: https://youtu.be/wN-XaIz3LpA?si=yzf5h5EgtglCJ4N0
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