For Immediate Release Contact: Matthew Wetmore 9/24/03 310-463-5840

Legendary Tall Ship Returns to Oakland, Where it was Built

Brings Urgent Message to Save Coral Reefs

Join in the Welcoming Flotilla on October 11, 2003 9-10 A.M.

Make “Save the Coral Reefs” Banners / Wave Flags / Blow Horns

RV Heraclitus - www.pcrf.org

Join Us For Homecoming Celebrations:

· Oct. 11, 2003: RV Heraclitus (RVH) sails back under Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco Bay . 9am

RVH will then continue on toward Jack London Square in Oakland for docking.

· Oct. 11, 2003: RVH arrives at Jack London Square in Oakland greeted by schoolchildren, community leaders and government officials. 1pm

Los Angeles/Oakland - The Tall Ship RV Heraclitus, the only research vessel continually at sea monitoring coral reefs on a global basis, is returning home for the first time since it was built and launched in Oakland, California in 1975. Since departing Oakland, this ship has circumnavigated the globe, journeyed up the Amazon River, sailed to the Antarctic Peninsula, and voyaged over 200,000 sea miles (equivalent to more than 8 times around the world).

RV Heraclitus, a three-mast Chinese-style junk, is chartered by the Planetary Coral Reef Foundation (PCRF) to study coral reefs and address the problem that the reefs, as we once knew them, are disappearing. Coral Reefs are the indicator for the health of the world’s oceans and by extension, our global environment. Coral Reefs are in crisis, dying at an alarming rate worldwide. An estimated 58% of the world’s coral reefs are at risk today and an estimated 10% have already disappeared. The Florida Keys alone have suffered an estimated 38% loss of coral reefs between 1996 and 2000. PCRF and the Heraclitus crew invite Bay Area mariners who are out on the bay for Fleet Week to greet them with horns, flags, and banners of support as the RVH sails under the Golden Gate Bridge at 9am, or along their route into the Port of Oakland

Charting its course in the way of the ancient mariners – by stars, winds and currents – the crew of the RV Heraclitus is now completing a 5,000 mile sail across the North Pacific from Guam to Oakland, the port of her maiden voyage, to deliver the message that coral reefs are in crisis all over the world. The Heraclitus, crew, who have endured both hurricanes, and doldrums in the last 4 months, will arrive in California for a series of scientific and educational events in Oakland, Sausalito, the greater San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles this October and November.

The Planetary Coral Reef Foundation (PCRF) was founded in 1991 to address the coral reef crisis. Since its inception, PCRF has pursued an unprecedented global mission to preserve coral reefs through innovative programs in science, technology and education.

To create the first-ever comprehensive baseline map of living coral reefs, PCRF is pioneering a Coral Reef Satellite Mission in cooperation with scientists at College of Charleston, MIT, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, SeaSpace, Stevens Institute of Technology and USC.

This will be the first satellite mission dedicated to the stewardship of coral reefs

www.pcrf.org