Since 1998, Pelican Expeditions has carried artists, scientists, educators and Traditional Owners across Australian waters — making marine research, Indigenous knowledge, and environmental awareness meet at the gunwale.
Saltwater Projects is a not-for-profit collective of artists, scientists, mariners and educators based on the lands of the Boonwurrung and Bunurong peoples. When we began building Pelican1 in 1998, climate change already felt urgent — a seemingly crazy project by artists to build a boat and create sea projects to share ocean issues and beauty with the broader community seemed a really good idea.
Engagement with science and Indigenous Culture are core themes. We work closely with First Nations people, connecting to Sea Country and acting as a platform for collaborative, inter-disciplinary projects with social justice as a core ethic.
Our work spans documentary film, sound art, citizen science, curriculum co-design, and long-duration expeditions on a 40-foot gaff-rigged ketch.
Port Phillip and Western Port support a range of highly important ecosystems and habitats, a diverse range of animals and plants, and provide many environmental, social and economic benefits to Victorians.
The bays are an important part of the cultural heritage for the Kulin people and continue to be the focus for a wide range of cultural activities and endeavours. Two Bays provides a unique opportunity for bay managers and stakeholders to build knowledge, engage coastal communities, form partnerships, and highlight the links between us and bay health.
The program has created a unique curriculum based on the science and traditional knowledge of both bays, working with Catholic primary schools on integrating Ocean Literacy into their school curriculum.
Enter the Two Bays archive
A UNESCO-recognised Ocean Literacy case study: a decade-long collaboration with Traditional Owners in far north Queensland, weaving Indigenous Science with western marine research on mothership voyages to outer reef cays.
Acoustic monitoring and line-transect observation of pygmy blue and southern right whales in Backstairs Passage.
A sound walk and Saltwater forum for the 2020 Festival of Sails — hydrophones, bay soundscape composition, deep listening.
All catchments lead to the ocean. An urban rewilding project on Boon Wurrung Country converting a nine-hole golf course into a series of healthy wetlands — refugia for Swamp Everlasting, River Swamp Wallaby Grass, Cape Barren geese, skinks, bats and frogs, and a filter for water entering Nairm.
The Saltwater origin story: documentary shot around the Bass Strait Islands with kids who'd been living on the streets of Melbourne.
Partnering with Catholic primary schools — including St Theresa's, Albion — to deliver curriculum-linked sailing sea classrooms.
Fifteen years of citizen-science water-quality and micro-plastics sampling across Port Phillip and Western Port.
Traditional Ecological Knowledge or Indigenous Science generally incorporates wisdom and holistic values, raising opportunities to consider the long-term costs and benefits of actions affecting the environment. Every Ocean Literacy principle can be worked on with Indigenous perspective embedded.
One interconnected circulation system moving water, heat, matter and organisms through every basin.
Siliceous and carbonate rocks; erosion; tectonics; the shaping of coastlines.
Half the primary productivity on Earth takes place in the sunlit layers of the ocean.
Most of the oxygen in our atmosphere originally came from photosynthetic organisms in the ocean.
From microbes to blue whales — most living space on Earth is in the ocean.
Food, medicines, transport, recreation, inspiration — and responsibility.
Less than 5% of it has been explored. Opportunity for discovery and investigation is immense.
Delivered through VACCA, Youthworx, the Boonwurrung Foundation and Traditional Owners across the continent — a Saltwater addition to the NMEA framework.
Every pin is a sustained collaboration — not a drop-in. Most mark voyages we've made more than once, often over years or decades, with the Traditional Owners of those waters.
Ocean Networks Canada hosted the IPMEN 2023 conference at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island, BC — we acknowledge and respect the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional territory the campus stands.
Two of our projects — Two Bays and the Hope Vale / Pelican project — are included in UNESCO-IOC's report on Ocean Literacy. A shared moment for the concept.
The Elster Creek catchment is about 40 km². Most is concreted. We've installed a hydrophone in the Nature Reserve near Monash Bridge, listening for creek critters.
We're always looking for crew — teachers, scientists, sound artists, paddlers, editors, Traditional Owners, and deck hands.