It turns out that to follow a career as a professional aquanaut you must not only be a cool-headed pilot, but an industrious mechanic. Each day centres on these incredible, yet demanding machines, with a devoted team providing round-the-clock care. In sharp contrast to the low-maintenance landers, a pair of acrylic domed submersibles are the stars of the Nekton Mission. Their cameras have the habit of returning with jaw-dropping footage from inaccessible depths, with visitor logs from the ‘landers cafe’ displaying for the first time the diversity of sharks in the Maldives’ deep sea, from enormous six-gilled sharks through to scalloped hammerheads and the very rare bramble shark. A metal weight sinks the system down to between 300m and 900m, and many hours of solo diving later, an acoustic tag will release the landers rig back to the surface, ready for collection. These baited remote underwater video systems are rudimentary in construction: red metal bars, cushioned by bright yellow foam blocks, with a small, circular bait box sticking out of the front end. Aboard the same vessel used to film Blue Planet 2, an international team of 25 scientists will spend 34 days at sea, forensically examining the Maldivian atolls.Įven on a ship brimming with high-tech wizardry, sometimes simple is best, and at daybreak the ever-smiling team of South African researchers deploy landers into offshore waters. For most of us, ecological anxiety is followed by a sense of helplessness, but Steeds’s unshakeable determination has led him to action – personally and in setting up some of the most ambitious ocean exploration and conservation missions operating around the world today. It is this final step which marks him out as a tide-changer. Kept awake by the challenges facing the ocean, the most important yet least protected part of our planet, Steeds resolved to dedicate the rest of his life to its preservation. As a successful investigative reporter, Steeds thrived on asking uncomfortable questions in dangerous places, and after an assignment brought him face to face with the destruction of the seabed by trawlers, the same probing line of questioning was turned internally. ‘Nekton’ means aquatic life which swims against the current, and the charity by the same name was founded by Oliver Steeds, present as mission director in the Maldives. Of this habitable, underwater space, we have only explored a tiny fraction of a percent.Īboard the RV Odyssey, the Nekton team, at the invitation of the Maldives government, delves into these unknowns, conducting the first systematic study in the waters of the world’s lowest-lying ocean nation. With an average depth of 3.7km, it is even more impressive to appreciate that the ocean makes up 99% of our planet’s biosphere. In such a scenario, how would you realise your home’s full potential? Moreover, working in the dark, how could you make the right decisions to safeguard the blind zones? It’s commonly cited that 71% of the Earth’s surface is made up of ocean, but this only paints a two-dimensional picture. Rather than the vastness of the ocean, I relate more easily to a home, one in my possession and yet one in which I only truly understand the smallest of areas. “Imagine having a house but only light on the first step of the stairway…” At a restaurant in Malé, I quiz marine scientist Paris Stefanoudis on the need for deep sea exploration.
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