Slideshow: images from the drop-camera

Next life I'm gonna be a wave... | Home | Mayday message for the deep seas

8 May 2006

by Joss, onboard the Esperanza

Whip coral on the summit of Condor
seamount ©Greenpeace/Newman

Underwater filming isn't easy, which is why images and film-footage from these deep-sea habitats are like gold dust. Last week, before the sad loss of our underwater video and stills research camera, we were able to 'fly' it over the summits and ridges of some of the little explored seamounts of the western Azorean islands. Take a look at a short slideshow of what we found there...

Even with our vastly experienced cameraman Gavin Newman at the helm, filming proved to be rather difficult. With a 1,000 metres of cable linking the camera to the shipboard computers, there's a delay of almost two seconds between clicking the shutter and the photograph actually being taken. This, combined with the strong sea currents and the rapidly changing depths at which we were filming meant that, we were only able to gather relatively few still pictures from the depths.

This is the first time anyone has ever seen this part of the seabed, and the Univerity of the Azores marine biologists aboard Esperanza were delighted at what we were able to discover - gorgeous communities of gorgonian corals, dense fields of whip corals, and pictures of the silvery pout, only the second time this species of fish has been found in the Azores archipelago.

- Joss

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Comments

Beautiful images of unique ocean life - looking forward to others.
Thanks.

Posted by: echo at May 8, 2006 3:30 PM

nice images - congratulations. What is the rattail - a sort of grenadier ? A www-page with some systematics of corals, gorgonians, and related, together with picture of the various forms & function, would be much appreciated.
And best wishes for retrieving Phoenix - in good shape, preferably.

Posted by: francois at May 8, 2006 4:31 PM

Hi Francois,

Rattails are indeed grenadiers and a good place for looking up information about the biology of fish species is FishBase. Click here for a link to the rattails page.

Thanks for your best wishes. Sadly our attempts at retrieving the Phoenix have failed, but not for want of trying.

Best, Richard

Posted by: Richard - Oceans Campaigner aboard Esperanza at May 8, 2006 6:40 PM

What great pictures - thanks for sharing them. I particularly liked the dense field of whip coral.

Really looking forward to seeing more pictures as and when you take them.

Irene :-)

Posted by: Irene Sophia at May 8, 2006 7:39 PM

Nice pics! And the loss of that camera is too bad :(

Posted by: Jerome at May 8, 2006 7:41 PM

Woh I didn't realise how big the drop cam really was. I hope you manage to find it again and salvage it! Very interesting pics thanks.

Posted by: Lisa at May 10, 2006 5:23 AM

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