Exploring the Undersea
On this long expedition up the submarine spine of the Atlantic Ocean we plan landfalls at a number of fabled islands and look forward to relaxing days at sea with good companionship and an excellent lecture series. But what of the marine world below us? Utilizing the expedition technology aboard the Endeavour, including underwater video cameras, the Remote Operated Vehicle, plankton nets and more, we can look into this mysterious and still little-known world and make it a part of our journey in a new way.
The Falkland Islands are washed by cold temperate seas and around their shores tall stands of giant kelp and tree kelp predominate. These submarine forests are populated by a wonderful variety of animals, large and small, weird and familiar, strange and beautiful. Just as on the trees of a terrestrial forest, many creatures make their homes within the sheltering boughs of the kelp, some of them attached there throughout their lives, others coming and going to feed or avoid being fed upon. Particularly noticeable here is the great diversity of crustaceans. Spider crabs, stone crabs, beautiful painted shrimp, squat lobsters, and this lovely spotted crab all busily going about their lives in this rich watery woods.
At South Georgia we are truly in the Antarctic. The seas surrounding this spectacular island hover at or just below freezing and the creatures which inhabit them are mostly unfamiliar, truly denizens of another world. Giant isopods, like woodlice on steroids, crawl over the waving undergrowth of red algae on their fourteen legs, while sea spiders like the one shown here pick their way along on, making do with only eight or ten legs while they as they search for the tiny corals and anemones which are their prey.
Tomorrow we head east again, toward Tristan da Cunha, as our long journey continues. All along the way, in the spirit of the great naturalists who have come this way before us, but with tools of the 21st Century at the ready, we will keep our eyes out, all around, above and below our fine ship.
