Back at last but after a successful time at sea.  Getting to grips with the ROV camera and hopefully achieving what we went for.  We had aspirations about what we might find on the sea floor but were not expecting to find what we did.  There are always thoughts that we might find new species, but this time we did.  The highlight in this are has to be the enteropneusts, the acorn worms or so-called missing links.  These are fragile animals which have never been collected intact.  But we not only achieved this but also found 3 distinct types, differing between North and South of the CGFZ but also observed on swimming.  In fact most of the sedentary animals apppear to have the ability to swim.  Holothurians in particular “get up off the bottom” and swim in the slow current just above the sea floor.  Not surprising really but not observed to the extent we saw them.

I have a lot of stills and video to prepare.....

Tuesday, 27 July 2010