Unprecedented. Extraordinary. Extreme. There is no lack of superlatives to describe “Planète Méditerranée”, the latest of Laurent Ballesta’s Andromède Océanologie Gombessa expeditions. Until this expedition, the deep sea diving expert could only spend a few minutes at a depth of 120 metres by going through an ascent lasting several hours to avoid the bends.
Researchers will be able to test the hypothesis that the deep sea serves as a sanctuary in the face of climate change and evolutions in fishing practices.
Team Gombessa has circumvented this problem by successfully combining saturation diving with closed circuit rebreather scuba diving. Laurent Ballesta and his three companions were thus able to spend almost a month in the 10 m² of the saturation station installed on a barge as it sailed the Mediterranean from Marseille to Monaco. A pressurised “turret” served as a lift, enabling them to descend to the depths for incredible dives lasting several hours a day, without the need for decompression. Among the numerous scientific protocols implemented, the divers were given a special prototype pump for collecting eDNA samples. This enabled them to gather samples as close as possible to gorgonian, coralligenous and other deep water habitats. Thanks to this unique data, researchers will be able to test the hypothesis that the deep sea serves as a sanctuary in the face of climate change and evolutions in fishing practices, in a region that is among the most severely impacted in the world.
© Laurent Ballesta
