BIOT MPA Survey Expedition 2015 - Day 13 - Egmont Atoll
After working around Nelsons Island we had hoped to travel and dive down the central and east side of the vast Great Chagos Bank Atoll. At over 100 miles across there is plenty of unexplored reef to choose from. But the weather had other ideas...Day 12 was a uniform frustration of high winds and choppy swells that thwarted our aspirations of discovery. As the afternoon drew on and hopes of the wind dieing down enough for us to get in the water faded we decided to motor on to Egmont Atoll. Much smaller and better scrutinised by previous science expeditions, it offered less in terms of exploratory discovery but did present a land mass that offered shelter from the unsettled weather.
We arrived in the late evening of Day 12 and were well placed for an early start to the diving day on Day 13...
...although the weather was still unsettled when the sun came up we were tucked in the lee of Egmont's Ile Sud Est and as a result had calm waters to work with for the dives.
Dropping in to the water we were treated to a prolific display of fish life. Unicorn fish, snapper, fusiliers...even a large manta cruising effortlessly by (unfortunately a little too far off for a decent photograph).
Whilst out we diverted the end of our final dive on the trip in order to see the shallow team at work. With all the island work and research we'd pursued during the expedition I had yet to get in the water to see them in action with their impressive seaview survey cameras! An impressive sight to see them powering smoothly out of the deep blue distance and cruise by effortlessly and on surveying a remarkably large area in a single dive.
So as the expedition draws to a close I'm looking forward to the outputs from this great technology - there will be panoramas available on Street View in Google Earth and Maps. I can't wait to see the reefs and islands of Chagos in this format! We will post further updates to this blog when those products are available for the public...until then...
