ZSL’s Kirsty Kemp investigates the structure and species diversity of cold-water coral communities – structurally complex and highly productive ocean environments which serve as feeding grounds and nurseries for many organisms. Kirsty’s work aims to understand how these reefs are established and their role in maintaining species diversity in the deep sea. Go on the high seas with Kirsty and find out the lengths our scientists go to for their research.

Mention the ocean and immediately the human mind conjures up a thousand dreamy tales of mystery and adventure, swashbuckling men and closely-guarded watery secrets of the deep. It’s all true. Especially that last bit about closely-guarded secrets. You may think that in this, the 21^st century, people and science can boldly venture forth wherever we want to go. Not so. Or at least only partially so. We can indeed go wherever we want, or, by proxy, put our equipment wherever we want to study, even in the deepest darkest depths. Getting it back again is a whole different story.

Three years ago Alex Rogers (now of Oxford University) Kirsty Morris and Paul Tyler (both of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton) and I began a project investigating the ecosystems that characterise the seafloor on and around underwater mountains. Off we went to the very middle of the Atlantic Ocean – the Azores archipelago to be precise, one of these special places (to deep ocean ecologists) where we could have breakfast on land, then hop on a boat and reach very deep water in just a matter of minutes. There we began collecting corals for genetic studies and videoing the interactions of fish and corals and sponges, looking for patterns which might characterise these habitats. We also placed 8 panels, made of plastic and granite, onto the seafloor, and left them there to be colonised by whatever life might be breeding or settling in our chosen locations, 500 meters under the sea.

We used a submarine to put these panels in place – an expensive and uncommon luxury afforded to very few marine biologists. The plan was to use the same submarine to recover them now, three years later. That plan however was not to be, leaving me with the unusual headache of finding another way to collect our experiments.

I still struggle to think of 500m as a very long distance. I began my research career working at 4000m depth. I can see 500m. I can run 500m. I can probably shout 500m. But when its 500m of water, and Neptune doesn’t want you, it’s the longest 500m in the world. Reuniting myself with our equipment ultimately required an expedition: a ship, a crew, an underwater robot, and a lot of luck. I eventually managed to amass the first three.

In early September I headed off to the Azores, with a student assistant (Lucy Cook), an ROV (remotely operated vehicle….essentially a little underwater robot at the end of a very long tether known as an umbilical cord, and controlled through this from the ship), and an ROV pilot (Hedley Haward of Liquavision UK). We had secured 3 berths aboard the French research vessel L’Atalante, an 85m working vessel already contracted to undertake geological research in our study area, and which was to be our home for 2 weeks (thanks to EUROFLEETS cruise FAIVI-IOZOC).

We had been allocated three 12-hour slots, in amongst all the geology work, to send the ROV down to our study site, locate, pick up, and recover our settlement panels.

Day One and we deployed the ROV for a test dive– for such a tiny robot it held its position in the strong ocean currents surprisingly well, using only half of its thrusters, and alleviating the first of my 3 dozen various worries. All tests successful, we moved to our study site and redeployed the ROV. There it promptly got tangled on one of the many rocky outcrops characteristic of regions of underwater volcanic activity, validating the second of my 3 dozen various worries. Tangles in the umbilical cord are a danger to the delicate fibre optic line inside it, which predictably developed a break, and left us with no visuals from the ROV and no control over its movement. At this point our chances of recovering even the ROV (let alone the panels) dropped into the “pure luck” category.

Unbelievably, pure luck was on our side, and after some hours of gently pulling the umbilical, re-orientating the ship, pulling, re-examining the footage of the tangle, doing a bit of physics, drawing some compass roses….the ROV was once again on deck. A minor miracle, but not one that ultimately helped us to recover our experiments from the seafloor, as the damage the ROV sustained could not be repaired at sea.

For now the ocean is still guarding that secret (yes, our research), and it will take time and money to mount another mission. But these two extremely stressful weeks on the ocean, like every expedition I have ever undertaken, had all the elements to eventually inspire a salty seafaring tale, and critically, all the elements that make ocean-going scientists simply unable to quit the ocean. When we do return it is unlikely to be with the same beautiful ship, the same combination of the colourful French crew (reminiscent of the cast of an Asterix cartoon), the Italian geologists (who brought their own wine and snacks onboard and stashed them in all the secret cupboards), or us, the three non-french speakers who took to playing charades every time we needed something. But it will be another combination, just as interesting, just as committed, and just as dependent on the mercy of the ocean’s whim.

Kirsty Kemp

Postdoctoral Researcher

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