Page 39 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #02

criss

Last summer Mike Dilger
of BBC’s The One Show
joined a scientific voyage
off Ireland and Scotland
in search of marine
megafauna. Here he
shares the highlights.

s a rule BBC One’s around 250m to over 2,000m. After
The One Show doesn’t completing each transect, collecting
do long wildlife film fisheries and oceanographic data along
shoots – the luxury of the way, the Celtic Explorer would
being able to spend zigzag up the western side of Ireland
weeks filming carefully and Scotland. Finally, we would reach
crafted sequences is the Butt of Lewis, the northerly tip of
Ausually confined to the Outer Hebrides. Only then would
landmark series such as Blue Planet we head back to our final destination
II. So when we were offered four of Dublin via The Minch, the narrow
berths on a scientific voyage taking in strait of water between the Inner and
a huge chunk of the Atlantic Ocean, we Outer Hebrides.
decided to go for it. Just this once we This ‘drop-off’ at the edge of the
wanted to, as it were, push the boat out. continental shelf is of huge interest to
Our home for three weeks would anyone keen on cetaceans. Difficult
be the Celtic Explorer, a research vessel to reach in north-west Europe, due
owned by the Irish government and to its remote nature, this linear and
run by the Marine Institute, based meandering feature is where the
DON’T MISS in Galway on Ireland’s west coast. prevailing wind pushes away the
Designed to enable scientists to surface waters to allow the upward
MIKE'S TRIP ON
THE ONE monitor everything from fisheries movement of deeper, colder water
Illustration by Chris Andrews/agencyrush.com; Dilger: Josh Forwood gamble… but I could hardly wait. cetaceans, sharks and other marine
SHOW stocks to climate change, she is a that’s rich in nutrients. The upwelling
Due to air in January 65m-long floating laboratory with of food in turn attracts leviathans such
state-of-the-art equipment. The
as blue, fin and sperm whales – we
production team was taking a
would be on ‘red-alert’ to film any
megafauna spotted during the voyage.
OUR MISSION
We would be joining an expedition
4 JULY: FAREWELL TO DRY LAND
of more than 2,000 nautical miles
At last we slipped out of Galway
along a predetermined route following
Harbour on what the Irish call a
“soft day” – the type of weather
east–west transects between Ireland
and Britain and the margins of the
when you still get wet even though
it doesn’t feel like it’s raining. I duly
continental shelf, at which point
stationed myself on the roof of the
the seafloor quickly falls away from
BBC Wildlife 39