Welcome to the research ship the Western Flyer.
Off Monterey Bay, in California.
Now today has been a broadcasting first.
Over the day we have been watching dives in three submersibles.
Looking at volcanic activity - under the Atlantic.
Deep sea sharks - under the Caribbean. And here out in the -
Bay of Monterey, we have been watching deep sea creatures,
some of them hardly ever seen before.
And now is your chance to catch up with some of the -
action that we have seen today - from the abyss.
I was joined for this extraordinary adventure by - four other presenters.
In the control room here on this ship by Mike DeGruy.
The underwater cameraman.
By Bruce Robison, who is the chief scientist of this project.
And on the Atlantic, Alastair Fothergill doing a dive,
series producer of the Blue Planet, and Kate Humble.
Exploring the Cayman Wall in the Caribbean.
Well our day began when they launched the remarkable submersible Tiburon,
from the middle of this ship.
It's one of the most advanced unmanned subs in the world.
It's covered in canvas.
And it's gonna be our eyes, on the alien world below us.
Amazing to think this entire ship - was built around that.
In she goes.
Ha, ha, ha! That's it.
Peter Snowlt is like a scene from James Bond.
It's a James Bond movie going on in front of us right now.
No question...
What's he trying there, I saw him trying his thrusters was he?
Are those? Yes.
Peter SnowThrusters that - Yes all those will be tested.
Tested for vertical thrust -
Peter SnowAnd that's - the - that will push him up and down.
Exactly. Yeah.
They also have an amazing ballast system,
- where they can pump water on board. - Yes.
And get it just - perfectly neutrally buoyant.
And what are they gonna -
they'll release in will they in a minute er... Mike?
- They'll - the crane will release the rope? - Right.
And then the tethering will be it's only link to the surface.
Ok.
- Oh there it goes. - There it goes.
Fantastic, now it's on it's own.
So let me tell you now why we are in Monterey Bay.
Monterey Bay is situated on the west coast - of California and the USA.
And the water here is part of the Pacific Ocean.
It is a - a beautiful spot.
And very full of marine life.
Because - currents, rich in nutrients meet here,
and support a wonderful - variety of creatures.
Seals, all sorts - of other creatures,
all around the shores of Monterey Bay, including - the famous sea otters.
But there is something unique about this place.
It has an extraordinary undersea canyon.
Deeper than the Grand Canyon.
That begins just offshore.
And within a few miles reaches depths of well over a mile.
If we were in Britain to find waters this deep -
we would have to be hundreds of miles out into the heart of the Atlantic.
And here we are now in the control room of the Western Flyer,
looking at all the pictures on these monitors -
coming up from our submarine the Tiburon.
And the - submarine is being driven remotely -
through the deep, most extraordinary stuff going on here.
And here by Mike, er...
is the chief scientist of MBARI. Bruce Robison,
he has dived here for years.
And he knows the creatures -
under the sea here better than anybody else er... in the world.
Good heavens, what's that on the screen? Ha, ha, ha! This is unbelievable.
Bruce and the gang started looking and we found this extraordinary squid.
I have seen a lot of squid.
This is one of the most bizarre squid I have ever seen in my life.
This is a squid called Chiroteuthis,
and what we are look at, is a - a developmental stage.
It's er... in between a larvae and a - and a juvenile.
And at this stag it has this remarkable long rigid tail.
That sticks down, and - gives the animal
the appearance of being at least twice as large as its actual size.
Each of these little bulbs is filled with - er...
a fluid that provides buoyancy.
Allows the animal to be - neutral - er... and - and not sink.
Now - this is a juvenile stage?
Yes.
That we saw on the way down, we saw a Chiroteu this as an adult.
I'd like to look at that,
and give us a comparison of how this - may turn in - to the adult form.
And - that - that is it.
- That - that - that - that's - Oh look at that.
That's the adult form.
How can this turn into that Bruce?
The body proportions change drastically.
You have the loss of the tail.
And two of the eight arms -
develop into extremely robust platforms through
which the feeding tentacles - are - deployed.
The adult feeds on prey by -
using it's slender feeding tentacles er... as lures.
It used bioluminescence on the arms - to attract the prey.
But the juvenile doesn't have that well developed - capability yet.
We are speculating that it uses that - tail - like a spar buoy.
To hold it's position vertically in the water
so that it can then bend forward -
move about - pivot about the - the spar, and feed.
Ok well now we are gonna follow this dive from Monterey of course,
but we are also doing two more dives in the oceans of the world.
First of all - we have got Kate on the tiny island -
of Gran Cayman - in the heart of the Caribbean.
I am - fifteen metres below the water. That's thirty something feet.
And can you believe how much life there is down here?
Beautiful fan corals just coral everywhere you look.
Even at this depth - the sun can penetrate this far,
which is why there is so much life.
And this is one of the reasons that people flock -
to the Caymans because the diving here is so fantastic.
Their other secret, is that they are not actually islands at all,
but the tips - of mountains.
And you get cliffs.
This - is an underwater cliff.
And below me - is this stunning - big - blue -
I have no idea how deep it is down there.
And more importantly -
I have no idea what lives down there, and so do so few other people.
This - is like outer space.
In fact more people have been to space -
than they have been to the depths of the ocean.
But I am going all the way down there.
Now I can't do it dressed like this,
because the pressure of the water would crush me.
What I need - is one of these.
Now this submarine is already heading to the bottom,
but there's one on the surface waiting for me.
So I am gonna go and join it.
What an adventure we'll be back to Kate - but now we are going -
straight to the - third of our dives, the deepest of them all.
Er... far out - in the middle of the - Atlantic Ocean.
We are going to meet up with Alastair Fothergill.
He is twelve hundred miles - west of Portugal there.
Just south of the Azores.
This is the research vessel Keldysh.
And we are positioned - slap bang in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Directly beneath us now,
a mile and a half down is the very summit of the mid Atlantic Ridge.
Ok? Thank you Anthony.
There are literally just a handful of submersibles world wide -
that are able to dive deeper than a mile.
And this is one of them. It's the Mir submersible.
That's Russian for peace.
But what's so special about the Keldysh,
is that on board they don't just have one Mir submersible. But two.
This is the second one.
We are just minutes from launch now.
They're doing their final safety checks, I'll speak to you later.
We are just literally minutes away now,
I can feel the crane about to lift us off the um...
the ship deck here, but here we go, we are actually starting to move.
Here we go actually right over the ship now I can see it - it's amazing, this -
At the moment I am feeling
a wonderful mixture of complete excitement and total terror.
I mean - I have never ever dived down to two thousand three hundred metres.
So that alone is unbelievably exciting.
It's sort of a bit like the feeling I imagine you would have on -
on top of a rocket as you are about to take off at Cape Canaveral.
But where we are going is in many,
may ways - far more physically demanding on the technology.
I mean it's totally dark.
It's very, very cold down there, and more than anything else,
the thing you have to be really worried about is the absolutely -
enormous pressures on this submersible.
Just see the last bubbles on the surface, the last bubbles of sunlight.
We are bobbling around, waiting for permission to dive.
That comes from the ship.
The submersible has got three ports.
Victor of course, the pilot has got the largest one.
We are starting to descend now, gradually.
It's amazing how quickly the water gets dark.
There really is very little life out this window.
See the occasional jelly fish now and again.
But basically - there's nothing out here.
People forget - that the open ocean really is a biological desert.
But hopefully where we are going right down to the mid Atlantic Ridge,
there should be life in extraordinary densities.
We are looking down now - at five hundred and sixteen metres,
our Tiburon submarine is looking at what?
This beautiful little animal is a - hydro medusa called Colobonema. It's er...
Called a hydro medusa. A simple - medusa.
Yes a simple medusa.
Jelly fish if you like.
It has a remarkable behaviour pattern.
When it's frightened - it flashes bioluminescence in the bell.
And then it turns the lights off and - zips off into the darkness,
dropping - it's tentacles in its wake.
Sort of like a lizard dropping its tail to confuse the predator.
Are these luminescent? When they drop them?
We don't know.
There are differing opinions on whether those er...
tentacles glow or - don't glow when they're - when they're released.
We need more observations to be able to determine.
Ok, tentacles - they are loaded with nematocysts, little stinging cells.
Very, very effective powerful stinging cells.
Definitely.
Which obviously if touching -
a fish or a shrimp or whatever they may be feeding on - catches it.
Is that luminescence - attracting - prey into the - tentacles,
if indeed they are luminescent?
That's a possibility -
Bright light, fly to light -
It could also be a warning.
Don't - approach - don't come close or you are gonna get stung.
Right.
Let me explain to people, here we are five hundred and sixteen metres -
below the surface.
That means the pressure down here is fifty one times -
the pressure on the surface of the sea.
How - why on earth isn't that thing getting squashed to smithereens?
Ha, ha, ha!
Principally because there is no - gas space inside.
And - the body is almost entirely water, probably ninety eight percent water.
And as a consequence - there is nothing to compress.
Do we have a friend here?
Somebody came by recently.
Yeah.
No question about it.
Well that - that sort of smoke is a bit of squid ink, is it?
That's right.
The lights often attract squid - if we could just take a look -
at the squid that we saw - on the way to this.
Absolutely that was - that was a - that was amazing.
These things are giant.
They are two, three, sometimes four feet long.
Here it is, it's on the screen now.
We just passed through this school of Humboldt squid.
You told me of a time when ink completely surrounded -
the Tiburon, and you had no vision whatsoever -
ever - out of any cameras is that right?
It's true.
It's like we had flown into a black cloud.
We couldn't see a thing. The ink really works.
It's very effective at shielding the squids - from er... from sight.
Ha, ha, ha!
We are gonna go back now - to - Kate and her exploration of the Cayman Wall.
Kate's pilot is Garry.
And inside, there is just room for two of them and a cameraman.
Dive, dive, dive, ok this is a dive.
Opening vents at this time.
We are gonna vent now?
We are venting now.
That means we are going down.
Now this wall outside is the Cayman Wall.
This is - this - slope of these - submerged mountains.
There is actually one mountain that is five miles high.
So - we are talking really Himalayas under the sea...
It's getting very blue out there.
Definitely got darker.
It's also got a little bit colder,
you can - er... you can feel a temperature difference.
Look at this.
This is incredible.
Now we have gone through - that area where the corals are.
Through a quite bland rocky area,
and now - we are in the wonderful world of the sponges. Look at them.
We are at about three hundred feet now.
And the reason you get - this belt of them down here,
is they are not dependant on sunlight in the same way that those corals are.
So - here they have no competition, they can just flourish.
They have become these incredible shapes,
because what they are trying to do is stick themselves out from the rock
as far as they can - into the current - to grab their food.
Now what they eat - is called marine snow.
It's basically kind of dead bodies and poo I am afraid to inform you.
And they work a little bit like -
well they are kind of like swimming pool filters.
And there is an amazing fact I read - that one cubic centimetre of sponge,
can - filter effectively -
pass twenty litres of water a day, through it's system.
And it will take out all those nutrients,
and then just flush out the water it doesn't need.
They are amazingly efficient feeders...
I don't know whether you can see just below me here.
But there is a thing which is about the most appropriately named -
um... thing you can imagine, it is called and elephant ear sponge.
And look at that. Isn't that just massive?
How big do you think it is Gary?
About nine feet tall.
Nine feet tall.
Look at it. It's just extraordinary.
Well we are leaving behind the sponge belt now,
continuing our descent - following the marine snow
that the sponges haven't managed to grab on it's way down.
And we'll see where it settles next.
Where we are headed - is for the haystack zone.
Mike whatever is that?
Well this - is great. This is a Siphonophore.
And I could describe it as an animal but -
I am having a lot of trouble calling it - an animal.
Why is that Bruce?
It's a paradoxical sort of creature.
It is a colony - of individual animals.
Much like - an ant colony or a bee colony.
Except that - the members of this colony are all attached to one another.
They er... work together in conjunction.
Er... at one end is a -
a series of swimming bells that propel the animal through the water.
Er... propel the colony through the water.
And then a long chain er... of individuals whose -
principle function is to capture, digest and share the food.
What - what - is just er... dropping lots of red bits all over the place.
And each of those little tiny spots in undoubtedly a battery of stinging cells.
So you have got groups for swimming.
Groups for catching food Groups for digesting the food that you catch.
Groups for protecting the animal against predators.
All sharing - a common gut I guess you could say to feed -
once it's digested, they are feeding each other.
- That's right. That's right. - Yes?
What an extraordinary experience. Anyway.
Now lets go straight back now to the mid Atlantic,
to catch up on - Alastair's descent - towards the mid Atlantic ridge.
How deep are we now Victor?
We are not at er... five hundred - seventy metres.
That's only actually about a quarter of the depth that we are going to.
But it's already - fifty times more pressure than it - you get at the surface.
Unless we were inside this tiny sphere we would be crushed immediately.
It's extremely strong, because it is so small.
Nuclear submarines - can only go down to about three hundred metres.
Compared with the six thousand metres - four miles down - that the Mir's can go.
Their strength comes from their tiny size.
And the fact that they are constructed out of the very, very strongest steel.
Even the viewing ports are eighteen centimetres thick.
Unlike the ROV at Monterey
which is being constantly controlled like a permanent underwater helicopter -
the Mir's are just designed to go down, down, down, down, like a lift.
And obviously - we are not gonna meet any other traffic on the way down.
But the one thing we have to be very, very careful about,
is hitting the side of the rift valley.
Because we are actually descending into the rift valley,
inside the mountains that make up the mid Atlantic Ridge.
And the one thing you never, never do in a submersible - is hit the ground hard.
This is so like being in space.
This is like looking at the earth, I am gonna cry.
This is like looking at the earth from space.
It's like those amazing photographs you get. Look at that.
So what depth are we are now Gary?
At seven hundred and twenty feet.
Kate HumbleSeven hundred and twenty feet.
And look at the contrast to the sponge belt.
It's barren out there, there is hardly any si - sign of life at all.
This is what's called the haystack zone.
And you see those big - lime stone conical in front of me?
That is your classic haystack.
And around it are these much gentler slopes,
where you get really thick deposits of marine snow.
And so you get very little life.
And it's the haystacks - where you get the life.
Animals can settle there, and they can stick themselves out into the current,
and feed on the snow as it comes down.
But they don't have to worry about getting smothered by it.
Look at these beautiful, beautiful creatures.
Oh - these are called stalk crinoids.
And - they are animals,
I know they look like the skeleton of - sunflowers,
if - sunflowers could have skeletons.
But these are animals that - that - you can't get plant life down here.
There is just isn't enough sunlight to get through.
So - these beautiful, beautiful creatures,
which are probably what do you reckon Gary, about two feet - high?
About two feet high.
There are fossil records of these things,
from two hundred and thirty million years ago,
and they have hardly changed.
They are so hypnotic to watch.
Just look at them make -
they actually angle themselves, they almost move like a satellite dish,
trying to pick up the best juiciest bits of marine snow.
And then the middle bit - in there, that's the mouth part.
So that - all the stuff that those feathery bits just trap,
it - they kind of feed them in, into here.
Oh they are so beautiful.
But it's not just the stalk crinoids that we have got in store in the haystack zone.
Um... also at this level, there is a shipwreck.
Which according to Gary has become the most amazing artificial reef.
So we are gonna go and try and find it and see what life there is on there.
Oh my goodness me what's that?
It's a - it's a - an isopod crustacean.
And it has extremely elongate legs - and - antennae.
It uses them to - increase it's surface area so that it doesn't sink.
It also uses it to collect these marine snow particles on -
tiny little hairs that line those - those appendages.
As it slowly drifts through the water.
It er... collects those - those particles,
and then it'll draw the - er... the leg or the er...
antennae across its mouth and scrape off the food.
Ha, ha, ha!
But look at that, I looks like it's -
well literally walking on water, or walking in the water.
We call them walkers, or feather foot.
Because of those - those er... ooh - small hairs that er...
fold back when it moves forward,
and then - splay out to give it traction as it paddles through the water.
Ha, ha, ha!
They are wonderful animals.
Now - Mike and Bruce will go on looking there but um...
lets go back now - er... to the Caribbean.
And see how Kate's getting on - er... on the Cayman Wall.
We are at the level - that this wreck is supposed to be at.
We are at about eight hundred feet.
So this wreck that we are trying to find.
It was called the Kirk Pride,
and it was a freighter ship that was - moored up in George Town,
off the Cayman Islands or the harbour off the Cayman Island,
when it broke it's moorings, ran aground and got a huge hole in the side.
Now the - oh my - look - it's like a - sorry -
ha, ha, ha - there it is - Kirk Pride.
My god.
Oh there's something so spooky about seeing shipwrecks.
It looks so amazingly intact...
hey always look like sets, I can't really believe I am looking at a real thing.
It's amazing, I don't know whether you can see but it looks like -
the ship's melting.
All the - the - the metal basically reacts with the sea water,
and rather than just getting - normal rusting -
you get these sort of - stalactites of rust -
dripping down, they are called rusticles.
And what's so incredible I think is that -
they get colonised by life incredibly quickly.
I mean this was sunk in nineteen seventy six,
and already - there's huge amounts of life on here.
Anemones, soft corals - which seems really surprising at these depths.
Because the rocks that we pass on the way here were almost completely barren.
But the thing about a shipwreck is -
it's - it's just a really good secure place -
for things to attach themselves.
There's no competition, they can get in.
They can - get a hold. And then spread.
So anything really that can survive at these depths,
in this pressure - has a ball.
Move in, new home.
We are gonna wave goodbye to the Kirk Pride.
Which is at eight hundred feet.
We are going to descend another two hundred feet.
In fact we are gonna be - pretty much at the bottom -
our plan - is to try and lure in as many of these -
weird and wonderful deep sea creatures as we can.
Whatever is that Mike?
That is a Siphonophore.
And we are going to show - yet another capability.
Amazing capability in my view, of the Tiburon.
We are gonna collect this thing.
The idea being that if you collect it, you can bring it up and study it.
And do other things with it.
You are gonna capture that?
- We are gonna capture that. - How - how long, wow.
Well - we are gonna try to capture that, Bruce.
How - how long is it Bruce?
I'd say it's less than a metre.
But - they are so elastic that they can -
stretch themselves out to considerable lengths.
Er... this is a - a Siphonophore - named Bargmannia.
Camera down.
Ah huh.
What's that thing sticking up from the bottom?
- That's us? - That's the nozzle of our suction sampler.
Very gently - What an extraordinary thing.
But we have had tremendous success in - gently collecting these animals.
Bringing them back to the surface and -
keeping them alive almost indefinitely in - in er...
Ah - there he goes.
Our private - in the laboratory. Oop.
How close is it - how can you tell how close it is Bruce?
Ready - you got it on suction?
- We have - er... two different cameras.
Looking at it from different angles. - Oh I see.
It's getting - it's shriveling itself up into a little ball now.
Ah huh.
Ah - ah - ah - Yes here it comes.
- Have you got - ee - ah - It's starting in.
And again we - we approach this very carefully.
Try to do it gently.
- There we go. - There it is.
- You have done it. - Wait... wait...
- Hold it. - Ah stick...
- Hold onto that guy. Lets - there's -
Oh what else -
A beautiful red ctenophore that's just coming onto the frame.
Are you going to try to try and capture it?
Well I don't think so.
Here we go.
Oh here it is... here we go. There we go.
- Look at that. - Ha, ha, ha!
How incredible.
- What's going on there? - What's it called, er... er...
it's a - it's a - you said it was a - what is it?
It's a ctenophore.
Which means it has these - tines, these little hairs, little cilia.
That are beating like crazy.
We have got a light - on this side now, coming up and hitting it from the side.
And it's refracting just as a prism.
Er... how - possible is it to discover something quite new?
It happens frequently.
Far more often than you might expect.
The deeper we go, the more frequently we find new animals.
And - the deep sea is so poorly explored.
We know so little about it that almost every dive - brings us something new.
What's the most exciting that you have ever captured like that?
I think - without question the most exciting animal
we have ever captured is - Vampyroteuthis.
We er... we caught one not all that long ago.
Brought it back to the laboratory.
And - er... as luck would have it -
Mike deGruy and his camera were waiting for us as we hit the beach.
And these are shots that Mike took - of that animal in the laboratory.
What a creature.
This - this - this - is - Magic. How big is it, how big is it?
This thing is about a foot long, maybe slightly less.
Not that big. Right.
Absolute magic, you get something like this.
They brought this up - put it into a tank.
And - suddenly - it started - performing.
We just gave it a little light.
Gave it an opportunity - and look at what this thing does.
It just goes on and on spinning inside out,
exposing - these wild cilia underneath.
It just kept going - and going and going.
Ha, ha, ha!
- What's going on? - That's one of it's defensive reactions.
It - it throws it's arms
and web up over the top of the body in order to change it's appearance.
Incredible, it looks like something - Vampyroteuthis!
Well now while the Tiburon continues its exploration,
we are going to join er... one of our other dives,
where Alastair's descent has taken him - not to the sea bed,
but to the very top - of a submarine mountain chain.
The mid Atlantic Ridge.
Here is a graphic representation of it.
You can see the underwater mountain range in the centre there.
It's thirty miles wide.
With a canyon in the middle and that -
is what Alastair is descending into - in his submersible.
Any minute now, any minute now we are gonna see the sea floor.
This is - very, very exciting. This is fantastic.
We are finally - we made it, we have made it. Ha, ha, ha!
Just outside the window now,
there are some pretty amazing - mountain scenery.
We are very clearly right at the top of the mountain range here,
the Mid Atlantic Ridge.
The mountains rise as much as one and a half, two miles off the sea floor.
And we are travelling, in a rift valley. Right in the middle of the ridge.
There is absolutely no light whatsoever from the surface down here.
And we are illuminating it.
And I have to say if there's any wildlife down here
they are gonna get one hell of a shock.
Ha, ha, ha! There is absolutely no doubt, that we are looking at volcanic scenery.
Because it's here,
right in front of this submersible - that new sea bed is forming.
What actually happens is, the two crustal plates, are separating apart.
Continental drift is actually occurring - right in the front of us here.
Victor is manoeuvring us very, very, very carefully here.
There are some pretty big rocks.
Great big sort of - piles of lava that keep on appearing.
We have to be very, very careful how we manoeuvre.
There is a fish, there is a rat tail, there is a rat tail down there.
Beautiful little scavenger. Very typical of the deep sea.
Now rat tail is the rude name, the - the nicer name is Grenadier fish.
It's a scavenger.
It's designed to - wait for food that might drop down from the surface.
Those massive nasal um... pits it has in front of its eyes,
are used for tasting the taste of rotting flesh.
And it can - search out carcases of dead fish from a long distance.
That - that is really nice.
That's a Chimaera, a rabbit fish.
Beautiful deep sea fish. That is lovely.
You can see it in shadow,
there is a perfect shadow - on the sand beneath it.
It's sort of lit up by the light here.
Such an elegant fish. Wonderful fins.
Just manoeuvring here, you can just see it in shadow,
just down there on the sand, it's lovely.
There it goes. There it goes.
It's obviously been frightened by the sub.
That is very nice.
This is wonderful.
There's - great pillows of lava here.
This rock is geologically speaking is - very, very, very fresh.
It's straight out of there, and oh look there is a fish.
That is exquisite actually.
It's got lovely shiny swirly movement of its tail.
Really beautiful movement.
Now that is all about preserving energy.
Because if you live down here, you don't get much food.
And all the fish that live on the sea floor -
are designed to minimise the amount of energy they use.
That - that is - that is amazing,
I have always, always wanted to see one of those.
That is a dumbo octopus.
That is extraordinary.
Dumbo of course get their name
because they have these extraordinary flaps of skin that -
make them look like the Disney elephant character.
They use those flaps to manoeuvre through the water.
Dumbo octopuses are deep sea specialists.
You only find them right down here.
And - their tentacles, between their tentacles,
they have got these lovely flaps of skin.
That form a great sort of umbrella, which they can use to hover above the sea floor.
It's very energy preserving.
There it goes.
That is - that is lovely.
Swimming off now, there goes that dumbo.
We are travelling now at an extraordinary sort of -
a sort of fairy tale like scenery, it's wonderful.
There are just hundreds and hundreds of beautiful spires
coming up from the sea bed.
And there - that wonderful sort of a blue rock - a blue mineral deposit.
Bright blue here, right in front of us.
Now all these chimneys are dead.
These are no longer active vents.
But they have left behind an exquisite scenery.
Now what we are looking for now -
is evidence of volcanic activity that's happening right now.
Victor is searching for black smokers.
Extraordinary chimneys where red hot water comes pouring out of the sea floor.
I know it should be very spectacular, if only we can find one.
We are at - a thousand feet now.
Three hundred metres.
What we have done, is bring a sixty five pound yellow tuna with us.
And what Gary is doing - he has laid it on the floor, and er...
we are gonna back away from it.
Settle down.
And um... we hopefully -
will be able to attract in all these fantastic deep sea beasties.
And we will get a prime view from where we are.
Now immediately - we have got all these little shrimp.
Tiny, tiny little shrimp, they are like moths around a light bulb.
They are all attracted in by our lights.
See this little squid here?
And it looks like it's been decorated with fairy lights.
There have been quite a few of them coming in - in the last few minutes.
And they do this mad dash, through - this cloud of plankton here.
They are just such amazing little things.
Interesting eel.
The deepest I have ever seen - a moray eel was at eight hundred feet.
But I have never seen one at a thousand.
This is a first.
Here he is.
How about that?
Incredible.
Oh look at this.
We have got a huge conga eel coming in.
Oh - he must be five foot?
Well the conga is having a really good go at this tuna.
Took a big chunk out of its belly.
That is gonna spread that scent.
Really frustratingly, we think we just spotted a shark.
Right on the edge of our lights.
And it had obviously got a whiff of this tuna.
But of course a whiff isn't good enough for us.
We want it to come in and get a great big bite of it.
And - so what Gary thinks,
is that these bright lights are putting them off coming in.
So - what we are gonna do - is turn all the lights off.
Sit here in the dark, and obviously as we see something come in,
we'll slam our lights on and see if we can get any pictures.
So Gary could you kill the lights now?
Thank you.
- That - - Oh my goodness.
Is an angler fish.
And ha, ha, ha, Bruce - how many of these have you seen?
This is the first one I have seen in fifteen years.
It's an extraordinary animal as - as - as you well know.
They are true denizens of the deep and in every respect.
Ah. And what's hanging from the mouth?
Lets talk about the feeding.
Actually - on its upper lip,
or even sometimes even up on the forehead between the eyes -
they have a structure that we - refer to as the fishing pole.
And at the end of the fishing pole, is a luminous lure.
An organ that contains light producing bacteria.
And - angler fish can turn the light on and off, to attract -
- the foot that the angler fish want - - it's a fishing pole.
It's a light, and it attracts animals, he opens his mouth - eats them - brilliant.
Alright well - lets leave the angler, because now we have got this -
this is something we haven't seen all day.
What - what - what are we looking at here?
This is a medusa called - Poralia Mike.
Er... the closer we get to the bottom -
the more frequently we - we - we see these animals.
And - and for most of us it's a good sign
that we had better start paying attention to our sonar, and altimeter,
because the bottom is - coming close.
These animals feel on small zooplankton.
With the tentacles - coming down from beneath the bell.
And they - inhabit - what we call the benthic boundary layer.
That zone - close to the bottom.
Where er... there is a concentration of - of er...
zooplankton and food and re suspended particles.
Each of those little bumps is a battery - of stinging cells.
So that not only can the animal catch prey with its tentacles-
but er... shrimp or - cocoa pod or any other er...
small animal that bumps into the bell will be stung,
and then transferred down the side to the tentacles and up into the mouth.
On the way down, we passed -
another fish that we haven't seen all day long.
It was a snail fish.
And - the thing that I noticed was -
the ventral fins were formed into what appeared to me to be a sucker disc.
I was er... er... we are in absolutely pitch black,
but this fish is - lit up by our own lights isn't it, on the submarine?
That's right.
It's pitch black, how on earth can that fish see where it's going?
And what's it doing?
It - probably can't see where it's going.
It er... uses it's eyes to detect bioluminescence,
light produced by other animals.
And it has to rely on other senses to find its way.
And Mike you are right.
The er... pelvic fins on this - on this fish,
are fused together into a sucker disc that allows it to -
attach itself to the rock.
And er... remain firmly in place if there is a - a heavy current.
Or a - a - a predator is trying to knock it off.
The fact that we are seeing benthic fishes -
is a good sign that we are getting close to the bottom.
To the bottom.
Shark, shark, put the lights on.
Lights on... It was just - so - quick, and so fast and so brutal.
It was a hammer head shark, I have never seen one before.
It was just unbelievable.
The shark just didn't stick around.
I think the big problem - was that the minute that we put those lights on -
it was gone.
So - we are gonna leave - red lights on - outside the sub.
And - the great thing about many deep sea creatures Kate Humble,
is that they can't see red light.
So to all intents and purposes, to them - it's gonna be dark.
And we are gonna make some clever adjustments to our camera -
which means that it will be able to work in low light.
And we'll fool them.
And we'll see what else comes in.
This is amazing.
We are coming up to some spectacular smokers now.
Black smoke is just pouring out of this - hillside.
We are hovering -just literally metres away from one of these young - smokers.
They are billowing - billowing black smoke.
Alastair Fothergilll have never ever, ever, ever seen anything like this.
The water that is gushing out of the geezer beneath us now -
it's as hot as molten lead.
That's three hundred and fifty degrees centigrade.
It could easily, easily melt these windows.
Careful Victor.
We are turning away now.
That's - that's much more comfortable.
This is amazing.
When you get the lights behind it you can clearly see the shimmering heat here.
Now that black smoke is created by the fact that -
as the hot water comes steaming up from within the crusts,
the earth's crust, it - dissolves out - minerals, minerals in the rocks.
In this case, it's mainly sulphite.
Iron and sulphite.
All along this site, there's probably -
I don't know, two, three hundred of these vents.
It's like - in an area about the size of a football field.
Um... the ones we are looking at now are relatively new.
They may not have been here two, three years ago.
And you can tell that because the chimney's are so - very, very small.
As the red hot water Alastair Fothergillcomes out of the sea bed -
loaded with minerals, cools very suddenly as it meets the ice cold water -
here at the bottom of the abyss.
And all the minerals are precipitated out.
They are dropped out of suspension.
And gradually the chimney builds, and builds and builds.
And scientists reckon they can grow at six metres a year.
Which is extraordinarily fast in geological time.
This is just like -
what it must be to hover in a helicopter right above an active volcano.
We are getting so close, this is - this is really beautiful.
But we are - ha, ha, ha - inches away - that - ha, ha, ha - careful Victor.
This is some very smart submersible flying going on here.
From the point of view of light,
there is actually very little life on these small smokers.
But - what I do know is, that on the bigger ones -
we have a really high chance of finding spectacular quantities of life.
There is an altimeter -
on the Tiburon which tells them how far off the bottom they are,
and according to the altimeter -
the bottom should be coming into view at any moment.
And there it is.
- Do you wanna see some, what's this? - Yes.
Here it comes. That's the bottom.
I don't believe it.
That's the bottom of the - that's the bottom of the canyon?
We made it.
Really.
So - that's the flat part.
The canyon wall probably would be up on the side,
but the truth is this would be better - turned over to Bruce.
What we are seeing here and -
and what we have come upon is - is the foot of a rock face.
And - there is an orange crinoid there.
In the centre of the screen.
Is that a tunicate?
And also a number of tunicates.
Tunicates - are - solitary animals.
That er... attach themselves to the - to the rocks.
And - most tunicates, most respectable tunicates,
just pump water through a series of filters.
Has that chap on the left got a sort of mouth?
This one has evolved into - a predator.
And in - and indeed the - the -
tube that it ordinarily draws water through has become a mouth.
And these animals - sit and wait here on the rock.
- For - zooplankton - to - Sci fi. - Pass by.
And - they reach out -
with their mouth and grab onto the zooplankton as they swim by.
Oh - a huge shark.
Oh my god.
Oh.
Right in front of the sub.
We have a six gill, we have a six gill.
Look at this. Oh.
Only a handful of people have ever seen these sharks.
Look at this, right here.
They are called six gilled sharks, because they have - six gills.
It's as simple as that.
Most other sharks have five.
These have six.
And what they don't have, what makes them look really strange,
and I don't know how well you could see that.
But they don't have the big classic jaws dorsal fin.
They have a much smaller, they do have a dorsal fin,
but it's much smaller, and it's kind of further down the body near the tail.
Look here it is, here it is again.
Look at it go for that tuna. That is incredible.
Oh don't take it away.
It's gonna try and drag that tuna off.
Yeah, he is gonna drag us too.
Kate Humblelt's probably gonna drag us too.
Hardly anyone has seen - do you realise how lucky?
That was just so lucky.
How - big do you reckon that was Gary?
That was about twenty feet - I er... I think.
That's huge by six gill standards.
That is believable. Right past us.
Here he is again, coming round again.
Look here he is. Straight in front again.
Yeah come in, come in and see me.
He is a beauty.
Look at that eye.
Now although those eyes are huge -
obviously at this depth they are not gonna be using them very much.
The main sense they use - is that sense of smell.
And we have our snappers and the conga eels, to thank for that,
because they were ripping that tuna apart.
The - the - scent of the tuna was percolating down
to where those six gills were.
And up they came - Yes.
Oh he's right on me.
The six gill is right on top of the sub.
It's picked up the tuna again.
It swam right across us.
You see this - rain of tuna coming down.
There it is.
It's up here, it's up here, it's right above us.
Oh.
There he goes.
Here I am, sitting here, one of a handful of people -
who has seen a six gill face to face.
It was right - here. Unbelievable.
We are now coming up to an absolutely massive smoker.
This is what we have been waiting for all through the dive.
It's not so much tall as very, very, very wide.
I can see at least a hundred chimneys.
Many of them are active.
This is really, really beautiful.
And covering it, absolutely covering it, are literally -
thousands and thousands of shrimp.
These shrimp are called Rimicaris.
Rimi means rift, and caris means shrimp.
And they are only found on the Mid Atlantic Ridge.
And they were only discovered in nineteen eighty five.
Scientists who first discovered them -
describe them as thousands and thousands of maggots,
swerving over a piece of dead meat.
I think that's rather unkind.
They are much more beautiful than that.
They actually remind me of bees.
There are hundreds of bees on a honeycomb.
All dancing around. Unbelievable.
One false move and they'd be boiled alive.
It's completely extraordinary.
I mean these shrimp are living in biological hell.
I mean just think about it.
They are millimetres away,
from boiling hot water that would boil them alive immediately.
There is absolutely no light down here for photosynthesis.
The water is full of acidic hydrogen sulphide gas
which normally is poisonous to all life forms.
And yet here, somehow they are surviving in extraordinary numbers.
At the very bottom of the food chain.
A highly specialised bacteria, that are able to fix the energy in sulphides.
They use that energy to make - simple sugars, carbohydrates,
which feed all the rest of the life here.
They look closely at these shrimp and found they have go wonderful mouth parts.
Alastair Fothergillln which they can actually scrape up
the sulphur bacteria from the surface of the rock.
There is also one theory that they might actually cover themselves,
with the sulphurous bacteria, on their bodies and in their gill rakers -
and then actually almost gardening the - the - the bacteria.
And feeing off that.
And what's so exciting about the discovery here at the hot vents,
is that up until people saw life on the hot vents -
all the life systems on our planet, without exception -
were totally dependent - on the sun's energy.
But here - a complete suit of animals,
a complete eco system - living without the sun's energy.
But totally reliant on the energy coming out - through the sea floor,
from the earth's crust, in this billowing hot hydrogen sulphide.
One of the most remarkable things of all - about these vents,
is that the conditions we have found here, the horrific conditions we find down here,
the enormous pressure, the total absence of light, and the high temperatures,
may just be exactly the same conditions that prevailed -
when life on earth first began.
And some scientists even speculate -
that the first building blocks of life were not found
in the prime audial soup of shallow lakes near the surface.
But were first constructed right down here, at the bottom of the ocean.
It seems that we may be looking at -
the very birth of Alastair Fothergilllife on earth,
right down here - at the very depth of the abyss.
Far from - the abyss being lifeless,
as many people thought you know for a very long time until quite recently -
it's actually teeming - with life.
The - largest piece of habitable -
space on the planet, actually is under the sea.
But we have only explored one percent of it.
There is so much - more to do.
From all of us on board the Western Flyer in the Atlantic and the Caribbean -
goodbye.