Luckily the weather has improved and we will try using the campod. You can see it here above when we brought it onboard. After 20 minutes we have our first footage of the Schmidt-Ott seamount habitat and fauna.
Here in the photo, the scientists are gathered around a large screen placed in one of the labs to watch the recording. We can see a rock solid habitat covered by coral debris where the seafloor is less steep, and it’s scattered with gorgonians, hydrocorals, sponges and echinoderms.
We observed dories oreos (Allocyttus verrucosus), grenadiers and rattails, and a few lantern sharks (Etmopterus sp.) among the fish fauna recorded.