Here is some (unedited) footage of ROV/underwater drone video I took with the help of Shoals Marine Lab back in 2021. This video gives you a glimpse of how serene and magical the rocky subtidal zone in the Gulf of Maine is. Just a heads up for those of you who get motion-sickness, my drone piloting skills need a bit of work! HOWEVER, keep your eyes peeled for the majestic cod(!) that swims by around the 2:26 mark. Just imagine us yelling on the boat 100 ft or so above!
In case, like me, you can’t get enough underwater time, here are some. more of my underwater videos from the Gulf of Maine and even a few bonus videos from my San Diego/Master’s degree days!
And from the Point Loma Kelp Forest…
In these videos, I am visiting my experimental juvenile Giant kelp patches to check on for survivors. These first two videos show my patches that were outplanted as 5-25cm tall babies. For these I wove their tiny little holdfasts into 25 x 25cm rope mats that I then nailed down to the seafloor. I measure them by slowly ascending to the top of each individual and recording their “height” based on my dive computers depth reading. Priya Shukla, my lab mate at the time, is my dive buddy. she is counting the number of individuals that remain on each mat.
In this video, Priya and I visit a patch of my large giant kelp babies. These were outplanted at a size of 1m, on individual strands of rope nailed down within a 1 x 1m squared area of the sea floor. They look a little scraggly at the bottom, but get lush and beautiful as they grow towards the surface!
Breck Alyssa Mccollum 