We are on the Exploration Vessel Nautilus
which is run by Ocean Exploration Trust.
The sanctuary program is partnering with them
to use this vessel and the capable ROVs behind me
to explore the Davidson Seamount.
The Davidson Seamount is an extinct volcano.
It last erupted 9.8 million years ago.
It's about 70 miles southwest of Monterey,
about 50 miles off the Big Sur coast.
It's a really big mountain.
It's almost 8,000 feet tall.
It's 26 miles long and eight miles wide.
It's a huge mountain, it's a very significant feature,
and we've barely seen anything of it,
probably less than a fraction of a fraction of a percent.
We're gonna be driving up and down this large mountain
in this relatively tiny vehicle, this ROV.
We're gonna be using some really cutting-edge tools.
The ROV behind me, a remotely operated vehicle,
is named Hercules and this thing is capable of going extremely deep into the ocean.
We're gonna be going over two miles in fact.
And so we can't visit there ourselves,
we can't scuba dive, we're not gonna go in a sub,
it's a little bit dangerous
so we're gonna be able to send this down
and see live high-definition video of the seafloor
and with this and the excellent team here on the Nautilus
we're going to be able to characterize all of these corals and sponges
that we we may encounter.
This is not a data intensive expedition.
This really is about exploration and communicating what we find
live as we're on the seafloor with the general public
with the capabilities that this ship has.
It has a massive bandwidth that can send all this video live over the internet.
So this really is like we're kids kind of peeking around the corner
and just waiting for that next big discovery.
[Voice from expedition] So is this what we expected to find?
[Second voice] I don't think we expected this.
[Third voice] Zero prediction of this!
[Chad King] We made an amazing discovery kind of near the base of Davidson, a little bit away,
just thousands of octopuses brooding their eggs.
But the really remarkable thing is that they were
all lined up in these cracks and crevices
where there was shimmering water coming up.
There were these fluid seeps.
And so there's definitely something really exciting to discover there.
Many other animals just in the seeps and nowhere else
and so it's a real big reason to come back to Davidson.
You know Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
has a lot to offer, never expected this.
It's gonna be a really cool new story to tell.
And that's the cool thing about going to Davidson Seamount.
It's a big area, it's diverse
and we think we know what we're gonna find
but the great thing about exploration is every time we go back there or other places in the ocean
we find something that we never expected to find.
And happened on this cruise.
As you can see I'm standing here in front of the Exploration Vessel Nautilus
We just got back from an amazing research expedition.
We have so many more questions after the amazing discoveries we made
So we're certain to be back.
You can follow us doing that at Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
You can also find out how you can get involved to help protect the world's oceans.