Adventure Ocean Quest

French Polynesia’s great hammerhead sharks are extraordinarily shy animals and still pose many questions, not least where they go during their annual migration. Freediver Frederic Buyle and cameraman Christian Petron team up with scientist Dr. Johan Mourir to investigate these bizarre predators.

Humpback whales have come back from the brink of extinction, but they are still difficult to approach in the water and their behaviour and vocalisations pose many unsolved questions. Dr. Michael Poole wants to find out if the whales respond differently to a silent freediver compared to conventional divers, and has asked Frederic to dive with the whales and observe them.

Many of the Mediterranean’s coastal waters around harbour cities like Marseille were polluted mercilessly in the past, and much of the local reef life died. Now there is change in the air: pollution has been reduced and artificial reefs encourage wildlife to return. Frederic will carry out wildlife population surveys here and oceanographer Sandrine Ruiton hopes that his results will be exceptionally accurate, since noiseless freediving is much less invasive than conventional diving methods.

The great white shark has a fearsome reputation and diving with them is definitely a risky business. But Frederic wants to show a different side of the infamous great white: Mexican zoologist Mauricio Hoyos believes that their aggression is triggered by excessive disturbance in the water. He wants to get to the bottom of the sharks’ secretive migrations and their interactions with other species, including humans.

The atoll of Fakarava in Polynesia is a true underwater paradise with an extraordinary diversity of wildlife. Frederic’s freediving mission here is very ambitious: he wants to investigate the atoll’s 24-hour rhythm of life, dive with its residents round the clock and record the reef’s sounds. Documenting the atoll’s life in this way could bring ground-breaking insights for scientist Prof. Serge Plane and allow him to explore the interrelationships between different reef organisms in unprecedented detail.