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. He and Dr. Cecile Gaspar are trying to establish a comprehensive photographic cataloguing system of the whales that should enable close monitoring of this fragile population and have asked Frederic to dive with the wales and help to observe them in a new way.

Many of the Mediterraneans 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 carries out wildlife population surveys here and provides fresh insights for oceanographer Sandrine Ruiton. Frederics results are exceptionally accurate, since noiseless freediving is much less invasive than conventional diving methods.