Scuba Diver Ocean Planet Issue 2/2016 | Page 65

FILM FESTIVAL
www.adex.asia

1. Marbled groupers face

off in French Polynesia
Image © Laurent Ballesta

2

methods also allowed them, for the first time,
to accurately estimate both the number of
groupers – over 18,000 – and the number of
sharks – more than 700, the highest density
ever recorded.
To take full advantage of the small window
during which the event takes place, Laurent
undertook to realise an old dream – an
unprecedented dive of 24 hours at a depth of
20 metres with a revolutionary decompression
method that only required two hours of
decompression time… SDOP

BOOK FESTIVAL
Gombessa:
A Meeting With
The Coelacanth
FILM FESTIVAL
Gombessa II
Presented by
Laurent Ballesta

Image © Sylvain Girardot

groupers, usually solitary, find themselves in
a violent and dangerous cohabiting situation.
Rivalries lead to continuous fighting and every
night hundreds of sharks take the opportunity
to devour the spoils.
Stuck in the pass, the groupers endure what
can only be described as hell for over four
weeks – all for a reproduction event that will
last less than an hour. And therein lies the
mystery: Why come so early in the season for
such a short-lived event? Why spend so much
energy fighting one another when the spawning
occurs within the group? Why take so many
risks facing the sharks when only luck seems to
decide which individuals will have the chance
to produce offspring?
To answer these questions, Laurent and
his team, with the support of the Polynesian
Insular Research Center and Environment
Observatory (CRIOBE), needed a new
“Gombessa” expedition – a sequel to with the
groundbreaking mission to bring back the first
images of a true living fossil, the coelacanth.
Over 40 days, the scientists and filmmakers
dived day and night to observe and understand
this gigantic gathering of groupers, finally
revealing in detail their extremely fast and
violent behaviour through the use of special
slow-motion cameras recording up to 1000
frames per second. The team’s innovative

2. The groupers are
under constant watch
by hundreds of hungry
sharks
Image © Laurent Ballesta