While diving on an Unnamed Seamount West of Babeldaob near the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, ROV Hercules happened upon two gorgeous deep sea creatures. Shoutout to our operations team for these amazing shots of fan-favorite critters. We start with what might be our best Chaunacops footage yet with clear views of this anglerfish’s famous lure. Also called the frogfish or coffinfish, we often spot Chaunacops sp., but never with quite this much detail. Next is an extra-leggy dumbo octopus (Cirroteuthis)- a deep sea cephalopod known for its adorable ear-like fins. Both of these benthic animals rewarded our Corps of Exploration by hanging around long enough to allow us to gather great video footage and remind us of the beauty and biodiversity of Palau’s waters. The NA168 Lebuu’s Voyage expedition to explore the deep sea inside and around the Palau National Marine Sanctuary was conducted in partnership with the Palau International Coral Reef Center and funded by NOAA Ocean Exploration via the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute. It was named Lebuu’s Voyage by Palauan stakeholders as part of a strategic effort to advance traditional knowledge and best practices in tandem with scientific understanding.
Vatn Systems founders Nelson and Freddie Mills spent their childhood cruising over turquoise waters, doing their homework on a sailboat off the coast of Caribbean islands. While their surroundings were idyllic, their vessel of choice was decidedly not. “The first boat I remember, I think our parents bought it for like five, ten grand,” Freddie said. “It didn’t have refrigeration. It was leaky.”
But it turns out an unreliable ship is a great place to raise future engineers. The brothers, who spent several months of each year on a sailboat, would occasionally put down their homework and pick up a wrench, helping their father jerry-rig mechanical solutions. “We didn’t have enough money to rebuild an engine, so my dad and I and Nelson, we just figured it out,” Freddie said.
After spending years on the water, the brothers have now turned their ambitions to just below the ocean’s surface. Last year, the two paired up with engineer Geoff Manchester and Dan Hendrix, a former special forces dive team officer, to found Vatn Systems, a startup producing autonomous underwater vehicles primarily for defense uses. On Tuesday, the Portsmouth, Rhode Island-based company announced a $13 million seed round led by DYNE Ventures and with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, RTX Ventures, In-Q-Tel and others. The round brings the startup’s total funding to $16.5 million.
The company’s vehicles — the first prototype is about fifty pounds — can swim within the top 300 meters of water and can carry weapons like torpedoes. The vehicles have other uses as well, like passing messages between ships in areas where signals are blocked by adversaries. To do so, a string of Vatn vehicles autonomously get into position and send data from down the line of drones to a ship, with the communication happening out of enemy sightline. “Our ultimate goal is to become an underwater autonomy prime,” Nelson said.
Vatn Systems Cofounders Freddie And Nelson Mills
Vatn also plans to capitalize on the Department of Defense’s current obsession: swarming technology, meaning a large group of drones that a single military officer can operate at once. While there are plenty of startups building aerial drone swarms, Vatn wants to be the government’s answer for underwater swarms. Right now, a single user can operate about 10 Vatn vehicles. “Eventually it’ll be like hundreds,” Nelson said.
Vatn will face well-capitalized competition. Defense juggernaut Northrop Grumman has built its own underwater vehicle prototype, Manta Ray, and the Pentagon selected defense startup Anduril to continue producing its own autonomous underwater device. Nelson argued that Vatn aims to make its vehicles less expensive and easier to mass-produce than competitors.
The brothers have a long road ahead, expanding their 18-person team and going to market in 2025. But, by setting up shop right on Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, the pair has ensured they will never stray too far from their seafaring roots. “I’m staring at my sailboat right now,” Freddie said with a smile, looking onto the dock beside Vatn’s office.
The governments of Germany and Finland fear the damage is the result of deliberate sabotage A pair of submarine cables in the Baltic sea were severed this week in a move European governments fear is the result of deliberate sabotage by malicious actors.
On Sunday morning, the 218km BCS East-West Interlink cable, which connects Gotland, Sweden, and Lithuania, was damaged and taken offline. A spokesperson for Arelion, which owns and operates the BCS East-West Interlink, described the damage to as “not partial damage, it’s full damage”.
The C-Lion1 submarine telecommunications cable is being laid to the bottom of the Baltic Sea by cable ship Ile de Brehat on the shore of Helsinki, Finland on October 12, 2015.
Lehtikuva/Heikki Saukkomaa/via REUTERS/File Photo
The following day, the 1,200km C-lion-1 cable between Helsinki, Finland, and Rostock, Germany, was also severed. This cable represents the only direct data connection between Finland and Central Europe. German and Finnish governments quickly released a joint statement on the damage, saying it must be treated as suspicious. “We are deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable connecting Finland and Germany in the Baltic Sea.
The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times,” said the foreign ministers of both countries in a joint statement. Russia, while not specifically blamed by any of government spokespeople, is the prime suspect for the attack, given the ongoing war in Ukraine and its attempts to destabilise Europe. “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia‘s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors. Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies,” continued the joint statement. “We have to say, without knowing exactly who it came from, that this is a hybrid action. We also have to assume, without knowing it yet, that it was sabotage,” added German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters today.
According to Finland’s cyber security and telecoms firm Cinia, repairs on the cables should be completed within 15 days The incident harkens back to 2022, when the Nord Stream gas pipelines were destroyed around the onset of the Russia–Ukraine war. Investigations are ongoing, but deliberate sabotage is strongly suspected. However, while submarine cables are no doubt increasingly enticing targets for asymmetrical warfare, it should be remembered that the vast majority of submarine cable incidents are accidental or environmental in nature.
Last year, two cables and a pipeline in the Gulf of Finland were cut, sparking similar rumours of Russian sabotage. However, the damage was quickly linked to a Chinese merchant vessel in the area that had (intentionally or not) dragged its anchor through the impacted cables.
Similarly, a pair of submarine cables in the Red Sea were damaged early this year, with blame initially pointed at Yemeni Houthi rebels that were attacking local shipping routes; today the mostly likely explanation appears to be more indirect, with the leading theory suggesting that the cables were cut by the trailing anchor of the Rubymar, a ship that had been hit by a Houthi missile.
Regardless of the cause of the damage to these cable routes, the potential impact on the surrounding data landscape has the potential to be severe. In areas served by multiple subsea cables, data traffic is typically rerouted quickly and with minimal impact to the end user. For countries that rely on only a single cable, however, cable damage can leave the entire nation cut off from the global data backbone, leaving them reliant on satellites to communicat.
This is often the case for smaller island nations, for example Tonga, which had its only submarine cable cut off by a volcanic eruptuion in 2022. As a result, it should come as no surprise that the submarine cable community is using this most recent incident of cable damage to promote the deployment of additional subsea routes, highlighting the growing need for alternative data traffic in an increasingly volatile geopolitical world.
“There have been many stories of high-profile cable cuts this year, highlighting the need for greater network redundancy. We are so reliant on these vital pathways to transport data, that more investment into alternative paths is needed to ensure that when a cable is down, whatever the reason, traffic isn’t impacted,” said Steve Roberts, SVP Network Investment at EXA Infrastructure. “We are seeing governments and regulators starting to take the security of subsea cables more seriously, and this, coupled with continued investment into new projects, will mean that the impact of outages can be lessened in future.”
These maps, which outline the maritime areas of EU member states, have sparked attention due to Türkiye’s absence from key areas.
MSP Infographic base map/ European MSP Platform of the EU Commission
The MSP Platform, funded by the European Union and operating under the European Commission, has conducted a study outlining the maritime boundaries of EU member states. The initiative aims to define the boundaries of European seas, promoting more efficient, secure, and sustainable activities in these maritime regions.
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) defines Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) as a process through which maritime areas are determined via “a political process.”
It emphasizes that MSP is “not a goal in itself,” but rather “a practical way” to manage and organize maritime space effectively.
As part of this initiative, the European Commission requested EU member states to submit their Maritime Spatial Planning studies by 2021. However, some countries have yet to submit their plans.
Controversy surrounds Greek’s plans on EU website
Although Greece has not officially adopted a Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) framework, it has submitted some of its work to the European Commission. The most recent Greek plans, updated and reviewed by the Commission in April 2024, have been added to the official website. However, the map displayed on the site contains contentious information regarding maritime boundaries.
The maritime jurisdiction map for Greece, published by the European Commission, not only claims the entire Aegean Sea for Greece but also overlaps with Türkiye’s territorial claims in the Eastern Mediterranean, effectively confining Türkiye to the Gulf of Antalya.
Although the map states, “Greece’s territorial waters extend up to 6 nautical miles and cover an area of approximately 92,095 square kilometers,” it is evident that the map has been drawn according to the 12-nautical-mile rule, granting extensive maritime zones to islands on the opposite side, with the median line drawn using islands as reference points instead of the mainland.
This has resulted in the transfer of sovereignty over islands, islets, and rocks to Athens, even those not formally ceded to Greece. Notably, the island of Meis (Kastellorizo) has been granted over 40,000 square kilometers of maritime space.
Map of the area of the maritime dispute between Turkey and Greece.
Greece claims Kastellorizo is part of mainland. Turkey claims Kastellorizo are islands.
Alleged maritime boundaries conflict with facts
The international agreements cited while drawing these alleged boundaries do not align with the facts. The document includes the following information regarding the agreements that determine the boundaries:
The agreement signed between Italy and Türkiye on Jan. 4, 1932, in Ankara, and the accompanying protocol signed on Dec. 28, 1932, also in Ankara, define the maritime boundaries of the southeastern Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece has since become the successor to Italy’s rights and obligations, exercising full sovereignty over the Dodecanese Islands since 1947.
The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the 1926 Athens Protocol defined the maritime boundaries in the region of Thrace on the Balkan Peninsula (up to a point 3 nautical miles from the mouth of the Meric River).
From this point to the northern part of the Dodecanese Islands, the maritime boundaries will follow the median line between the Asian coast and the Greek islands in the region wherever the territorial waters of the two countries meet. These maritime boundaries are consistent with traditional and international customary law.
However, the Turkish-Italian Technical Record of Dec. 28, 1932, cited in the document was never signed, ratified in parliaments, or enacted into law.
Furthermore, the European Commission’s website also features a map showing the so-called maritime areas of the Greek Cypriot administration.
This map was compiled from different international sources such as EMODnet, EEA or Marine Regions.
Information obtained from these sources was cross-checked with data from national sources. While compilation was carried out by the European MSP Platform, validation and quality assurance remain the responsibility of the primary data sources.
In the document, which states that the work regarding Cyprus has been completed, it is noted:
“The internal waters and territorial waters of Cyprus extend over an area of approximately 13,968 km² up to 12 nautical miles. The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Cyprus is approximately 98,240 km².”
The document disregards the equal rights of Turkish Cypriots on the island, while also encroaching on maritime zones of Türkiye, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Egypt. It is claimed that all these boundaries are in accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Divers from National Geographic Pristine Seas measure the world’s largest coral colony in the Solomon Islands. Photograph by Manu San Félix, National Geographic Pristine Seas
From National Geographic by Melissa Hobson Exclusive photos reveal a sprawling, 300-year-old coral near Solomon
Islands, recently discovered by the National Geographic Society’s
Pristine Seas expedition team.
From the surface, it looked like a shipwreck, long forgotten on the seabed. But when cinematographer Manu San Félix dove down to take a closer look, he was amazed to find a huge, sprawling coral.
That was the moment the National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas team says they discovered the world’s largest coral colony during an October 2024 expedition in Solomon Islands, an archipelago in the southwest Pacific Ocean.
At 112 by 105 feet, this mega coral is longer than a blue whale, Earth’s largest animal. It is so enormous that it can be seen from space—yet it was long hidden from view.
Solomon Islands is nation made of six major islands and over 900 small islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The Duff Islands seen here sit to the east and are approximately 300 nautical miles from the newly discovered 'mega coral'. Photograph by Caitlin Bailey, National Geographic Pristine Seas
The researchers almost missed it too. Its discovery “was really serendipitous,” says Molly Timmers, the expedition’s lead scientist. “It was found the night before we were moving to another section.”
The expedition team say this is the largest coral colony ever recorded. It is made up of nearly a billion genetically identical coral polyps that work together in the colony as if they are one organism.
Although the newly discovered coral is in excellent health, researchers worry about the many threats facing all corals, including global warming and overfishing. They hope this discovery will inspire more protections for marine habitats in the Solomon Islands.
The largest coral in the world has been found in the Solomon Islands.
The coral, which is visible from space, is three times larger than the previous record-breaker, and is believed to be about 300 years old.
Billions of coral polyps
“Finding this mega coral is like discovering the tallest tree on earth,” says Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and founder of Pristine Seas, via email. “This discovery rekindles our sense of awe and wonder about the ocean.”
The organism is a type of hard coral called Pavona clavus, or shoulder blade coral because it has columns that “kind of looks like shoulders,” says Timmers.
Team members deploy a deep-sea camera from the Argo research vessel. The 'mega coral' is so large it can be seen from space, but the coral has remained hidden from view just offshore. Photograph by Caitlin Bailey, National Geographic Pristine Seas
Ronnie Posala, a fisheries officer with the Solomon Islands' government, prepares for a dive. The newly discovered coral sits 42 feet beneath the ocean's surface and was discovered by chance, just before the research team prepared to survey a different location. Photograph by Caitlin Bailey, National Geographic Pristine Seas
The newly discovered coral measures 112 by 105 feet. It's larger than the average blue whale, the largest animal on Earth and is visible from space. Photograph by Manu San Félix, National Geographic Pristine Seas
It is mostly brown with some patches of yellows, reds, pinks, and blues.
Although this individual might look like a gargantuan boulder, corals are animals related to jellyfish and sea anemones. Tiny individual organisms called coral polyps come together in their thousands to form a colony, and many different colonies make up a reef.
The Solomon Islands are part of a region called the Coral Triangle because of its astounding diversity of coral.
Hiding in plain sight
The researchers believe there could be nearly one billion polyps in this mammoth colony, which is surrounded by sand.
“It's amazing that they've just found this and nobody really noticed before,” says Helen Findlay, a biological oceanographer at Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the U.K., who wasn’t involved in the expedition.
From above, the newly discovered colony looked like a giant boulder, or even a shipwreck.
The colony is visible just behind the boat.
It wasn't until underwater photographer Manu San Félix dove beneath the surface that he realized it was a coral so immense it was difficult to measure. Photograph by Steve Spence, National Geographic Pristine Seas
Without scuba or snorkeling equipment to reach the 42-foot-deep coral, the local community may have assumed it was just a large rock. “There's this Western belief that we have seen all of our [coastal] waters,” says Timmers, “but many, many people don't have the masks and snorkels to actually put their heads in the water to see it.”
Three centuries old
Researchers usually use a coral’s height to estimate its age. This 16-foot-high colony is around 300 years old—but it could be even older.
These corals are usually dome-shaped, like a scoop of ice cream, Timmers explains. “This one is kind of flattened and just goes on,” as if melting, she says.
A diver from the expedition team uses a tape measure to document the coral's size.
Known scientifically as Pavona clavus, this coral species is nicknamed shoulder coral because it grows knobs reminiscent of shoulder bones. Photograph by Manu San Félix, National Geographic Pristine Seas
This coral colony is so old it’s lived through major historical events. It would have seen the first Christian missionaries that began visiting the Solomons during the 19th century. It was alive during when the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Second World War, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It gives you that wow factor—life really created this and has sustained this massive colony,” says Timmers. “It's like our ancestors are still there in the water.”
Corals under stress
During its 300-year life, this immense organism has witnessed striking changes to the ocean, such as global warming, overfishing, pollution, urban and agricultural development, and ocean acidification. When they visited a nearby reef, the expedition team saw that many corals had already died, but it’s not clear how resilient this newly discovered colony could be in the face of these global threats.
Corals are very sensitive to changes in their environment.
“These things are like the polar bear for the tropics,” says Findlay.
Lead scientist Molly Timmers collects water for eDNA sampling aboard the research vessel. The new discovery has what Timmers calls a "wow factor." Collecting environmental DNA can tell researchers more about the conditions the coral lives in. Photograph by Caitlin Bailey, National Geographic Pristine Seas
As more carbon dioxide is produced and absorbed by the ocean, it changes the pH balance of the water, which can stress the corals. “Our climate crisis is making the ocean warmer and more acidic, and that’s eating corals worldwide, including the mega coral,” says Sala.
Corals use calcium carbonate from the water to create their skeleton so, as the waters become more acidic, it is more difficult for these organisms to grow strong and healthy.
“Just like in people: if you don't have enough calcium or carbonates, you end up with osteoporosis, so your bones start to degrade, and they can get fragile,” says Findlay. “The same can be true for corals if they don't have the right conditions.”
Hope for reefs
With corals around the world being affected by bleaching—77 percent of coral reef areas were subjected to high enough temperatures to cause bleaching between 2023 and 2024— finding such an enormous individual colony still in good health offers hope that corals can be resilient enough to survive the climate crisis.
“You have this life pillar that’s still there,” says Timmers. “It gives you this awe, this hope. Just seeing how big it is—the mega coral—and its survival in an area that wasn’t as healthy.”
Timmers believes the coral’s location—in deeper, cooler waters and protected by a slope and shelf—may be key to its good health. It “is really in an ideal spot,” she says.
Tiny coral polyps form on coral colonies.
Their numbers reach the thousands, but the Pristine Seas expedition team thinks there are about one billion polyps in this colony. Photograph by Manu San Félix, National Geographic Pristine Seas
Pavona clavus coral colonies are usually dome-shaped, similar to a scoop of ice cream.
But this colony is flat and stretched over a long distance.
By measuring its height, 16 feet, scientists think the coral is about 300 years old. Photograph by Manu San Félix, National Geographic Pristine Seas
The Solomon Islands sit in a region of the Pacific Ocean known as Coral Triangle for its astounding diversity of coral.
Many of the world's corals now face threats from oceans becoming warmer and more acidic, but this coral sits in a deep, cool pocket of water that may be protecting it from these changes. Photograph by Manu San Félix, National Geographic Pristine Seas
The community is hoping the discovery could help their efforts to bring official protections to their waters. In the Solomon Islands, waters are customary, “meaning they're owned by the local community,” says Timmers. They have unofficially protected these waters for around 14 years, and have protection at the provincial level, but want national support, she explains.
For Sala, the discovery of this mega coral reinforces the sense of urgency to protect and restore the world’s wild places.
Global warming of more than 1.5 °C could be catastrophic for coral reefs. Phasing out fossil fuels and protecting 30 percent of the ocean is vital, he says. Currently, just 8.4 percent of the ocean is protected by government regulations.
In the wake of environmental destruction across the planet, seeing something so remarkable made Timmers feel like the coral is crying out: “We're still here. Don't forget about us.”
" After more than 200 years of guiding mariners, Imray will begin phasing out its chart publishing operations, marking the end of an era.
This tough decision reflects the shift toward digital navigation, but we’re not going anywhere.
We’ll continue supporting sailors with our trusted pilot books, cruising guides, and the popular ‘Explore with Imray’ digital product.
Paper charts will be supported until the end of the 2025 season, so now’s the time to stock up.
We thank our incredible customers and partners for their loyalty. As we chart a new course, our mission to provide reliable navigation resources lives on. "
Blueback chart of Cuba 1:1350000 scale from James Imray in 1854
click on the picture to magnify or see Geographicus
Blueback nautical charts began appearing in London in the late 18th century.
Bluebacks,
as they came to be called, were privately published large format
nautical charts known for their distinctive blue paper backing.
The
backing, a commonly available blue manila paper traditionally used by
publishers to warp unbound pamphlets, was adopted as a practical way to
reinforce the low-quality paper used by private chart publishers in an
effort to cut costs.
The earliest known blueback charts include a 1760 chart issued by Mount and Page, and a 1787 chart issued by Robert Sayer.
The
tradition took off in the early 19th century, when British publishers
like John Hamilton Moore, Robert Blachford, James Imray, William
Heather, John William Norie, Charles Wilson, David Steel, R. H. Laurie,
and John Hobbs, among others, rose to dominate the chart trade.
Bluebacks
became so popular that the convention was embraced by chartmakers
outside of England, including Americans Edmund March Blunt and George
Eldridge, as well as Scandinavian, French, German, Russian, and Spanish
chartmakers.
Blueback
charts remained popular until the late 19th century, when government
subsidized organizations like the British Admiralty Hydrographic Office
and the United States Coast Survey, began issuing their own superior
charts on high quality paper that did not require reinforcement.
We asked coastal residents what they most look for in transportation, and the answer was clear: low costs, convenience, and comfort.
From Yale Climate Vehicles like it could connect cities like New York and Boston.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a boat … it’s … what is that?
Thalheimer: “A sea glider is an all-electric, battery-powered flying boat.” Billy Thalheimer is cofounder and CEO of Regent, a company that’s developing a 12-seat seaglider called the Viceroy.
Regent’s electric seaglider achieved its first series of flights on August 15, 2022 in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, proving its full ‘float, foil, fly’ mission—making it the first craft to take off from a controlled hydrofoil to wing-borne flight.
The seaglider technology demonstrator is a quarter-scale prototype for our 12-passenger seaglider, Viceroy.
The prototype is an unmanned, remotely operated technology demonstrator that was built to prove the transitions for the seaglider’s float, foil, and fly modes of operation.
The REGENT seaglider, a new category of electric vehicle that operates exclusively over the water, is the first-ever vehicle to successfully utilize three modes of maritime operation—floating, foiling and flying—marking a major step forward in maritime transportation.
The successful flight demonstration of the quarter-scale, 18-ft wingspan technology demonstrator was the final step in proving the feasibility of seaglider technology. REGENT is now focusing on developing its full-scale, 65-ft wingspan prototype with human-carrying sea trials expected to begin in 2024.
It looks similar to a plane. But when operated, it starts out floating on its hull, like a boat. It rises up onto a hydrofoil – a winglike structure that lifts it slightly above the water.
Then in open water, it takes off and cruises on a cushion of air near the water’s surface.
Thalheimer: “And that is that cushion of air that birds are flying on when they fly low over the surface of the water.”
He says sea gliders could be a way to travel quickly between coastal cities, like Boston and New York or LA and San Francisco.
And because they’re powered by electricity, which can be provided by clean energy, they have the potential to be much better for the climate than planes or diesel-powered boats.
Float, foil, fly — Watch how seagliders navigate from busy harbors to the open ocean, maneuvering around other vessels and ensuring a smooth, comfortable passenger experience.
Regent has completed an operational prototype of the vehicle.
Thalheimer expects to start commercial production within three years and plans to eventually scale up to larger vessels that could carry 100 people or more.
VIDEO: Cracked, collapsed walls, damaged roofs and sunken buildings are commonplace in Bargny, a coastal town just outside the Senegalese capital Dakar. The cause: rising sea levels linked to global warming. pic.twitter.com/yaW8RP8PrI
