It will be an exciting year ahead for Commander Victor Vescovo, USN (Ret.) and the team at Caladan Oceanic. The journey commences with an expedition with a Chilean science team, led by Dr. Ulloa Osvaldo, to execute and film the first crewed dive to the deepest point of the Atacama (Peru-Chile) Trench, as well as other crewed dives to other points of high scientific interest in the area. With ten or more lander deployments to film and collect samples at various depths of the trench, all as part of a fully permitted science expedition as well as extensive bathymetric mapping of the seafloor in the exploration area.
In the coming months there will be further expeditions including search expeditions to the Midway and Samar battlefields, Yap and Palau trenches and a further dive to the deepest point of the ocean, Challenger Deep.
This will be followed by dives to the Manila, Ryukyu, Izu-Ogasawara, Japan and Kuril-Kamchatka trenches. During these dives, Victor’s team will attempt to test and perfect the world’s first full ocean depth (or 11,000 meters)-capable sidescan sonar and thus capable of mapping swaths of the seafloor up to 1.5 km wide even at the very bottom of the ocean in Challenger Deep. Current technology is usually limited to 6,000 meters of depth.
The 2022 dives will continue to further our understanding of the deep ocean and support the GEBCO 2030 initiative to map the entire seafloor by the year 2030.
Vescovo’s global ocean expeditions have paved the way for scientific research, a key pillar of The International SeaKeepers Society’s mission. The Five Deeps Expedition, as well as expeditions in the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and two annual 'Ring of Fire' expeditions throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans, have illuminated the depths of the oceans revealing unique scientific discoveries. We are proud to present Victor Vescovo with the well-deserved 2021 SeaKeeper of the Year award.
