National Geographic Explorer and photographer Laurent Ballesta closes the Week Eight theme of “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity” with his lecture Friday in the Amphitheater.
After spending 24 hours underwater in the Mediterranean Sea, three months underwater in the freezing waters of Antarctica and five hours below water at the bottom of the French Alps, Laurent Ballesta made his Chautauqua debut.
Before sharing the different expeditions he’s ventured on, he described his first. The French Riviera waters, he said, are a “magical mix” of fresh and salt water, and as a child it was the “perfect school” to learn and educate his eyes to highlight the biodiversity.
Ballesta shared stories and images from his diving expeditions around the world, including of the “living fossil” coelacanth fish.
Ballesta, a French photographer, National Geographic Explorer, trained marine biologist and photographer for National Geographic Magazine, delivered the Friday morning lecture in the Amphitheater for Week Eight of the Chautauqua Lecture Series, “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity.”
“I have to confess that it wasn’t always welcoming diving conditions,” he said. “But, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter for the young diver, young marine biologist I was, as long as an encounter was possible.”
His lecture was filled with images of himself diving — some in mossy, algae-filled waters — as well as wildlife, sea creatures and nature. Ballesta now works as co-director at Andromède Océanologie in Mauguio, France, and leads the Gombessa Expeditions.
These expeditions, according to its website, are aimed at solving a scientific mystery, carrying out extreme dives and collecting new and unique images.
Thirty years after his first marine adventures, his expedition was geared toward fish reproduction in French Polynesia — “in (a) very special moment of the year, in a moment where I knew I would be with groupers, lots of groupers that aggregate just once a year, and we count them with a photo,” Ballesta said.
In this photo, Ballesta said there were about 18,000 groupers, which are fish of the sea bass family. For one day a year, no longer than 30 minutes, the female groupers will leave “billions and billions” of eggs, turning the clear water white. The next day, the groupers are gone.
Five years later, Ballesta came back. However, instead of groupers, the night was full of “a lot” of sharks — around 705 of them. Ballesta said he’d never seen this high density of sharks before.
“We didn’t dare to come close to them,” he said. “We stand back. When we saw them in the current to flush out some fish from the reef and saw them fighting each other, that was very impressive — and very attractive at the same time.”
Nothing happened to Ballesta and his fellow divers around the sharks, but he noticed while the humans were not targets, they were obstacles.
“Step by step, we came closer to them and discovered what really happened,” he said. “Inside the shark pack, what we understood very quickly, is that the shark alone fails. In front of him is this little red fish. They fail when they are alone. Small fish are so fast that they are faster than the shark.”
Ballesta said to take photos such as he does, people need to feel confident, keep their eyes on the viewfinder, never turn away and find a way to light the scene as if it was moonlight, so it does not look like the harsh light of day.
Ballesta’s first publication in National Geographic was over 12 years ago; watching the 700 sharks in the dark was part of a venture through Gombessa Expeditions, which was founded in 2013. But the Gombessa story — the story of coelacanths — is one much older.
“The fish went out of the water 370 million years ago and became an amphibian, and then (a) reptile, and then this fish,” he said. “This discussion is really a legendary fish for all science. It was supposed to be extinct 65 million years ago, until one was found … in 1938 on the east coast of South Africa.”
Ballesta described finding one of these fish in a deep-sea environment as if “on another planet.” There, the fish was waiting along the “huge wall” of the canyon for them with a spiny face and huge, thick scales.
“You’re five hours from the surface, that’s what’s uncomfortable in your mind,” he said. “But, no regret. We knew why we did it. It was for (the) unforgettable face-to-face with a living legend.”
While all of his adventures are “amazing,” Ballesta said there’s often nothing to do while the air tank is decompressing,” so, with five hours to go, he watched “Avatar” on his waterproof iPad. Often dives are rewarding, but sometimes it can be a “little less glorious,” when they are long or stressful, or result in broken equipment.
The “most difficult” dive Ballesta and his colleagues have undertaken was “exactly the same depth, the same duration underwater” as the expedition seeking out the coelacanths in the waters off South Africa, but it was in Antarctica
“We started in the coldest conditions, negative 30 Celsius,” he said. “… It’s very, very cold. The sea is frozen.”
On another expedition, Ballesta said he and his team spent 28 days underwater, traveling along the French Riviera to Marseilles and Monaco.
“I would say that this ecosystem is natural proof that diving is the promise of sustainability and that’s why I follow into the wild,” he said. “Down there, all seems new. We are specialists, very experienced divers, but we were beginners at the same time.”
Ballesta said the experiences had while diving are comparable to the fascination of a little kid, very naive and fascinated by common things.
“The point is that all these creatures are not rare, but it’s so rare to visit them,” he said. “You have this strange feeling to be the first to swim in this pristine, remote place. Even if you are so close to Marseilles, so close to St. Tropez, so close to Monaco, you have the feeling of being on another planet.”
The main contrast between exploration and knowledge, he said, is as more is explored, the more there is to discover.
“Imagine all the mysteries of the sea we could solve,” Ballesta said. “I’m totally convinced that mysteries are the main part of the greatness and respect that wildlife inspires and needs so urgently.”
