Aerial Surveillance
We know the killer whales are visiting this area each year so the idea of using a spotter plane wasnt to locate where they were, it was to observe and document what the whales were doing, what they were eating and what other species are swimming with them.
We have seen their behaviour change from playfully interacting with each other one minute to aggressively charging across the surface the next.
Because the ocean is usually rough this far offshore, its often difficult to work out exactly what's happening.
The spotter plane circled approximately 300 metres above the killer whales, a researcher onboard documenting the activity below. We also had a number of GoPro cameras mounted to the plane and pointing at the action.
At the end of each day, several of us would painstakingly review all the imagery and make a record of wildlife that was filmed.
The spotter plane wasnt the only aerial device we deployed in our efforts to gain imagery of marine creatures at and beneath the surface.
We had arranged a large remotely controlled aircraft to fly daily transects across the area of interest.
The Cybereye 2 is equipped with high resolution still and video cameras and capable of staying aloft for over 6 hours.
This awesome 4 metre long machine was to beam live video down to our vessel so we would have a constant, controllable eye in the sky.
Several weeks before it was due to arrive, the owners of the machine found other work and had to pull out.
We also had a large kite equipped with a high definition camera and video transmitter.
The idea was to fly it above the vessel while we were transiting throughout the site and hopefully see other species that were just below the surface.
Everything was going well .. right up until it was time to launch. Flying kites behind moving boats isnt as easy as it sounds and the turbulence being created by the wind swirling past the wheelhouse made getting the kite airborne almost impossible.
After attempting to launch for over an hour we decided to give up and refocus on something we knew we could do .. look out for killer whales.