UNDERWATER ITALY: Discovering The Deep Mediterranean Sea

Today we launch Underwater Italy, a new video channel dedicated to deep diving in the Mediterranean sea. 

The YouTube channel is a container through which me and my buddy Claudio Valerio narrate about our dives in the twilight zone, a depth interval, where coral forests, sponge gardens and millennia-old animals form ecosystems that have not yet been directly altered by humans. This is the so-called mesophotic zone, the bathymetric range between fifty and one hundred and twenty meters, which in recent years is proving to be crucial in investigating the impact of climate and anthropogenic changes on our seas.

With our footage we want to unveil the secrets of little-known seabeds where scientific research and exploration confront the beauty of nature.

Seabeds that are actually very close to the most common dive sites where hundreds of divers dive every weekend. And it is precisely in these spots, served daily by diving centers, that technical diving has redrawn and in some cases overturned the map of possible dives. It has given us the ability to combine two or more dive spots in a single trip or find new ones. 
This information quickly became the heritage of local diving communities, but transmitted mostly in oral form it is inevitably destined for word of mouth distortion if not oblivion. Hence an additional reason for preserving the memory of these environments and perhaps setting a baseline for future observations.

Out there, a few hundred meters from the diving moorings, close to walls, shoals and wrecks is an unknown world waiting to be (re)discovered.

In the coming weeks we will publish the first video. for now a small trailer only music and images.

If you like it, please subscribe 

Brilliant! Well done, you guys.

Thanks Tim!

Beautiful work in challenging conditions!  I’ve subscribed. 

Wonderful, thank you for sharing !  This reminds me of Ballesta's expeditions !

I definitely need to spend more time in Liguria/Toscana for the food diving

When I was young I wished I could have been him. Ballesta is in another league.

If you come to Tuscany to Porto Ercole I will be delighted to be your guide (even to the restaurant)  

Looks great Davide, conditions would certainly be challenging.

Davide 

So Beautiful

Congrulations

Looking forward and hopeing to see more of your deep dives!

Looks great. Thank you for sharing.

After so many videos just music & images, we wanted to try to tell stories around some of the lesser-known biological aspects of well-known dive spots but at the same time be "showcases" for those who have never been there.
It was difficult and perhaps impossible to make mini-guides but we tried to show that the unexpected and the beauty are right there, in the places we frequent most. You just need to have the tools to see them.

In the first episode we opened with a small introduction about our equipment and dives but we tried to use language that did not emphasize the danger and exceptionality of technical diving as we often see people do but rather show that scooters and rebreathers are just tools to closely observe these animals in their natural environment.

In this episode we found at 65 meters (215 ft) a small resident community of John Dory (Zeus faber) that uses the complexity of the Lytocarpia forest as the ideal place to hide and hunt.

We chose the Vlog format because it is perhaps the one that would most render to viewers the immediacy and impression of being there. All to the great shame of me improvising as a Youtuber with white hair and Claudio's big laugh behind the camera and the puzzled looks of the other divers in the Diving.

For the pixel peepers: not all the images are technically perfect or exceptional, but they were chosen with the story-telling function in mind.

For the techies: everything is shot with a GH5S and GH5 in Aquatica/Nauticam housing; several lenses: 12-35mm, 8-18mm, 14-42mm + WWL-1B and Keldan Lights.

English subtitles available
 

Terrific Davide! I loved the pacing, editing and accompanying music. Great images and a story well told. Thanks!

I just gasped at the amount of gear you guys need. Wow..... 

Thanks Tim

Managing the equipment while shooting or taking pictures is the hardest part because I always have to have an eye on the instruments and try to be as stable as possible.

My buddy Claudio valerio is a professional cameraman and has a far better success rate than mine  

1 hour ago, Davide DB said:

I always have to have an eye on the instruments

I can imagine! I did think about a rebreather but then having studied the various guides and the like, I thought I'd couldn't pay enough attention to monitoring the system whilst taking pics. 

Super images though, Davide, and terrific production. Hats off to you.

Great video, thanks for sharing it here.  I'm like Tim, I've thought about this type of diving, but I couldn't imagine paying enough attention to the instruments and also taking photos.  Did you say there were subtitles? I can't see where to activate - it just  says unavailable when I hover over the CC symbol at bottom of the you tube window.

23 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

Did you say there were subtitles?

That's really odd. The first time I watched it there were subtitles for sure. Just checking it now in light of Chris' comments, and there are now no subs and, as Chris says, they are shown as unavailable.

Thanks guys,

Really don't you have subtitles available?

I loaded them for Italian and English and I see the CC button enabled. I can choose language via the gear symbol but Youtube automatically choose language via browser/app user language.

I have to check it. Sorry

fantastic video!

English subtitles work for me

3 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Thanks guys,

Really don't you have subtitles available?

I loaded them for Italian and English and I see the CC button enabled. I can choose language via the gear symbol but Youtube automatically choose language via browser/app user language.

I have to check it. Sorry

No need to apologise, it's more than likely YouTube and not you as the subtitles are now there, definitely were not there this morning, but now I can turn them on.

Great work! 

Subs works as well