In September 2012, Ghislaine founded the TerraMar Project, an environmentalist non-profit organisation dedicated to marine protection, thus partially fulfilling that career urge of her youth. ‘I’ve always joined various marine expeditions. I became more and more involved, then I decided to do it full-time about fifteen years ago.
I went around the world twice, I did pristine-reef work with Nat Geo, looking at the last remaining areas which have no human contact and helping to count sharks, I got licences to pilot submarines, pilot helicopters, pilot ROVs and AUVs, which are remote and tethered vehicles off the back of boats for doing underwater exploration, and I did lots of technical diving all over the world.’
On one of her earliest submarine dives, about 300 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, she was having visions of following in the footsteps of famous marine biologists and oceanographers and discovering a new creature, when she experienced a miserable epiphany. ‘I got down to about 1,500 feet in a submersible, where it’s very dark, and switched on the lights, only to be confronted by a plastic clothes hanger. I didn’t even see a fish or a coral. I’d like to tell you I was very sanguine about it, but I actually burst into tears. From that moment I decided it wasn’t sufficient to be involved in expeditions. I needed to do something more tangible and concrete.’
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19662435? ago
In September 2012, Ghislaine founded the TerraMar Project, an environmentalist non-profit organisation dedicated to marine protection, thus partially fulfilling that career urge of her youth. ‘I’ve always joined various marine expeditions. I became more and more involved, then I decided to do it full-time about fifteen years ago.
I went around the world twice, I did pristine-reef work with Nat Geo, looking at the last remaining areas which have no human contact and helping to count sharks, I got licences to pilot submarines, pilot helicopters, pilot ROVs and AUVs, which are remote and tethered vehicles off the back of boats for doing underwater exploration, and I did lots of technical diving all over the world.’
On one of her earliest submarine dives, about 300 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, she was having visions of following in the footsteps of famous marine biologists and oceanographers and discovering a new creature, when she experienced a miserable epiphany. ‘I got down to about 1,500 feet in a submersible, where it’s very dark, and switched on the lights, only to be confronted by a plastic clothes hanger. I didn’t even see a fish or a coral. I’d like to tell you I was very sanguine about it, but I actually burst into tears. From that moment I decided it wasn’t sufficient to be involved in expeditions. I needed to do something more tangible and concrete.’
http://wma.spearswms.com/2015/10/06/ghislaine-maxwell-is-looking-for-solace-in-saving-the-worlds-oceans/