We went underwater to understand what happens below the surface.

Blue Odyssey Initiative was created around a simple idea: before developing solutions, we need to understand what is really happening below the surface.

Many environmental pressures affecting coastal waters cannot be fully understood from land or through existing data alone. Direct underwater observation makes it possible to document marine biodiversity, pollution and seabed conditions in their real environment, while identifying patterns that may otherwise remain invisible.

This field-led approach shaped the first Blue Odyssey expeditions in Southern France and Corsica. By travelling through shallow coastal environments and observing them directly underwater, the team was able to document both preserved and degraded areas, identify environmental pressures and build a clearer understanding of the challenges affecting Mediterranean coastal ecosystems.

For Blue Odyssey, exploration is not an end in itself. It is the first stage of a broader process:

1. Explore
2. →Understand
3. →Act

Field observations provide the evidence. Science, data and expert collaboration help interpret it. This understanding then informs the development of practical environmental solutions such as Blue AI and PolluSub.

We went to sea to observe. What we discovered convinced us to act.

Platypus Craft is an innovative semi-submersible boat created to make the underwater world visible.

Designed as a platform for underwater exploration and observation, the Platypus can operate both in conventional navigation mode and in a semi-submersible configuration, allowing passengers and observers to experience coastal environments directly below the surface.

Blue Odyssey used the Platypus during its expeditions as a field platform for travelling through shallow coastal waters, conducting underwater observations and documenting marine environments over extended distances.

For Blue Odyssey, the Platypus represents more than a vessel. It embodies the principle on which the initiative was built: bringing people closer to the underwater environment in order to better observe, understand and protect it.

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  Platypus Craft — teaser

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  Meeting dolphins aboard the Platypus

Listen: Platypus Craft on Radio Monaco↗

In 2022 and 2023, Blue Odyssey explored shallow coastal waters on two Mediterranean coastlines, travelling for kilometres underwater aboard the Platypus to record fauna, flora and marine litter along the way.

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  Blue Odyssey Sud

  June 2022

  Monaco → Marseille

  Three weeks along the coast of Southern France, with stops in Nice, Antibes, Saint-Tropez, Porquerolles, the Île des Embiez and La Ciotat. The team set out to show both the fragility of coastal seabeds threatened by pollution and the beauty of the sea, finding degraded environments as well as preserved and restored ones.

  explored underwater

  56 kmexplored underwater

  travelled in total

  350 kmtravelled in total

  of underwater observation

  44 hof underwater observation

  Full expedition report (PDF, in French)↗
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  Blue Odyssey Corsica

  June 2023

  Ajaccio → Porto-Vecchio

  Three weeks exploring the shallow coastal waters of southern Corsica, from the surface down to 15 metres, to assess visible pollution and the state of marine biodiversity. The expedition was carried out at the request of the Agence de l’eau Rhône Méditerranée Corse, the Fonds HLD pour la Méditerranée and the Fondation de la Mer. Every observation was geolocated and categorised underwater, and five Villages de la mer were set up along the way to raise awareness among schoolchildren and the public.

  explored underwater

  57 kmexplored underwater

  dive sites explored

  23dive sites explored

  children reached

  400children reached

  Full expedition report (PDF, in French)↗

1. 01

   Information is fragmented

   Scientists, associations, public bodies, divers and fishers each hold part of the picture. The expedition data only takes on its full meaning once compared with theirs — which is what the Corsica report calls for.

2. 02

   Waste travels below the surface

   Most of the litter we saw rested on the seabed. Carried by currents, it collects in bays, seagrass meadows and around ports, places surface-focused clean-ups do not reach.

3. 03

   One dive is not enough

   Each site was observed once, in June, before the tourist season. Understanding how waste moves requires repeated observation over time.

4. 04

   Act where people still can

   Both reports reach the same conclusion: intercept waste at its source and along the coast, where people can still act — from nets at river and outfall outlets to collection in ports.