Dundrum Bay Waterworld

The scuba divers with Seasearch

study marine life in their spare time.

Their surveys play a vital part in wildlife conservation,

as Claire Goodwin explains.

When people come into the project,

a lot of the time they don't have much idea

about marine life when they're diving.

They might dive wrecks and just be looking at the wreck

rather than looking at what's actually on it.

So by joining in with Seasearch,

they start observing what's underwater.

There's such a vast area of coastline and much of it is still unsurveyed.

We just don't know what's down there.

Up here, it's easy to say,

"There's withe there" or "There's some grassland there".

But underwater it's more difficult to understand what there is there.

Claire and the volunteers are passionate

about protecting our seas into the future.

Well, as well as generally conserving the biodiversity

and making sure we don't make a whole suite of species extinct,

some of these animals can actually be useful to us.

There are some sponges which are being used

to create cancer-curing drugs.

So if we do know what's down there,

it can actually act as a resource for us.

I'm reminded of one of Trevor Norton's books,

Underwater To Get Out Of The Rain,

as we leave Ardglass Harbour.

The mood on board is bright, despite the weather.

This isn't everyone's idea of fun,

battered by rough seas on a dirty day at the height of summer.

But the Seasearch volunteers live for this.

I like the Irish Sea.

I like the way that the Irish ecosystem is very varied

and that you have lots of different creatures

that have very specialised ways of surviving.

I took up with Seasearch about a year ago.

I used to dive a lot of wrecks, and this has given me a lot of interest

in the marine habitat around wrecks.

I don't concentrate on the wreck, I look at the habitat on the wreck

and how the marine life that's evolved around that.

I like to see what's underwater.

I like to learn new stuff.

I like to know what I actually see.

So, the more you know, you can enjoy more,

because you get more observative.

We'll survey a site that hasn't been studied for decades,

so who knows what we'll find!

In the gloom, we find the first signs of life in a sea of mud.

A common sea urchin is easily spotted.

Claire records it and all the other animals we find.

The information on her slate

will add to a huge database of the UK coast

that Seasearch is building up.

We're exploring a rocky reef.

The boulders were dropped here by a glacier thousands of years ago.

A sponge grows tall in the silt to avoid being buried,

making a home for others to settle in.

A sun starfish brightens the darkness.

They have up to 14 arms and grow as big as a dinner plate,

eating the other reef dwellers, including starfish.

A mud anemone is an elegant creature, feasting on the tide

with graceful tentacles that are laced with deadly stinging cells.

It looks like a sea slug but is in fact

a candy-striped flatworm.

A crab wears a living crown of barnacles.

The life down here is small, delicately balanced

and perfectly adapted for survival.

Swaying like a tree in the breeze,

a plumose anemone shares a rock with a pulsing colony of barnacles.

Scallops are strange creatures,

sporting a soft beard of tentacles and about 100 beady little eyes.

It's easy to see why Claire and the Seasearch volunteers care so much

about protecting this undersea world.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd