Like a real-life Life Aquatic, marine biologist and photographer Alexander Semenov is leading an international team of divers, scientists, sailors, photographers, and videographers on a proposed three-year-long, 30,000-nautical-mile sea trek to find new species and photograph sea creatures as never before.

The project is known as Expedition Aquatilis, and like its movie analog, it also comes with funding issues. The cost of the entire project is an estimated $4 million, which includes preparations and maintenance over the whole expedition period. The team is seeking large donors. Semenov has said that with or without complete funding Aquatilis will still set sail, with the team hoping their activities and discoveries will inspire further donations.

Semenov is playing the role of a modern day Jacques Cousteau, aiming to capture the public's imagination (and wallets) with his enthusiasm and charm. We have to admit, it's a bit contagious.

“We want to show how interesting and unique the life can be, if you chase your dreams,” says Semenov, currently the head of the divers' team at Moscow University's White Sea Biological Station. “We’re going to explore the whole new area of science mixed with art and stories. We’re going to discover the source of knowledge and inspiration for the next generations. And tons of new species as well.”

Semenov and the team have also launched an Indiegogo campaign to chase down $1,500,000. A chunk of that money will be used to fix up and prepare their 70-foot yacht. It is currently dry-docked in Marmaris, Turkey awaiting repairs.

For years Semenov has delighted viewers with incredible photos from his underwater research on his Flickr page. His passion is gelatinous zookplankton, or “gelata.” Gelata are fundamental to the health of our planet in the ways in which they link other living creatures together, says Semenov.

Jellyfish are 95 percent water, which means if you take them out of the ocean, the gelatinous zooplankton turn into a blobs of lifeless goop. Even lab work is tough because they're so fragile. They can fall apart from a single touch. But they're gorgeous when seen in their natural environments, including deep oceans.

Photographing these jellies is a large part of the Aquatilis mission. To photograph zooplankton, the Aquatilis team will deploy a custom-made underwater robot fitted with a built-in 4K camera. They’ll dive with cameras too. Semenov’s got his eye on a RED EPIC camera with a newly developed 6K Dragon sensor and Zeiss lenses.

“When you study the underwater world through the lenses of the camera, details are everything,” says Semenov.

At depths of over 3,000 feet, the remote robot will use large Nikon low-light cameras to capture stunning examples of bioluminescence. All the while, the team will be refining methodologies of scientific underwater research by virtue of what they uncover and sharing it all with viewers from around the globe via satellite.

Jellyfish first appeared on the scene around 500 million years ago. Jellyfish, comb jellies, and siphonophores have survived five major extinctions. During the times that dinosaurs and wooly mammoths were keeling over, jellies were thriving, flapping their cilia, diffracting light and creating their iridescent patterns.

Semenov's pitch is this: 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, but relatively little is known about the deep ocean; while we're out there exploring space there's still plenty to learn about life and the universe right here on Earth.

The Aquatilis team plans to set sail in late 2015 and will begin in the well-known waters of the Mediterranean to test diving and photography equipment. After that they’ll set out across the Atlantic, through the Azores to the Caribbean. Then south to Argentina, Brazil, around Cape Horn and up the coast of Chile. In many of these spots they’ll be diving with equipment never used before in those areas. Heading north, the San Francisco Bay area is their last stop in the Americas before heading out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. There, they'll study how organisms are fairing amid the pollution and see if they are adapting in ways previously unrecorded.

Across the vast Pacific is where Semenov anticipates oodles of new discoveries.

“The middle of the Pacific Ocean and in Oceania are the world centers of biodiversity,” he says. “There are thousands and thousands of unexplored creatures, probably totally unseen by anyone. There are more than 10,000 islands and just a few diving centers.”

Aquatilis is a fusion of goals fitting for the 21st century. Yes, the team is analyzing DNA and RNA, and they’re finding new species. But Aquatilis is also a flag bearer for science using the “best available equipment and cutting-edge technologies.” Semenov wants to redraw the image of the contemporary researcher and audiences' realtime engagement is key.

Concerning the ambition of the Aquatilis expedition, Semenov looks forward with wide-eyed delight, even when he is asked if his ideas might be too out-there.

“Being crazy isn't enough. I’m a professional dreamer, driven by passion and love,” says Semenov. “The whole team has the same disorder!”

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