The water was cooler, less translucent too. The wait was much longer. After swimming in the Caribbean seas alongside the most dangerous sharks in the world, the four young adventurers of Lords of the ocean (the lords of the oceans) dived off the coast of France. Engaged in the defense of these large fish that the cinema has often depicted as dangerous, the small troop had been noticed by the distribution of its first films. Their common will? “Changing the dangerous image of sharks” by swimming alongside them, often in apnea and in peace. And especially without a cage and without bait. “99% of the time, the shark does not swim with its mouth open. But it’s always this image that we see”, explained Jérôme Bourdillon during the first getaway. The first episode of this second season is available since Sunday, on their YouTube page.
Winner of several awards at La Rochelle adventure film festival, the first season of Lords of the ocean had achieved its goal. Make good talk about sharks and recall the threat of extinction that hovers over many species decimated by overfishing. Two years after this first trip to turquoise waters, Cyrielle, Jérôme, Armel and Benjamin went less far. The main reason is health. With the Covid-19 epidemic, travel was too complicated. “We also have a lot of French associations who contacted us and wanted to take us to French spots. We seized the opportunity, ”says Brestois Jérôme Bourdillon.
Throughout 2021, the quartet of divers organized several trips to the Mediterranean to swim off La Ciotat or Montpellier. But it was off the coast of Brittany that he most often observed the famous sharks. “It is very little known here. In Brittany, no one thinks that there is a cousin of the great white shark (the porbeagle shark) which swims 50 meters from the shore”, assures Benjamin Lair. To film them, the four friends nevertheless had a hard time. “We spent whole days in the water, churning, without seeing anything at three meters. We needed patience, we no longer believed in it, ”continues the Lorient man. But the reward was worth it. “When you see a porbeagle shark two meters away from you, which stays there, very close, it’s magic”.
“It’s extremely rare to be able to film sharks”
Over the course of their French trip, the young adventurers have crossed paths with fruit bats and starfish in the harbor of Brest, a porbeagle shark off the Côtes d’Armor or a blue shark off the coast of Lorient. They also tracked the basking shark to Scotland but found no shadow of the second largest fish in the world. Instead, the Lords of the Ocean got to know a much rarer species, considered critically endangered by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). “It’s extremely rare to be able to film hag sharks as we were able to do. We have already planned to go back there”, warns Jérôme Bourdillon. “We understood why we did not see them. It’s because they were afraid of the bubbles in the bottles,” says Benjamin Lair. It was then necessary to opt for freediving sessions. “We had to go down to 10 or 12 meters deep, in the current. We stayed a minute and a half no more”. Off Mexico, these excellent divers sometimes went down to 30 meters deep, spending up to 2 minutes 30 minutes without breathing.
At the time of broadcasting the second season of their adventures, Cyrielle, Jérôme, Armel and Benjamin keep in mind their ultimate dream. Swim without a cage alongside the great white shark in order to continue their mission of education and to prove that sharks are not man eaters and that it is important to protect them.