SCUBA Diving Seguin Island – Maine’s Underwater World

Join us for the first in a series of short documentaries exploring the underwater world of the Maine coast. Follow along as we dive in and show you the amazing marine life that lurks just under the waves surrounding New England’s offshore islands. Seguin Island is known for it’s beautiful lighthouse, but the waters around the island are full of crabs, anemones, and all manner of other exciting invertebrates and fishes.

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[ Species List (In order of Appearance) ]
Frilled Anemone – Metridium Senile
Northern lamp shell – Terebratulina septentrionalis
Sea peach – Halocynthia pyriformis
Tubularian hydroid – Ectopleura larynx
Atlantic rock crab – Cancer irroratus
Toad crab – Hyas coarctatus
Slime worm – Myxicola infundibulum
Radiated shanny – Ulvaria subbifurcata
Northern red anemone – Urticina felina
Invasive tunicate – Didemnum vexillum

[ Camera Equipment ]
Body – Panasonic GH5
Lens – Olympus 14 -42 EZ
Housing – Nauticam
Ports – N85 Power Zoom Macro Port w/ WWL-1 u0026 CMC-1
Underwater Lights – Sola Light u0026 Motion 3800s
Topside Microphone – Deity D3

[ Music ]
Epidemic Sound

[ Narration ]
Exploring Maine’s Underwater World
Seguin Island

Sitting just two miles off the mouth of the Kennebec river, Seguin Island has been a landmark for passing sailors since the late 1700’s when a lighthouse was first constructed here.

The harsh granite ledges are home to many creatures and provide an excellent place to start our series on exploring Maine’s underwater world. Today, we take you under the waves at Seguin Island. We are moored just a few miles up the Kennebec River, so Seguin is just a quick dinghy ride down the river and across the short stretch of
water that separates it from the mainland.

As soon as we drop in, we are greeted by classic Maine green water and hard granite ledges. These ledges provide habitat for all kinds of cool critters, like these delicate frilled anemones.

The steep ledges are habitat for another classic Maine critter, the lampshell. A species of brachiopod, these delicate shells may look like a clam or a mussel, but they are actually completely unrelated. Nestled among the brachiopods is a sea squirt called a sea peach. These are actually more closely related to us than any of the other invertebrates we will see today. Although they may look like delicate flowers, this colony of tubularian hydroids are actually more closely related to jellyfish and coral.

A little further along, we find a pair of rock crabs engaged in what scientists call “pre-copulatory mate-guarding”. Basically, the male is hanging onto the female until she is ready to mate.

While this may look like just a bit of algae, this master of disguise is called a toad crab. They actually cover themselves with that algae, so each toad crab gets to indulge their own personal fashion sense.

Sarah has found a little patch of slime worms. Despite their name, I think these guys are really cool; you have to approach very carefully or they will retract into their slimy tube.

Although most of what we see are invertebrates, we do find fish every now and again, like this radiated shanny hiding under a ledge.

One of my favorite finds on this dive was this beautiful northern red sea anemone. They come in a crazy array of colors, so they are always fun to video.

Unfortunately, even down here, there are signs of humanity’s presence everywhere we go. Twisted balls of line and broken lobster traps are scattered across the bottom. The PVC coating on the traps eventually breaks down and ends up in the sediment and the line can entangle marine mammals.

Even more sinister is this rubbery sea squirt. Commonly called sea vomit or sea snot, it is highly invasive and easily overgrows native creatures. Fortunately, here at Seguin, the patches are relatively small.

As we slowly work our way back to the boat through the shallows, we swim through throngs of cunner. A beautiful way to end a great series of dives here in Midcoast Maine.