Do you know how habitat mapping works in the sea? This is not at all like the usual process of habitat mapping on land. In order to carry out habitat mapping works at sea, several influencing factors must coincide. One of the most important factors is the weather. Only in suitable weather the ship can go to sea, so it is usually only a couple of days before the voyage when the marine scientists can start assembling the team and planning the mapping process. Assembling the team is a big challenge, because its members must be able to promptly re-plan their plans for the next few days in order to subordinate them to work at sea. Latvian scientists themselves do not have their own ship, which would be suitable for long-term work of several days at sea. This year, as a result of the public procurement, the Latvian Institute of Hydroecology, the partner of the project, leased the ship from the University of Klaipėda for the purposes of project implementation. If the weather is also suitable and the team is ready to go to work, the availability of the ship is one of the essential conditions that must be met.

All factors coincided on the first weekend of October, and the LHEI team of scientists, as part of the last voyage of this year's mapping season, chose to carry out diving work to collect 1,170 samples of the specially protected habitat Rock Shoals in the sea and to assess with their own eyes the underwater structures found on the shoal.

During the dive, the scientists, who are also professional divers, collected samples of living organisms and filmed and photographed the underwater habitats. Upon returning to the shore, the main task will be to process the obtained photo and video material so that it can be used for the preparation of scientific justifications in the process of determining the boundaries of protected marine areas, as well as laboratory processing of the samples of living organisms collected in order to assess the quality and sustainability of habitats.