Talk about timing. While we highly recommend getting outdoors as much as possible, no one is going to blame you for spending tonight or the entire weekend shut in a dark, windowless room going far and deep with Google Street View. Collected by the Catlin Seaview Survey, this catalog of vicarious trips is nothing short of amazing — they even include gnarly sea life such as whale sharks and manta ray (we’ve chosen a handful of our favorites and screenshot-ed them above). It’s an effort to not only present the natural beauty of our oceans, but to exemplify the reef’s dramatic state of decline, having “lost over 40% of corals over the last 30 years due to pollution, destructive fishing and climate change. According to the scientific community the decline is set to continue, it will affect 500 million people globally who rely on coral reefs for food, tourism income and coastal protection.”
Basically, in response to all this, the Survey went out to create “a baseline record of the world’s coral reefs, in high-resolution 360-degree panoramic vision.”
Where to explore? The Great Barrier Reef…
…as well as Hanuma Bay in Hawaii are among the places you’re able to visit now.
There there is a Galapagos chock full of playful sea lions…
…and Black Striped Salema.
What an awesome collaboration between Google and the Catlin Seaview Survey.
See the entire catalog at Google.com.
