FORCE BLUE releases dynamic new SC7 video

Pictographic track highlights smart reef installation off South Carolina coast

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

FORCE BLUE, a S.C.-based non-profit organization which recruits and fields former special operations SCUBA divers – U.S. Navy SEALS, Marine Recon, and others – for highly specialized undersea work geared toward marine conservation, has produced and released a new video highlighting their work with the SOUTH CAROLINA SEVEN (SC7) expedition late last month.

The video  below describes the ongoing work to install high-tech smart artificial reef systems from three locations off the S.C. coast – Charleston, Parris Island, and Little River – with most of the videography accomplished off Charleston.

FB Smart Reef Installation from FORCE BLUE on Vimeo.

Featuring a veritable flotilla of boats (everything from Coastal Carolina University’s research vessel to police and fire boats to an SCDNR boat), commentary from experts (including S.C. Lt. Governor Pamela Evette and Dr. Paul Gayes, director of CCU’s Burroughs & Chapin Center for Marine and Wetland Studies), parachutists, and former combat divers leaping into the ocean from a helicopter, the video explains why the smart reef system is both forward-thinking and necessary.

The three-minute-50-second video begins with Dr. Tom Mullikin, a member of the FORCE BLUE team and director of SC7, who says: “What you see is what success will look like. … Our plans are not aspirational, but operational.”

The third annual statewide SC7 expedition, largely paralleling the state’s famed Palmetto Trail from the Upstate to the Lowcountry, took place throughout the entire month of July. It culminated with the smart reef installation on July 30.

– For more information about FORCE BLUE, please visit https://forceblueteam.org/.