Ocean Spotter started with a question — what actually happens to all the things we see on our dives? Logbooks gather dust in drawers, photos pile up in private cloud folders, and research teams spend years looking for data that divers had long collected. We believe this knowledge is too valuable to be lost.
This platform is our attempt to build bridges — between divers and research, between individual observations and conservation decisions, between a dive today and insights about changes ten or twenty years from now.
Sightings that would otherwise sit in private logbooks become part of a shared body of knowledge — if you take the time to record them properly here.
Your sightings stay linked to your name and under your control. Anyone working with the data scientifically does so under open, documented conditions.
We build the platform we wished existed when we were diving ourselves — one that takes sightings seriously, handles data respectfully, and stays scientifically connectable. These principles are not up for negotiation:
Your sightings are neither sold nor traded for outside ads. Anyone working with the data scientifically does so under open, documented conditions — not in secret.
No third-party ads, no ad-network trackers, no algorithms that resell your attention.
There are plenty of platforms where you can find sightings, dive spots, or tour recommendations. What they rarely combine is reliable data that research and nature conservation can actually connect to. That is where we come in.
Other members can verify, supplement, and assign your sightings to a species. A guess becomes a reliable data point — not just a self-declaration.
What you share stays linked to your name — you keep control. Research teams or NGOs working with the data do so under open, documented conditions, not in secret.
No third-party ads, no trackers, no selling of your attention. What you see here does not depend on an advertising budget.
Standardised fields, open interfaces, clear identifications. Anyone working with sighting data can take it into their own analyses without friction.
If you find this important too — we’d love to have your contribution.
What starts as a single observation travels onwards — into studies, into protected-area applications, into educational materials. Here are a few concrete paths your sightings take.
Universities, marine research institutes, and conservation organisations use sighting data to track populations, detect migration patterns, and build the case for new protected areas.
Schools, universities, and educational projects use publicly available data to back up topics like biodiversity and climate change with real observations.
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