On Friday 17 April 2026, BAFTA-winning naturalist Steve Backshall did something he had never done before: he ran a live wildlife broadcast from inside a public aquarium tank. Sand tiger sharks cruised past his shoulder. His audience watched it happen in real time — not a polished documentary cutdown, not a delayed upload, but a genuine two-way underwater livestream from the main display tank of the National Marine Aquarium (NMA) in Plymouth, UK.
The event, titled "Deep Dive LIVE at the National Marine Aquarium", was the first underwater live event Backshall has ever hosted on his channel. The full replay is below.
What Made This Broadcast Different
Backshall's audience is used to watching him in remote locations — Arctic ice fields, Pacific atolls, the Tepui plateaus of Venezuela. But those segments are filmed weeks or months ahead and edited for broadcast. Live underwater, presented by a working naturalist who is also breathing and swimming, is a different format altogether.
In the words of Backshall himself, posted to his Instagram channel a few days after the event:
"Our first UNDERWATER live event… Come and join me for a dive inside the tank at the Plymouth National Marine Aquarium. We're surrounded by some brilliant native British species, with sharks cruising past and all sorts of other marine life moving around us. It's a proper chance to slow down and take it all in — no rush, just the rhythm of the water and the wildlife doing its thing."
That tone — patient, observational, no theatrics — is what made the format work. Most live underwater content drifts toward stunt territory. This one let viewers sit inside an immersive marine environment and watch native UK species behave naturally on a half-hour timeline that television rarely permits.
About the Venue: The UK's Largest Aquarium
The National Marine Aquarium is the largest public aquarium in the United Kingdom, operated by the marine conservation charity Ocean Conservation Trust. Its headline tank — the one Backshall dove for this broadcast — holds 2.5 million litres of seawater pumped directly from Plymouth Sound, and at 10.5 metres deep it remains the deepest aquarium tank in the country.
The tank's residents include sand tiger, lemon and nurse sharks, southern stingrays, tarpon, barracuda and more than a thousand other fish across roughly 5,000 animals on site. Several of these species — particularly the larger sharks — circulate in clear sight lines for divers in the tank, which made it a natural choice for an immersive live segment.
The Tech Stack: How a Naturalist Goes Live, Underwater
Backshall tagged two product partners alongside the broadcast: DIVEVOLK and Ocean Reef Inc. Together they covered the two challenges that have historically blocked real-time underwater presenting — moving live video to the surface, and hearing and being heard while submerged.
1. Surface Connectivity via DIVEVOLK SeaLink
Underwater wireless signals don't travel through water the way they do through air. That's why the obvious solution — a phone in a waterproof case — has never been enough for live work: the moment the phone is submerged, it's effectively offline. The DIVEVOLK SeaLink is a contact-type underwater wireless transmitter that solves this by linking a smartphone — protected inside a SeaTouch 4 Max+ housing — to a surface unit over a tethered WiFi link. The result: the phone behaves like it's still on a normal wireless network, even at recreational diving depths down to 60 metres.
For a broadcast like this, that means the diver-presenter can run a live stream from the smartphone they already own, push it to YouTube via a normal app workflow, and let the audience comment, react and watch in real time. No proprietary camera, no specialised broadcast rig, no umbilical heavier than a fishing line.
2. In-Water Voice Comms via Full-Face Mask
The other half of the puzzle is voice. Standard scuba regulators occupy your mouth and make speech impossible. A full-face diving mask — like the systems made by Ocean Reef Group — covers the whole face and integrates a microphone, allowing the diver to talk normally underwater. Pair that with a wireless or wired comms link to the surface, and you have a presenter who can both see and be seen on camera and narrate the dive in their own voice.
That combination — SeaLink for the live video and data path, a full-face comms mask for the audio path — is what turned a tank dive into a broadcast.
Why This Format Matters Beyond One Event
Public aquariums have always been one of the most accessible ways to introduce people to ocean life. But there's a glass wall. Visitors press up against the acrylic; they don't go in. A live underwater broadcast collapses that distance for anyone watching the stream — a school group in Manchester, a curious viewer in São Paulo, a future diver in Seoul. The presenter is in the water with the animals, narrating what he sees as he sees it, and the audience is right there with him.
For institutions like the National Marine Aquarium, that opens up new outreach formats:
- Schools livestreams — extending the aquarium's existing Friday classroom sessions into the tank itself, with a presenter who can answer questions live.
- Conservation campaigns — letting a charity show the species it protects in their behavioural context, not just behind glass.
- Behind-the-scenes broadcasts — feedings, health checks, husbandry work that visitors normally don't see.
For independent presenters and creators, the same toolkit means an underwater live event no longer requires a broadcast truck, a satellite link or a dedicated production crew. A diver, a phone, a SeaLink, and a comms mask is enough to run the whole show.
About Steve Backshall
Steve Backshall is one of the UK's most recognisable wildlife broadcasters. He's the host of the BAFTA-winning CBBC series Deadly 60, the BBC One natural-history series Whale with Steve Backshall and Expedition with Steve Backshall, and a long-running presence on family wildlife television since the late 1990s. He has been a certified diver since 1990, and was awarded an MBE in 2020 for services to charity and wildlife conservation.
You can follow his ongoing work at stevebackshall.com.
Try the Same Setup
If you're a creator, instructor, dive operator or conservation organisation looking to run real-time underwater content of your own, the SeaLink + SeaTouch combination is the same workflow Backshall used to put his audience inside a shark tank. Browse our underwater phone housings, the SeaTouch 4 Max Kits, or the SeaLink transmitter directly. For technical questions about live workflows, depth limits and supported phone models, head to DIVEVOLK Technical Support or contact us.
