Xploring the deep: Naples native wins chance to dive with Philippe Cousteau Jr.
A North Naples native had the dive of a lifetime when she won a worldwide contest to appear with Philippe Cousteau Jr. on an episode of Xploration Station.
Philippe Cousteau Jr., grandson of legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau, is host of the Xploration Station series Xploration Awesome Planet. The winner, Carmen Hoyt, got to dive with Cousteau off the coast of Cancun, Mexico, for an episode about whale sharks.
Hoyt said she could not believe she won a worldwide contest like this. The contest was open to high school and college students. When the marine coordinator at Duke University sent students an email suggesting they apply, Hoyt decided to give it a try.
The application was a video that explained why it is important to explore and understand how the planet works, how the underwater expedition would make them better explorers and citizens of Earth, and why they should be selected as the first ever student explorer.
“I had my DSLR camera and I went out to a lake on campus where it was quiet,” said Hoyt, who is in her senior year at Duke. “I lost all the footage from the first attempt from my SD card so this was my second attempt. I think making a video is very intimidating and putting it out there for the world to see, but it was very rewarding in the end.”
Then one day Hoyt was asked to give a speech about lab safety at Duke. She stood at the podium ready to give her talk, when Philippe Cousteau Jr. appeared on a large screen telling her she was the winner.
“They surprised me,” she said. “That was a crazy moment. I still can’t believe it happened. I cried a lot that day. It has always been a dream of mine. I am a very lucky person.”
Steve Rotfeld, president and founder of Steve Rotfeld Productions, the production company that produces Xploration Station, said there were 75 submissions for the contest.
“Carmen’s stood out,” Rotfeld said. “She had everything we were looking for from a student – most important, a real passion for exploration. And we were thrilled with the show because her passion, intelligence and personality came shining through. Our goal at Xploration Station with this contest is to engage and inspire students to pursue STEM-focused careers and Carmen was ideal in that regard."
This summer, Hoyt and her mother were flown to Cancun where Carmen Hoyt did two incredible dives. The episode is expected to air in October.
“My dive with Philippe - that was fun,” Hoyt said. “We went to an underwater sculpture garden built by a local artist. It was near a local reef that was heavily damaged and this was to call attention to the sculpture reef and allow the other reef to recover. It was neat the merging of art and science.”
Hoyt, 21, also got to dive with the whale sharks, and learn a lot about television production.
“I also got to tag along on another shoot and see the process behind the scenes,” Hoyt said. “The thing they kept telling me is nothing is fast in TV. There is a lot of time filming; a lot of footage that is not used.”
Even more important, Hoyt said she learned so much from Cousteau during her five days in Mexico.
“He was great,” she said. “He was an awesome mentor for me. He is a great example of how to be an ocean conservationist. He walked the walk of being an environmentalist, and he wants to inspire the next generation of environmentalists.”
Hoyt is the next generation of an environmentalist. Growing up in a home on a canal near Wiggins Pass in North Naples, Hoyt spent a lot of time on the water.
“I had a childhood where I would spend most of my time on kayaks on the water going to the beach,” she said. “That time exploring inspired me.”
“I think by the time I was in high school I had settled on marine science,” Hoyt continued. “I really knew I wanted to do marine science. I think that is a product of growing up on the coast of Florida.”
Hoyt volunteered with Rookery Bay when she was a student at Gulf Coast High School.
“I did the shark tagging program and that really, really got me excited,” she said. “There was a sea turtle monitoring. I went out on those trips too.”
At Duke, Hoyt is studying biology and earth and ocean sciences. Traveling around the world to learn more about the environment is nothing new for Hoyt who spent the summer after her freshman year in Australia studying all the environments there and the animals that live in them.
“We went to the Great Barrier Reef and the mountains. It was amazing,” Hoyt said.
The following summer she did a service learning program in Thailand. During her two months there she focused on coastal conservation working with green sea turtles raised in captivity. She also did a mangrove clean up and biodiversity surveys.
But the dive with Cousteau was more than just another environment to learn about. It was the chance to be part of a project with a mentor.
“Jacques Cousteau was the inventor of SCUBA and it was amazing to be diving with his grandson,” she said. “I read the book by Jacques Cousteau and his son Philippe senior, and I had him (Philippe Jr.) sign it. He was flipping through the pages and saying, ‘Here is my dad and here is my mom.’ It was a crazy adventure.”
Hoyt hopes to have more adventures in the future. She is interested in studying the ecology of reefs and sharks.
“I would love to do something with research in the future,” she explained. “I definitely want to do a Ph.D. program in the future.”