HURL
2002
First
Dive (9/14/02)
Posted
by Sean Corson
The
alarm goes off at 5:30 A.M. on the day of my first submersible
dive. I am excited and a little bit nervous. I have that
peculiar sensation that all of the information I have been
cramming into my head for the dive is spilling out of my
ears, which from past experiences usually means I am ready
to test what I have learned. I am working with a team of
scientists from NOAA and the University of Hawaii, to determine
the impact of bottomfishing in the Northwestern Hawaiian
Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve.
Leaving
my cabin I walk aft to the hangar bay where the sub crew
was preparing the Pisces IV submersible for another day
of work. The sub is roughly 20x10x10 feet. It is white with
a bright orange tower over the hatch on top. It has a rounded
or bulbous back end a flat deck on top. The passengers sit
in a sphere tucked under the deck at the bow of the submersible.
Collecting baskets and manipulator arms are attached to
the front of the sphere. The sub sits on skids on a sleigh
that is towed in and out of the ship's hangar by a heavy
winch.
At
7:30 the sub crew moves the sub into position on the aft
deck and signals for Bruce Mundy, a fisheries biologist
from the National Marine Fisheries Service, and me, to join
our pilot, Terry Kerby, who is already onboard. Bruce and
I climb a ladder to the top of the sub and lower ourselves
down the narrow tower to the cockpit below. The cockpit
is a sphere with a 7-foot diameter. Bruce and I lie down
on either side of Terry and look out our view ports. The
submersible is facing the away from the ship so I can just
make out a portion of the deck and the ocean splashing against
the ships transom.
After
a final pre-launch check, Terry signals to the crew to lift
us off the deck with the large a-frame winch, and boom us
out over the sea. The sub swings gently as we move closer
to the water; suddenly the view ports resemble front-loading
washing machines as we bob at the surface. Final checks
are completed and we begin our decent.
I
roll over and look at my surroundings as the light slowly
fades from bright sunny shade of blue to a deeper midnight
color. The sphere that we are in is shaped like an upside
down ice cream cone. It tapers at the sides as it rises
to the hatch and tower above our heads. All around the sides
are innumerable switches, lights, and levers. The submersible
is a beautiful piece of equipment. Although it is complex,
everything is laid out in a clean efficient manner. All
of the wires are tightly bundled, the working parts fit
together perfectly, and the sense that everything is set
in just the right place is so pervasive that it makes me
embarrassed to think of the tangled mess running from my
computer to the power strip back home at my desk.
After
a gentle bump at the bottom at about 350m, we fix our position,
establish radio contact, and lift off with the thrusters.
As the cloud of sand billows away, I look out at and get
the feeling that I am in a mobile aquarium. We run transects
identifying and recording everything we see (fish, corals,
substrate, invertebrates). I am amazed at the diversity
of animals and habitats.
The
sub flies along crossing over deep ledges, flat pavement,
around caverns, and along steep walls. We glide over and
though these features, it feels like we are in a hot air
balloon or a glider looking down at a shifting landscape.
Traversing up the side, and along the summit of a large
outcropping we plough though rivers of small red Luzonichthys
(fish) and arrive at a black coral forest. Large schools
of snapper circle the sub, and sharks occasionally streak
by.
Setting
down on the bottom to get our position and begin a bait
station, we open bags of ground fish to record what comes
in to feed. Five or six Hapu'u grouper fill our viewports
trying to look in and figure us out. The bait stations are
phenomenal. Meter long, graceful Onaga are joined by aggressive
Kahala; a large school of Butaguchi suck at the sand and
cough it back out like vacuum cleaners. These fish all have
separate personalities, and interact with one another like
characters in a silent movie.
We
lift off again and cross a barren desert of sand. Just like
on land, if you look hard enough you can find animals living
in these regions, but they appear few and far between. During
the dive we alternate stretching out, snatching bites to
eat, and counting fish. Once we have finished our transects
we have enough time to push over a shelf and drop back down
into deeper water. Using the manipulator arms we collect
a few specimens before returning to the surface. The viewports
return to their washing machine mode the ship picks us back
up. It doesn't seem like we have spent eight hours underwater,
and I am ready to go back as soon as I can.