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An Encounter with Dr. Sylvia Earle

April 21, 2011 By 1 Comment
Stephanie and her family with Sylvia Earle
Stephanie and her family with Sylvia Earle

This year, my family and I and other members of the Oceanic Ventures team were fortunate to meet an extraordinary individual, Dr. Sylvia Earle, who has a deep commitment to protecting and conserving the marine environment. Sharing a few impressions from our encounter will, I hope, show how we can all work toward having a lasting positive impact on oceanocean conservation.

You might ask why this topic is of any importance, and how protecting the oceans will affect you or your family. Simply put, the human race depends on the oceans for life. And as divers, we rely on the oceans for our recreation and exploration.

The oceans are responsible for the production of a major portion, up to 50-70%, of atmospheric oxygen. Oceans also sequester carbon dioxide that we produce but are unable to metabolize. Billions and billions of tiny microorganisms living in the ocean use photosynthesis to produce oxygen by capturing carbon dioxide and energy from sunlight. Furthermore, oceans support the essential water cycle that brings rain and freshwater to land, allowing us ample water resources for agriculture and recreation.

The oceans are already showing the stress of human activities. If we fail to take action to further protect these vast and wonderful environments, we risk facing a world with insufficient oxygen, an altered water cycle with unknown consequences, and further buildup of toxic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

But the news isn’t entirely grim. Sylvia Earle emphasizes that we are living in the very best of times. We have the knowledge and resources to protect and conserve our marine environments, while also sustaining important activities for humans, including fishing, drilling for oil and oceanic shipping.

Sylvia is an oceanographer and a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. Many of us would know her through her diving history. Sylvia holds the record as having made the deepest untethered dive to a depth of 1000 meters (3300 feet) for men or women, an amazingly impressive feat. Sylvia has logged over 6000 hours underwater, on par with Ann and Eric! She’s been diving all over the world, but has a deep passion for the Gulf of Mexico, where she first dove and spent many hours enjoying as a child.

Sylvia spoke on April 5 at the Progressive Forum in Houston. Her message was loud and clear. We must take action to protect and conserve our marine environments, while also finding better ways to utilize the oceans for human needs. Sylvia reported that we are seriously overfishing, particularly large ocean fish such as bluefin tuna and sharks. Beyond the absolute beauty and impressive size of these creatures, they are critical for maintaining the balance of life in the oceans. As animals near at or near the top of the food chain, they keep smaller fish species in check, which is important for the health of the rest of marine ecosystems such as coral reefs. Other long-lived and slowly reproducing species such as orange roughy are also threatened by overfishing.

What you can do: become more aware of how our lifestyle might inadvertently contribute to overfishing. The Monterey Bay Aquarium in California is a great place to get started.

 Sylvia also emphasized that we must invest time and effort into finding better methods to better utilize the oceans for human activities. An obvious example was brought to light last year during the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster. This accident took the lives of 11 people and countless numbers of marine species. We still don’t understand the ecological ramifications of the oil that was spilled, or the dispersants that were used, particularly their effect at deep depths in the Gulf. A major impact may be on the tiny photosynthetic organisms that produce oxygen for our atmosphere, as well as larger marine and bird species. As the Deepwater Horizon disaster revealed, we need to ensure that we develop cutting-edge technologies to explore and drill, and contain unanticipated oil leaks. One mile (or 161 ATM in diver terms) or more beneath the ocean surface provides extraordinary challenges. Sylvia pointed out that the oil industry and Houston itself were leaders in developing the needed technology.

What you can do: support investments in education and technology development that provide the most efficient methods of extracting and using energy resources such as oil.

 A third point Sylvia discussed is to develop a system of protected marine environments, similar to the National Parks on land that provide areas for human recreation and conservation of thousands of terrestrial species. President George W. Bush designated three Marine National Monuments within the last few weeks of his presidency that will provide much needed protection for coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean. But more work is needed to protect areas in the Pacific as well as other oceans, and our own backyard, the Gulf of Mexico.

What you can do: become informed about conservation efforts through agencies such as the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and Sylvia’s own Mission Blue.

 mission blue logoMission Blue is specifically aimed at conserving and protecting the oceans.  We are all capable of contributing to this effort, on large or small scales, depending on our resources, expertise and time. Protecting the oceans for our use, the vast numbers of marine species, the health of the planet, and future generations, is within our grasp. Here are a few ways to get started:

  • Learn about sustainable seafood. 
  • Let your government representatives know that you support agencies that conduct marine research.
  • Support marine conservation agencies. 
  • Support educational efforts about marine environments and their protection; let your government representatives know that you think education is vital. 
  • Help locally with beach clean-ups. 
  • Think about what you put on your lawn, and the fact that it will eventually end up in the Gulf of Mexico. 
  • Reduce waste, reuse and recycle.
Filed Under: Conservation, Marine Life, Presentations Tagged With: , , , ,

Scuba Diving from the Dumaguete Pier in the Philippines

February 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Topside, this was the most unimpressive dive site I’d ever seen, with docked cargo ships and unpleasant noises and smells of industrial activity. Descending to the sand at about 20 feet did not provide much inspiration as we were greeted by some rusted cans and a baby’s diaper (used, apparently).  I was left wondering why the boatload of experienced divers and divemasters was so keen on this site.

Dumaguete is on the Bohol Sea in Negros Oriental, Philippines, approximately 30 hours from Houston via Honolulu, Guam and an overnight in Manila. It is an absolutely fabulous dive location, at the northern portion of the “Coral Triangle”, the region of the greatest coral reef biodiversity in the world, and therefore well worth the arduous trip from Texas.

False Cleaner FishThe pier at Dumagute was no exception; it turned out to be the richest site of photo opportunities and encounters with weird and wonderful creatures in Negros Oriental. In this photo I was lucky to capture some very interesting behavior between 2 similar looking fish species, and equally fortunate to have Marco Inocencio from Atlantis Dive Resort interpret the activities. According to Marco, the larger fish in the hole is a false cleanerfish (Aspidontus taeniatus), while the two smaller fishes that are shown in full view are cleaner wrasses (Labroides dimidiatus). The larger fish is a mimic; it’s actually a member the blenny family who is posing as a cleanerfish in order to take bites of skin and flesh from other fishes looking for a cleaning. The false cleanerfish is distinguished from the cleaner wrasses by its head, which ends in a “nose” with its mouth slightly under and behind it while the heads of the cleaner wrasses terminate with their mouths. If you look closely enough you’ll see the characteristic pouty lips of the false cleanerfish, presumably because she isn’t much appreciated for her clever disguise and food-gathering methods!

Filed Under: Digital, Far East, Marine Life, Pacific, Photography, Travel Tagged With: , , ,

Lights – They’re Not Just for The Scuba Diving at Night

January 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

OK, so I struggled with a cute title for this blog, but I hope that the intent is clear: to shed some light (I can’t help it) on why you should carry a dive light -or even two- with you whenever you’re in the water.  That’s right, even during the day, a dive light is a good idea.

During night dives, we carry lights (plural) for obvious reasons: it’s dark in the water and we need the light so we can see things that make night dives interesting; plus, we use the lights to allow us to see our buddies and the rest of the dive group in the water.  We typically carry two lights during a night dive, a primary and a back-up in case the primary light was to fail.

During a day light dive there’s no real issue with locating your buddy or the rest of the dive group if the visibility is half-way reasonable, so why would you want to carry a dive light during the day?  On a lovely sunny day in the Caribbean or the South Pacific there’s plenty of light to see the reef and structures, the fish and other critters, your instruments, your buddy’s hand signals, and enjoy the experience.  Even with cloud cover you can still see all of this, right?

Flat Light Casts a Blue Cast to the Reef

Well, let’s look at a given day-light dive and think about what we see and what might not be so obvious to us.  When we splash in and start our descent, we can look down and see the top of the reef or the wall, perhaps the sandy bottom where we’ll start our tour around the reef, possibly some marine life, and certainly the rest of our dive group.  As we descend, we do notice that the colour gets a little flat but our eyes gradually adjust to the change.  As we continue the dive, we notice the corals and marine life, cruise around some, notice a shark or an eel in a crevice, and if we have a good dive guide, and get a chance to see some smaller marine life that he or she has found for us if we are interested in those macro things. 

Sea Fan with White Light Added Back

We might be carrying a camera and snap a few shots of these things.  After diving our profile we ascend under control, finish our safety stop, and exit the water by climbing back onto the boat.  Sounds like a good dive just happened!

Pygmy Seahorse

But, just a minute, did we see everything that we could?  During the dive briefing the dive leader told us that we would find a bright pink anemone on a coral mound.  During the dive did we notice the great colors in that anemone, on that nudibranch?  Do we even know that this species of coral is actually a bright red color or that the fan coral had a pygmy sea horse on it?  Did we even notice things of interest prior to the dive leader pointing them out to us?  When we look at a guide to the local marine life we see brightly colored fish and corals- why could it be that they seem “different” to us during our dive? 

For me, even after 27 years of diving, I still get a thrill out of seeing that same fish for the 1000th time, or finding a spotted moray, a lobster or a cleaning station, and I like to find things on my own sometimes.  After all, diving is a certain amount of exploration and shouldn’t be merely swimming in a line following the dive leader until we’ve used up our gas supply.  I dive to see things, whether that’s marine life, features of a reef or a wreck, and just like on land we see things underwater as light that’s reflected from the object and into our eyes.  Therefore, I need light in order to see things.  OK, so, where am I going with this?

Well, let me illuminate my thoughts.  Harken back to your Open Water Diver training and recall that water is considerably more dense than air, and that density results in some effects on us in an underwater environment- not the least of which is an increase in pressure based on depth (No, this is not an essay on Boyle’s Law, but don’t forget the First Rule of Scuba). 

Light Absorption from the Scuba Schools International Open Water Manual

Basically, light is energy, water absorbs energy more than air does due to its density, and therefore, water absorbs light more than air absorbs light.  If you recall the basic light spectrum of a rainbow (red through violet) and then put that into context with water depth, you most likely will immediately remember that during that dive at depth, the light was flat, and everything had a bluish hue to it.  Well, that is due to the light energy being absorbed by the water- first the reds are absorbed within the first few feet of depth, then orange, then yellow and then green.  So, at 60’ (18m) during our dive, the “bright” colors of the spectrum have been absorbed by the water, leaving the bluish (blue, indigo and then violet) portion of spectrum only visible to us.  I didn’t intend to make this a detailed discussion on physics, wavelength of light and its corresponding energy, so you’ll have to excuse some of the generalizations I’ve made above.

Now, what does this all mean to us?  When we dive, we carry with us a life support system.  That is to say that we take our “terrestrial environment” with us when we submerge, as being air breathing, we are unable to breathe underwater without a supply of air; and being accustomed to seeing in the less dense atmosphere that is air, we carry our environment in the small air space inside our mask.  So, if we want to see things as they really are, why not carry another piece of our terrestrial environment with us?  By that, I mean an underwater or dive light.

First, an underwater light is basically “white” which is to say that it is all parts of the spectrum.  When we shine that “white” light on an object, the light is reflected back to our eyes allowing us to see it.  Now, the same physics apply here, in that the reflected light can be absorbed by the water but if the light is close to the object, and we are in turn close, the light travels a relatively small distance and thus little of it is absorbed.  So, what reaches our eyes is practically the full spectrum.  This means that what we “see” is the true color of the object, and automagically, when we shine a light on that anemone we actually see that it is a brilliant green color, with the tips being like neon lights.  WOW!  Likewise, that Blue chromis has an amazing “dapple” of colors.

Now, during that dive, we swam around the reef and noted that there were all kinds of nooks and crannies in the coral, sponges, rocks, shapes and sort-of-colors.  If we had a “white” light with us, not only would we have seen the anemone, but we also could have directed that light into a crevice and seen the red and white banded coral shrimp that were at the cleaning station where the spotted moray eel was sitting there with its mouth wide open, being cleaned!  Without the light, we would not have been able to see into the reaches of the crevice.

Now, to throw a little more physics on the wall, a “white” light seems simple enough, but many lights do not produce a “white” light, instead producing a light that has a yellow cast to it.  An incandescent light (i.e. a bulb light) is likely to produce this yellowish light, while an LED light will produce a truer, whiter light.  The whiter the light, the truer the colors will be in the underwater environment.

Last but not least, a light source provides contrast not only in colour but also in texture.  It can also provide a more evident depth of field, making distances more obvious.  The advantage in contrast can allow you as a diver to see differences in texture, produce shadows, and as a result, find and see some very interesting things, like that pygmy seahorse!  You’ll probably now remember that the dive leader carried a light on our dive, and used it to direct our attention to whatever he or she wanted us to see.

So, to wrap this all up, if like me, you dive to see things, then in order to see things, a light is truly indispensible during any dive.  An underwater light restores color, provides contrast and even in the day, allows us as divers to look into and under those cracks, ledges, holes and see the things that, after all, we got into the water to see.

Come and see us at the store, and we can get you set up with right underwater light for your next dive trip!

Filed Under: Marine Life, Open Circuit, Rebreathers, Scuba Diving Equipment Tagged With: , ,

Escape the Winter Cold, Let’s Go Scuba Diving in January!

December 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Eric Underwater in cozumelIt is sometimes hard for me hard to believe that I used to be an avid skier.  In college, I spent a number of weekends, a week around Christmas and Spring Break skiing.  It was fun, exhilarating and challenging.   My underwater camera saw more frozen moisture than liquid.

After moving to Houston in…well let’s not go there…I changed from a skier to a sailor and a diver.  White powdery slopes were replaced by soft sand beaches, boats, bikinis, dive equipment and clear blue water.  Oh, and yes the warm weather.

Winters in Houston are a far cry from the cold wind-blown snow and ice of Lubbock, but I still find that winters can be cold.  I guess I have just gotten used to the warmth so the mild winters here seem cold to me at times. 

Despite the executives from Continental trading in their shorts and t-shirts for wool sweaters, wool pants and poly-propylene long underwear, Houston remains the gateway to the Caribbean and the soft sand and clear blue waters I discovered later in life.  In the Caribbean there is plenty of warmth to go around and diving on some of the worlds most beautiful reefs.  The walls stretch for miles down the coasts and in some places for miles down as well.

While Bing Crosby is singing “Let It Snow…” I am picturing a boat parked over a tropical reef, the top of the reef opening up eighty feet below me with the nearby wall plunging down 400 feet and the current guiding me along this natural aquarium.  The fish are swimming, feasting in the current and the corals are gently swaying in the water.

The easiest place to go for a long weekend is Cozumel, Mexico a limestone island once home to the Mayan Oracle and a Mayan pilgrimage destination.  Cortez removed the Oracle and used the island as a staging area for his conquest of Mexico.

Jacques Cousteau helped make the island a diving Mecca when he first visited the island in 1960.  He found the sleepy little island a paradise above and below the water.  Of course he probably would not recognize the Cozumel of today with 2 cruise ship terminals which can accommodate up to six ships.  The current economic slowdown in the United States has thankfully reduced the number of ships visiting the island but unfortunately to the detriment to the local people.

Cozumel is the home of the second Marine Park founded in Mexico and is the first not to allow local fisherman to spear fish or line fish on the reefs.  The primary industry in Cozumel is tourism with divers making up a large part of the tourist business, especially with the reduced cruise ship traffic.

Parrot FishThe reefs, which took a beating in Hurricane Gilbert are still beautiful.  The southern end of the island has steep walls and beautiful corals and fish, while the North end of the island was sloping walls and fast currents with up and down currents to boot.  For rebreather divers especially, the areas without the up and down currents are more enjoyable and my favorite dives are in the vicinity of Palancar Gardens and Palancar Caves.  It is really special to come up from the stark limestone depths into a garden of colour and lives, swirling around you as you swim in, out and around the pillars of coral.  You float along, the currents carrying you along toward the north (generally) with the scene constantly changing and renewing the colour and life.

Hmm, I think I need to go diving!  Luckily for me, the travel department at Oceanic Ventures, namely Ann, has put together a long weekend in Cozumel so I can complete some training for some students who are also looking forward to warm water and wetsuits instead of the cold water and dry suits I have been making them use for training up to this point.  But, despite my being involved in a training class, there are a number of people who, like me, want to escape the cold and enjoy some warm tropical breezes.

If you can get away, you are welcome to join us in Mexico 13-17 January 2011.  If you cannot make it this time, keep your head warm and remember someone else is staying warm for you.

Filed Under: Caribbean, Marine Life, Rebreather, Scuba Diving Activities, Travel, Trimix Tagged With: , , , , ,

Old Home Week – Chuuk, FSM

September 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Ships China Among the Wreckage

Ships China Among the Wreckage

Every trip seems like the last – I think I cannot find enough people who want to come to Truk, and yet I still return. Some people like to return for a second trip, feeling like they just did not get enough on their last visit and others are intrigued and want to find out more. Two years ago, most of the group felt they were missing something and wanted to return but only if we ran the trip as a Technical Charter.

So what is a Technical Charter in Chuuk? Well it is a trip that steps beyond the typical charter by offering access to the deeper wrecks not often visited by divers to the lagoon. There is more room on the boat, the number of divers is limited to twelve, and more decompression gas is available. There is even surface supplied oxygen on the decompression bar. The boat has to add extra crew because of the depths of the dive and their knowledge of the wrecks is not as extensive as it is for the other wrecks they visit on a regular basis.

These charters tend to attract more experienced divers because of the depths and the decompression times required. The minimum training level required is Advanced EANx (IANTD) or Decompression Procedures and Advanced EANx (TDI) but more training to handle the depths and planning is highly recommended. I really recommend that a participant is better served with Technical EANx (IANTD) or Advanced Decompression Procedures (TDI) and a wreck penetration course under their belts. With more training, the divers tend to enjoy themselves more and stay underwater longer.

The Technical Diver Group

The Technical Diver Group

This week we are joined by a group of very experienced technical divers and a few new ones. My diving companions for the week are Geoff Barker, Steve Brennan (second time to Truk), Mark Conrad (second time to Truk), Ron Hicks (fourth time to Truk), Ann Keibler (third time to Truk), Jerry Kesielwski, Kelly Plato (second time to Truk), Pam Radford (second time to Truk), Bob Sloan (second time to Truk), Jess Stark (second time to Truk), Geoff Streitel (second time to Truk), and Stephanie Watowich (second time to Truk).

I have often thought that a live-aboard dive trip is the most relaxing dive trip but also the most active way to dive. Your equipment is set-up at the beginning of the week and sits there, ready to be donned in an instant. Ok, so maybe it takes more than an instant but it is already together and ready to go. Of course there is still the gas testing, configuration adjustments and the process of getting everything together that accompanies a technical dive but you are only a few steps from the water and a few steps from the ladder on your return. In between dives there are naps to take, books to read, logbooks to complete, planning for the next dive and for the photographers, photographs to download and process.

Geoff & Jerry Planning Their Dive

Geoff & Jerry Planning Their Dive

In general, our surface intervals are three hours between dives and there are three to four dives available each day. The planning portion becomes easier when you realize that the depths are mostly consistent for the dives with only a little variation in depth between the dives.

Our dives this week will be on a wide variety of wrecks, from passenger/cargo vessels to some light destroyers and even a submarine. The first dives of the day will be deeper with shallower wrecks in the later afternoon. Of course many of the “shallow” wrecks for a Technical Charter are the deep wrecks for a standard charter. Our schedule for the week is:

  • Sunday:                      Arrive, 9:30 pm
  • Monday:                     Nippo Maru, Hoki Maru, Rio de Janiero Maru
  • Tuesday:                     Amagisan Maru, Shotan Maru, Fujikawa Maru
  • Wednesday:               Aikoku Maru, Kensho Maru
  • Thursday:                  Oite, I-169, Shinkoku Maru
  • Friday:                        San Francisco Maru, Heian Maru
  • Saturday:                   Nagano Maru, Fujisan Maru
  • Sunday:                      Terra Firma Again
  • Monday:                    Depart at 2:30am

Only on a dive vacation would the day begin at 6:00 am. Breakfast on the Odyssey is a hot, made-to-order breakfast served to you in the dining salon. There are pancakes, waffles, French toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, cereals, juices and of course COFFEE!

Kelly Plato After a Dive

Kelly Plato After a Dive

At about 6:30 the engines start and the crew moves us to the fist dive site of the day. In Chuuk, most of the wrecks are fairly close together, scattered around Tonoas, Weno, and Uman so moving between them is not a long steam. At about 7:30 the crew has the boat tied up, the lines rigged, the ladders down and are ready for divers to jump in. Of course there is a short dive briefing before each dive to aquaint us with the boats location on the wreck, the highlights of the wreck and any other things we should be aware of. The biggest one of these items is the planned departure time for the next wreck.

Diving these wrecks is always a new experience for me. While this is my sixth trip to Chuuk and I have had a number of dives on most of these vessels, I still find new things that I have not noticed before as well as the realization that nature is working to reclaim these massive ships.

One of the most notable is the fly bridges on the Aikoku Maru. In 1998, they were still in position, hanging majestically over the edge of the hull. Over the next few visits they began to sag and now they are merely rubble hanging down over the hull. They are just another pile of twisted metal, appearing to be a part of the damage caused by the explosion of the ammunition hold.

Catalogs of Time

Catalogs of Time

Some people will tell you that ghosts remain on some of these wrecks. There was a large loss of life on many of the wrecks we visited during this week and the remains of these fallen sailors and soldiers are still there. While there was an effort to remove them and give them a proper Shinto send-off in the late 80’s, there are still bones on most of the wrecks including some skulls. Diving the deeper wrecks increases your chances of coming across them exponentially. This experience makes you realize that these are more than diving attractions but also underwater graves, interments for sailors and soldiers who were not fortunate enough to escape the bombings, torpedos and fires. On the Oite, a destroyer, over 400 people perished in the attack.

Diving these wrecks is like swimming through a time capsule; time stopped in 1944 for these ships and the men they took with them. Their personal belongings as well as the cargo are from another place and time. They are reminders how temporary life can be on this earth.

Fine Wine

Fine Wine

What makes these trips special is the people. Most of the people on this trip have been diving together for three or more years. They have taken classes together, helped on another with courses and evaluations and practiced skills with one another. They have traveled together including a trip to Chuuk. Their interaction with one another made this trip especially fun and entertaining.

Who can forget Pam’s “Blink” taste test with wine and beer or Kelly’s agreement to let Jess apply some Krazy Glue to his abused, cut hands. And of course, there was wine served with every meal and several bottles of special wine, thanks to Pam, served with some.

It was a great week of diving and I look forward to the next week when our new diving family arrives but I will miss this group when they leave. There is nothing like diving with these fun loving people.

 

Filed Under: Marine Life, Pacific, Scuba Diving Equipment, Travel, Wreck Diving

Remember your glass of milk?

November 9, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Life is like a child drinking cold milk, there is nothing like blowing bubbles.  Of course with diving, your Mother is not there telling you to quit playing and drink your milk.

 Of course, I find those bubbles a little annoying these days; diving without them has become my preferred way of diving! It is amazing how close you can get to the fish and how curious the marine creatures are when they notice you.  Imagine being four feet away from a twelve foot hammer head or running head on into a spotted eagle ray coming around the corner.

Grand CaymanLet’s hope I convince more of you to become rebreather divers in the near future.  In the mean time, let’s have some fun and play in our milk!

Filed Under: Marine Life, Rebreather Tagged With: