 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
 |
OPERATION DEEP SCOPE Exploring Gulf of Mexico Deep-Sea Habitats MISSION DISPATCH 7 • August 14, 2004 Dispatch by Mark Schrope - @Sea Photo-Journalist 
Today, just before lunch, we got the welcome news that the weather was once again calm enough for submersible dives. This was a good thing because we were almost out of DVD episodes of the obscure, short-lived television series called Firefly that somehow managed to
take over much of our free time. Even more welcome to me was the news that I would be on the second dive if the weather held out that long.
It did, and we hit the water just before 5:00 p.m. with me in the Johnson-Sea-Link I (JSLI) aft chamber. This is a cylindrical area in the back about eight feet long and four feet high with a porthole on either side. It holds one pilot and one observer, so it's a little cramped, but that's a small price to pay for the privilege of seeing the deep sea firsthand. The view from the sub's front sphere is by far superior, but the portholes in the back at times offer a more intimate view because they are closer to the bottom. 
The sub descended peacefully at about 100 feet per minute, and the view on the ride down rivaled that at the bottom. At about 675 feet I could see the first dot of bioluminescent life, though some light from the surface was still visible. At 700 feet a bioluminescent circle from an animal I could not identify went past. Soon after, the bioluminescent creatures outside my porthole were plentiful enough to make a complete fireworks display, some going on and off, some pulsating, others swimming around in circles. By 1,250 feet bioluminescence was everywhere in innumerable forms. I was especially amazed by a bell-shaped cnidarian a little smaller than my thumb that had a small bioluminescent ring at its top, a larger one at its bottom, and that swam in mesmerizing rhythmic undulations. At about 1,600 feet the lights came on and I could see some of the fish and plankton that were making the lights. Bioluminescence, the chemically-based light produced by most deep-sea animals, is without a doubt one of the most amazing sights the sea has to offer, but it's one of those things that's impossible to adequately describe or photograph. 
At 1,751 feet, we were on the bottom. I could see a rattail fish and the orange bacterial mats that grow on the bottom near areas rich in oil
and natural gas. At the edge of the light I could see large thickets of tubeworms that are sustained by bacteria that feed on natural gas.
As we moved along the bottom I could see these thickets more closely. Each is composed of hundreds or even thousands of individual hard tubes housing a worm that, when not hiding inside, looks like a pink and white flower sticking out. Like coral reefs the thickets provide protection for a wide range of crabs, fish, urchins, starfish and other creatures. We flew by Dr. Tammy Frank's traps and saw a giant isopod bigger than a trap trying to get at the bait inside, with his futile mission giving the scene a cartoon quality. Next we flew past the Eye-in-the-Sea to find fish and another giant isopod gathered in front feeding on the bait. Later we would pass by the Eye again to find a different fish that seemed drawn to the jellyfish lure, which had just started flashing. Our main mission on the dive was to retrieve some experimental equipment that a graduate student from Penn State University was unable to get during a previous expedition to the area. But we also had some time to look around and take photographs and video. Each time we stopped in a spot, countless tiny shrimp would swarm around the light outside my porthole. These pauses also gave me time to study some thickets more closely and pick out some of what was hiding in them. Sometimes there would be large crabs sitting on top in plain view, or a fish hiding under a thicket's edge. Other times I would have to look closely for a while before spotting the starfish wrapped around an individual tube. No matter how closely I studied a thicket, though, I knew from close-up photos and collections made by the scientists that there was much I was missing. 
Our two hours on the bottom passed quickly, and despite the somewhat contorted positions required to look out the porthole continuously without
cramping, I would have been happy to stay longer. Of course, the return trip offered one more view of the bioluminescent fireworks.
On the surface it was a little bumpy as we waited the five minutes for the Seward Johnson II to come alongside us for recovery. Seas by that time were perhaps four feet. We are hoping they will hold steady there, because anything more will put dives back on hold and force us to find some new DVDs. 
 |  |
| ||