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FATHOMING THE GULF STREAM - Nature's Pharmacy and Eyes In The Sea MISSION DISPATCH 13 • 08/31/02 Today's Weather - images courtesy of NOAA & RSMAS Dispatch by Brian Cousin - HARBOR BRANCH Oceanographic The submersible is down on the morning dive. Dr. Tammy Frank is in the sphere with pilot Craig Caddigan, and Dr. Eric Warrant from the University in Lund, Sweden, is in the aft compartment with sub technician Al Fuller. They're making the deepest dive of the mission to date, in the 2,500-foot range, to explore a site in a region of pinnacles off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida. Call it site "4a", as we transited last night through 8-foot seas approximately 80 miles to reach this location from Site 4. 
Dr. Frank describes her objective for the dive. "I'm going to poke as many things as I can down there to look for
bioluminescence." That means considerable time on the bottom will be spent in the dark as the ISIT (Intensified
Silicon Intensified ) camera records illumination stimulated by gentle mechanical prodding from the submersible's
manipulator arm. Often easily visible to the dark-adapted eye, bioluminescent displays are below the threshold most
traditional video cameras can detect. Conversely, the ISIT camera has little tolerance for light, including that from
the sub's selection of HMI systems. Only by turning them off can any displays of bioluminescence be recorded for
analysis. Mission members
Dr. Edie Widder and
Dr. Peter Herring have dedicated significant parts of their careers
to this exceedingly common but little understood language of light in the sea. Dr. Frank's other objective will be to
collect specimens for analysis by
Dr. Shirley Pomponi's biomedical research group.
Ironically, the most abundant species found on this dive is the hagfish that Dr. Frank finds so loathsome. It's as
though they've gathered to bid her a fond farewell on her last dive of the mission. There were few species to check
for bioluminescence and even the subs collection buckets came up with less than the usual abundance of samples.
Caddigan and Frank begin to describe to Pomponi a sponge they recorded on videotape, but did not take a sample from. In the great tradition of "the one that got away", the sponge is identified from the tape as the same species of Hexactinellida that Dr. Pomponi collected some days ago on the Charleston Bump, and would dearly love to have some more. Without a fix, or GPS record of the precise location, returning to find the sponge on the second dive would be a daunting task, a search for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Winding down the mission, the final sub dive is a training dive - the "one training dive out of every ten" rule is being observed today. This time it's on Biomedical Marine Research's dive, the Visual Ecology group having surrendered the prime seat in the sphere on the previous training dive. John Reed will ride in the aft chamber, pointing out samples to collect using the sub's video camera and aft-chamber portholes to spot them on the ocean floor. 
The afternoon sun drops lower in the blue sky . Some of the mission members are packing up their equipment for the
transit to HARBOR BRANCH. The mechanical, buzzing dialect of voice communication between the
Johnson-Sea-Link II and the
bridge of the
R/V Seward Johnson penetrates the hull into the labs.
Upon the sub's return, John Reed describes the site. "It's a classic Lophelia site. The bottom of the ridge starts as gradual slope, at about a 20 degree incline, then it gets steeper as you head up to the top. On this one there were dense thickets of coral with about 10 percent living coral - which is a typical amount of live coral. Funny, though, the thickets resembled an Oculina Reef in a way." Oculina reefs are also deep water reefs, but occur in shallower water between about 250 and 330 feet off the shelf edge of central eastern Florida. Reed's efforts have been instrumental in having over 300 square miles of Oculina coral reefs designated as a Marine Protected Area by the federal government. It's been a successful cruise punctuated by a few setbacks, mainly with some of our modern technology, and partly due to a sparsely populated water column in our areas of operation. But everyone made progress in their field of study, biomedical researchers elbow to elbow with visual ecologists and bioluminescence experts. 
We witnessed some interesting things thanks to our Research Vessel Seward Johnson, the remarkable Johnson-Sea-Link II
submersible and the crews who operate them. Our researchers sampled from the surface to the sea floor with sub, SCUBA,
trawls and nets. They are documenting and characterizing previously unseen coral pinnacles reaching up from the ocean floor
to species of marine life as yet undescribed by science. They are adding to the body of knowledge about our natural world,
and advancing the efforts of drug discovery for the benefit of humankind.
Thanks to NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration for sponsoring the "Exploring Underwater Oases" mission, and to all the Principal Investigators and the science party, Captain Ralph Van Hoek and the crew of the R/V Seward Johnson, and Sub Operations Coordinator Don Liberatore and the crew of the Johnson-Sea-Link II. Extra thanks to Dr. Shirley Pomponi, Dr. Tammy Frank, John Reed and everyone onboard for their assistance and contributions which made this coverage on @Sea possible. 
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