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REACHING THE PINNACLE Mission Dispatch 8 - April 11, 2005 | Mark Schrope - @SEA Correspondent Off Riding Rocks, Bahamas 
As planned, this morning we made it close to a group of islands called the Riding Rocks, not too far from Bimini. John Reed had targeted a deep-sea pinnacle as a promising location that he predicted would yield "The Dive of the Century." Emerging from the sphere after the sub dive there, he said his prediction had been confirmed. John has been studying deep coral reefs since the 1970s, so he may be a tad biased toward a deep coral reef as the best dive this century, but he did undeniably return with video of a spectacular landscape. This was the first time an area like this had ever been explored on the eastern side of the Straits of Florida. On the western side, along Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, Harbor Branch has been discovering and exploring new deep reefs for many years. On the bottom, John and pilot Phil Santos found a mountain of deep-sea Lophelia coral tens of thousands of years in the making. The 400-foot pinnacle starts in about 2,500 feet of water, and during the dive they explored the upper 150 feet or so. This kind of underwater mountain is formed by the growth and death of countless generations of the Lophelia coral, with each new generation taking hold on the top of the last. Given its massive size, what the team found is even more spectacular when you consider that the coral only grows about a half an inch per year. 
John compared ascent of the pinnacle to climbing a mountain because rather than a smooth upward slope such features are typically riddled with gulleys and valleys. The mound is covered in healthy, scenic, three to five-foot high Lophelia coral thickets, each of which is filled with thousands of critters, including crabs, starfish, and other invertebrates. John and Phil found a number of sponges and soft corals while exploring to collect for topside studies. They also discovered a unique feature of this pinnacle as compared to others John has explored - an abundance of orange Madrepora coral, that contrasts with the bright white of the Lophelia. On the west side of the Straits, near Florida, the species is not as plentiful. 
BATZELLA RETURNS
The second dive was closer to the islands, near the area we dove on the way to Cay Sal last Tuesday. Once again, the sub dive team was looking for, and managed to collect, some of the Batzella sponge, which produces promising potential anti-cancer compounds. While the Johnson-Sea-Link (JSL) was on the bottom, a scuba group was exploring a 70-foot deep reef nearby. There the group found a wealth of a sponge called Axinella corrugata, which produces compounds with biomedical potential, but is of most interest as a model for developing techniques that will allow sponge cells to be cultured in the laboratory. If that goal can be accomplished reliably and in quantity, it could prove to be a sustainable means for "manufacturing" the compounds a given sponge produces. Shirley Pomponi and colleagues have been working to culture Axinella with the goal of developing methods that will apply to a wide range of sponges. 
Along with the largest shark yet on a scuba dive - an 8-footer - the team also came across a huge number of tunicates, which are invertebrates that in this case look like large groupings of small glass bells. No one on board had ever seen such a concentration of these organisms. It is amazing how different the inhabitants of individual reefs, even ones relatively close together, can be, and perhaps even more amazing that divers who have been at this for twenty years or so can still so easily find things they have never before seen. Tomorrow, it's back to Freeport where we will do one more submersible dive, clear customs, then cross back over the Straits. 
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