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Return to Channel Islands
July 13, 2000
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We are heading back to the Channel Islands and are looking forward to continuing projects started in June. For geologist Guy Cochrane, that means more nights of deploying side-scan sonar to provide detailed maps of the subsea terrain around Anacapa and Santa Cruz islands, then returning with DeepWorker to verify and “ground truth” the scanned areas with video. For biologists Donna Schroeder and Sarah Fangman, it means time to explore and document an intriguing place near Anacapa Island marked by high relief and pinnacles in depths from 350 to nearly 1,000 feet [106 to 304 meters] known as “the footprint”—a perfect home for several kinds of rockfish. The area may soon become a protected haven for fish, so documentation now will provide vital baseline information for comparison in years to come.
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For the rest of the team, it means more time to explore and assess the nature of the sanctuary from the surface to as deep as we will be able to take DeepWorker—2,000 feet [609 meters]. Although tested to 2,000 feet, so far the little subs have not been used for SSE projects below 1,300 feet [396 meters]. We have been looking forward to going deeper, and hope to find the right time, the right place while here in the Channel Islands.
— Sylvia A. Earle
Project Director
Sustainable Seas Expeditions
[Note: nationalgeographic.com does not research or copyedit dispatches.]