Channel Islands First Dives
June 21, 2000, a.m.

	Kip Evans in DeepWorker Photograph by Gale Mead

The mist-shrouded Channel Islands along Southern California have been beckoning us for days from our dockside base at Port Hueneme, a few miles south of Santa Barbara’s rolling green hills. Preparations for our mission of “exploration, research, and education” are taking longer than expected as we assemble here the elements needed for two months of fieldwork that will take the Sustainable Seas Expeditions from these islands northward along the windswept Big Sur coast to Monterey Bay, an area that embraces two of the nation’s largest National Marine Sanctuaries.

	Launching DeepWorker Photograph by Gale Mead

Last year, California participants in SSE [Sustainable Seas Expedition] learned to operate Nuytco’s first DeepWorker submersibles, units 3 and 4, which were just right for training, but limited to dives to 300 feet. Now they’ll have the chance to try units 6 and 7, new systems capable of dives to 2,000 feet. These “supersubs” are a little larger, a little heavier, and now bristle with new equipment, from a sophisticated compass, powerful new communication and tracking instruments, to the sub’s crown jewels: custom-made Aries digital video cameras and HMI lights designed, like the subs themselves, to be so simple that “even a scientist can operate them.”

NOAA’s research vessel McArthur, home base for SSE scientists and the subs in California in 1999, again is providing support for operations this year. Among those we sailed with a year ago is LCDR Wade Blake, then McArthur’s Executive Officer, now Commanding Officer, and (good news for the gourmets among us) Arsenio Mercado, Dave Boden, and Raul Monillas are still in command of the galley this year.

The not-so-good news is that the new subs and new deployment equipment built for the ship need adjustments before we can begin to dive. Ian Griffith, Nuytco’s Operations Manager, and Dive Supervisor Phil Otalora, have continued working on deployment issues and pilot training dockside while the McArthur works offshore with SSE scientists and sub pilots, geologist Guy Cochrane and biologist Sarah Fangman. The side-scan sonar and other data they are gathering will provide vital background for the work planned with the subs.

Among the desirable features of the DeepWorker subs are their versatility, the ability to transport them from place to place with relative ease and deploy them from different ships, but this advantage has tradeoffs. This now translates to additional days to devise new rigging for safe deployment.

SSE’s education and outreach programs have proceeded apace, with a successful satellite uplink from Anacapa Island on June 8. As they did last year, NASA provided the technical means to conduct a live Internet broadcast starring education coordinator Laura Francis, who answered questions while scuba diving in the kelp forests near the island.

	Brittle Stars Photograph by Kip Evans

Finally, on June 19, with seas as flat calm as we have ever seen, we are at sea and have just completed two successful dives. During the first, National Geographic photographer Kip Evans descended near Santa Cruz Island, returning with some great images of brittle stars, sea pens, anemones, and fish. In the afternoon, Guy Cochrane completed a research dive nearby, ground truthing side scan sonar data collected earlier. Tracking systems worked beautifully, and topside personnel were able to successfully guide Cochrane to each of four target sites he intended to examine. Launch and recovery procedures with the modified rigging went flawlessly.

	Sea Pens Photograph by Kip Evans

The following day, observers from the National Underwater Research Program joined us to witness the action. We first demonstrated the launch and recovery procedures being employed, then conducted a full dive near Anacapa Island with Guy Cochrane again piloting. He was guided to his first target site by our tracking technicians, and completed a very successful transect to compare his observations with side scan sonar data and to gain answers to some uncertainties about the benthic terrain in that area. His response afterwards was enthusiastic: “that was definitely the best dive I’ve ever had!”

After an overnight stay in Port Hueneme, we are again heading out towards Anacapa Island. Marine biologist Donna Schroeder and education coordinator Laura Francis have joined us for this portion of the mission. During the past two days of operations, there has been little wind, and the seas are so glassy calm that it’s hard to tell where the sea ends and the sky begins, but our directions are clear: Onward and downward!

— Sylvia A. Earle
Project Director
Sustainable Seas Expeditions

[Note: nationalgeographic.com does not research or copyedit dispatches.]