@Sea - Tortuga's Natural Treasures

	DISPATCH 7 \| 06.09.2007 \| Bioherms off Marathon Key During a prior expedition, John Reed had conducted fathometer transects across an area off Marathon Key where charts suggested a series of submarine hills and valleys (possible bioherms). This transect revealed three distinct features all with over 300 foot relief. This morning, we went back and repeated the transect to confirm the coordinates. The sites looked. Our maximum operating depths for the dive would be about 960 feet and the top of the features were at about 530 feet. In the past, similar sites further to the north had been very productive - so we optimistic abou the dive. Our target this morning is John Reed site #313- Marathon Bioherms. In the front of the Johnson-Sea-Link is sub pilot Craig Caddigan and scientist observer Amy Wright, in the aft observation chamber is sub crew member Jimmy Nelson and scientist Esther Guzman. Esther Guzman describes the dive below. Still A Fantastic Voyage - Esther Guzman While this is the third cruise in which I get to participate, and the third time I get to ride on the back of the sub, the feeling of wonder that I got the first time persists. I doubt this experience will ever become familiar or less amazing. I am very much a city kid, having grown up in one of the biggest cities in the world that is no where near water, and thus the sea is unfamiliar territory. Although I visited the beach many times and read with amazement any book about submarine expeditions, nothing could prepare me for the actual experiences. This adventure starts with the closing of the latch. Then the water starts bubbling on the sides of the sub, and all of a sudden we are in another world. This dive was to Reed's Peak #313. We arrived at the bottom at 964 ft. The bottom looked rocky and flat, very different from the sandy bottom of past experiences. Although shamefully my knowledge of the flora and fauna of the ocean still remains minimal, I get to appreciate the glimpses of life in this apparently barren place: there are a few white sponges with finger-like protrusions here and there, as well as pink, white and orange tiny stylaster coral heads that sporadically cover the ground. Tiny fish swim through the coral. We continue to explore this bump, starting to climb the wall a bit. There are more stylaster corals, looking medium size and now covering more ground. We arrive at a ledge, and all of a sudden there is life everywhere. A school of large jacks swims by. A couple of snappers also join the party. There are small fish of beautiful blues, yellows and pinks, a larger red fish, and some small crabs and shrimp. A small school of groupers swims by. Of course our objective is to find sponges that might have the next cure for cancer, so we turn our attention to the leiodermatium sponges and make some collections. We abandon the ledge climbing up the wall. The terrain changes again and we are back into a more desolate area, with a lot of coral rubble on the ground. Again tiny heads of live coral sprout here and there, their colors contrasting with the rubble. Not as many large fish here, with only the tiny ones around the coral. There are a few very interesting looking pencil urchins here and there. There are lots of little Corallistes sponges, but we climb up looking for sponges with more interesting chemistry for our studies. We climb up to 600 ft, and although the coral rubble continues, there is a good coverage of medium sized stylaster coral. Lots of small fish and a school of large jacks swim by. A rather large grouper swims by the sub, followed by a small shark. Another shark swims by the front of the sub. We collect some more sponges, mainly Pachastrellids, Leiodermatium and Geodia. While we are happy to continue exploring, we are reminded by the people at the Seward Johnson (and our rumbling stomachs) that it is time to return to the surface. We start our ascent and make it to the boat, sporting a smile while trying to convey with words the amazing experience we just had to our colleagues who wait for the samples for processing. June 9, 2007 14:00 EDST This afternoon we will be diving the next "bump" in the morning's transect. In the front of the submersible will be graduate student Priscilla Winder. This is her first dive in the sphere of the submersible and she did a great job. She describes the experience below. At Last, I'm A "Bubble-head" - Priscilla Winder For the past five years, I have participated in 10 research cruises with the Biomedical Marine Research group at HBOI. My passion is both in marine biology and natural products chemistry. I, therefore, have a great interest in the organisms that return from the bottom. On these cruises, I have asked many questions about the life on the bottom and learned about the different types of sponges and sea fans BMR is interested in, i.e. which one have the potential to fight cancer. I have seen a countless number of submersible dives and have been the observer in the back of the JSL numerous times. Oh how I always dreamed about going in the front of the sub, or what some around here refer to as "the bubble." Since there were many people on the boat that had never been in the sub, they were sent down first. I was slated for the Saturday June 10 afternoon dive and was excited to get to go down in the back with Shirley Pomponi riding in the bubble. Mid-morning Saturday, Shirley came and asked if I would like to go in the front. I think my jaw dropped and after what felt like three minutes of asking myself, "Did she really just ask me that or is this wishful thinking", I answered "Yes please, I would love to". I was slated to conduct the dive with Shirley riding in the back as my "co-pilot." I had a grin from ear to ear but I kept thinking about all of the what if's: What if I bring up junky samples?, What if there is nothing there?, What if I really suck at this? John Reed sat down with me to go over how the use the camera and video as well as the dive plan. Depending on the samples from the first dive, I had to decide whether we were going to move to another site. If we moved to another spot, we would have a transect party up on the bridge in between the dives. We tentatively chose a spot where we had run a single transect the night before from east to west. Between the dives we would run a north-south transect. When Amy came up from the morning dive, I asked her if we should find another spot and she replied "I would" so the transect party was set for 1 pm on the bridge. After processing the samples from the morning dive, John Reed, Chip Baumberger, Kate Douglas, and I met on the bridge. There were a bunch of fishing boats hovering around that area and the dive site was right in the middle of them (Sorry fishermen but we have the right of way!) We ran the transect with great anticipation. We set a course to go over the top of the peak we had seen the night before. That peak turned out to be 200 feet tall but then came another peak! This one was a nearly vertical peak, had what looked like a cave on one side, and was 428 feet tall! We chose this as our target site with a maximum depth of 1007 feet and the top of the peak at 579 feet. The eastern base of this peak was the destination for the Johnson-Sea-Link II's 3597th dive. My excitement was growing. I had to quickly make myself a styrofoam cup to attach to the sub and commemorate my first bubble dive in the JSL. The pre-sub dive meeting was called over the loud speaker. I had already drawn the topography of the site on a whiteboard and had to explain the intended dive plan to the sub pilot, Craig Caddigan, Frank Lombardo, the sub crewman in the rear compartment, and the other scientists and crew. I gave them the coordinates of our target and nervously attempted to describe the plan. John stepped in and helped to explain it better since I just froze up. I called east west and west east! Now that they knew what the plan was, we were asked to load up. Equipped with video tapes, a sweat shirt, some snacks, and a camera, I made my way out to the sub on the back deck. I asked Shirley if she wouldn't mind coaching me from the back until I got comfortable collecting and documenting our samples. She said "Of course" making me much more at ease. Jimmy Nelson, a sub crewman, looked down while standing on the top of the sub and asked me to climb up the ladder. Here I am looking down from the top of the sub being asked to slide my way into this 2 foot diameter hole in the top being careful to NOT hit any of the switches. Man that seemed like a tight squeeze but I made it in without a snag. I sat down in the chair and thought to myself "there isn't too much room up here either." The back of the sub in my mind has always been small but the front is as well! The view though is breathtaking. After Craig gave me a safety briefing, the sub leaves the deck and the launch begins. We are now dangling over the surface of the water just waiting to be dropped exactly on the target. I keep hearing over the radio 200 ft, 150 ft, 100 ft, 70 ft until we are dropped to descend into the water. Our attachment to the R/V Seward Johnson is then released and we were free to dive. Craig flipped some toggles and we entered the abyss. Every 100', Craig radioed to the crew on the surface, continually checked the gauges, and talked to topside getting our bearings so that we landed at the base of the peak. He instructed me on the way down how to use the video camera, seemed easy: left is left, right is right, forward brings the camera up, back brings the camera down and focus is from left to right on the second switch. Let's see if I remember that when I get to the bottom! Nearing the bottom, he turned the lights on and within a few minutes, I could see the bottom at 1019 feet. It was a rocky peak with a thin layer of sediment. It was covered with Stylaster corals and there was a large vertical wall in front of us. The perspective from the bubble is definitely different. Things that we farther away seemed closer yet the size of everything looked smaller than they actually were. My field of view was about 300 degrees. When I looked down towards the bottom of the sub, it almost seemed that Craig was going to ram right into the bottom but he didn't! As instructed by Shirley whom I have contact with via a headset, I hit record on the video so that the bottom report Craig gave to topside was recorded. After the bottom report was completed, we began our way up the wall. I stopped almost immediately and saw a familiar sponge, Leiodermatium, a sponge that Jill Roberts has been working on, and I was sure they would appreciate more. Since this was my first collection, both Craig and Shirley instructed me on how to take the still photos and what to say on the video. I then watched in awe as Craig worked the manipulator arm and used the clamshell to collect it. This sample, although small to me in the sphere, was actually fairly large and needed to go in the "biobox" on the front of the sub. I think of it as my large "goodie bag" which will hopefully be full of great organisms with the potential to cure cancer. The biobox is a clear acrylic box on the front of the sub that allows the organisms that are too large to fit into a bucket to remain in water upon resurfacing. Throughout the dive, I was constantly trying to pickup large samples thinking they would fit in buckets yet being told that the sample was huge and must go in the biobox. After my first collection, Craig received a heading to reach the target site. We were sitting at the bottom of the smaller peak! We turned around and headed the other way. In the valley we saw more Leiodermatium sponges and lots of Stylaster coral. We then saw in the distance a large wall. We must be there! Craig talked to topside and I spotted another sponge. After showing the organism to Shirley, who can only see out the window in the back and whatever I show her in the video screen, we decided to collect it. Again, I had to document the sponge in the video and take still photos. Ok not too bad! We continued further upslope and came to the cave. It was a large indentation in the rock with some sponges growing in it but too far in for us to collect. We saw Queen Snappers that by the time I could video them, only one was visible. Halfway through the dive, I looked at my watch and was shocked how quickly the time had gone. Suddenly, Craig said, "Wow look at that shark." As I looked up it was already swimming away and unable to be seen on the video. At ~650 feet, a large school of 3-4' amberjack appeared. They were so thick I could barely see the bottom! They hung around with us for the remainder of the dive occasionally interrupting my view of the menagerie of life on the sea floor. There were lots of neat sponges and life on the bottom. We saw fish, crabs, and a beautiful sponge wonderland! It was so full of color and life that I was in awe most of the time and had to keep telling myself to focus on my task at hand: looking for unique sponges on the sea floor. Finally by the end of the dive I was well versed using the still and video cameras and being able to discern the sizes of samples. We did find one really neat sponge at the end of the dive. It was this bright vibrant red color in a sea of pinks, beiges, and white. We'll see once we get back to the lab if it has the potential to fight cancer. That was one of the best experiences I have ever had and I will never forget it. Thank you so much Amy, John and Shirley! And Amy, I apologize ahead of time but you will definitely be seeing the pictures of me in the front of the sub in both my committee meetings and in my dissertation. Thank you very much for the opportunity.