Diving Thoughts

In March we were very fortunate to have Steven Schwankert give us a talk on the 2007 expedition he organised to dive Lake Khovsgol in Mongolia. Steven is the founder of Sinoscuba in Beijing (www.sinoscuba.com) and is also a member of the Explorers Club (http://www.explorers.org). He used to run trips to dive Lion City, which is in the Thousand Islands Lake in Zhejiang province in China, and has also organised ice diving expeditions to Lake Baikal in Siberia.

So a diving expedition to Mongolia, a land-locked country? Are you sure? Well Lake Khovsgol is in northern Mongolia and is the largest and deepest lake in the country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Kh%C3%B6vsg%C3%B6l). It is smaller than Lake Baikal but still contains 0.4% of the world’s fresh water and actually drains into Lake Baikal. It also has considerably less biodiversity, but on the positive side, there are no large factories nearby. In fact one of the team’s goals was to examine the water for evidence of pollution, and at all the sites they checked they found that it is remarkably and reassuringly unpolluted. The lake is covered by ice for 6 months of the year, when it is used as a highway from Russia as the ice surface offers a major short cut compared to the local roads. Unfortunately in Spring and Autumn, each year several vehicles tend to fall through the ice. The team were unable to find any of these vehicles, but they were able to pinpoint and dive two wooden Russian ships that had caught fire and sank in the 1920′s. These were only very shallow but I believe it is the first time they have been dived.

And what about life. The lake does not have a huge range of life, but they do have Siberian Grayling which are pretty big fish and grow up to a metre long. Also the people they sent up in advance to scout out the lake kept hearing stories about the “Underwater Deer”. Since no-one could tell them anything about it, Steven didn’t think too much of it. However on one particular day their side-scan sonar came across a trace of what looked to be a single object around 5-6 metres long in mid-water. They did 2 passes and the object had moved position. When they showed the traces to the Mongolian Parks people, they said that it was the Underwater Deer. So what is it? And could the lake support a breeding population of something that big? What would it feed on? Or is it a Loch Ness Monster type story? At this stage there’s no clear evidence.

In addition to telling us about their findings, we also got an insight into what was involved in organising this expedition. Watching Brian and Andreas, we think it’s bad enough getting a rebreather to the Philippines. Well Steven and his team had to get a rebreather, 16 tanks, a compressor and a small boat to a far more remote location. They also had a number of firsts on this trip, including the first Mongolian woman to dive in her own country, and also had the first rebreather dive in Mongolia. I think we need to recruit him to take over organising SCDC trips for us as a backup Trevor.

Anyway we’re very grateful to Steven for coming along to talk to us and share the expedition findings. It was a fascinating presentation, and I hope we can get him to come over again in the future to talk about his next venture, which is already in the works.

The controversy about the 2 divers who were picked up after 19 hours in the water after a dive on the Whitsundays continues. The people on the forums (fora?) seem to be busy “debating” the issue. On the one hand you’ve got those who know the couple emphasising how experienced and professional they are and how they could never make a mistake, and on the other you’ve got people referring to them as muppet divers and foreigners who are intent on destroying the reputation of the Queensland diving industry to cover up for their own stupidity. I have even seen suggestions that they deliberately planned it all to make some money because they were apparently carrying a bottle of water and wearing full wetsuits in 23C water. Well after 16 years of acclimatising to tropical water I wear a full wetsuit in Hong Kong when the temperature drops to 23C or below, and I have on occasions carried a bottle of water, so I’m not sure that proves anything. And anyone who considers setting themselves adrift for an unspecified amount of time with a high probability of drowning or dying of dehydration or exposure, in return for a low probability of finding someone to pay you for your story, has a very strange view of how to make a living.

Anyway we will take the moral high ground (or as divers, should that be the moral deep water?) and wait for the facts to emerge. Now there’s a novel concept!

And one final point, if it does turn out that the operator rather than the divers were at fault, then Queensland state Premier, Anna Bligh, is going to look as though she spoke prematurely when she said that the couple should pay for the cost of their rescue. When doing a giant stride entry, diving is a sport where you jump in with both feet. It looks as though the same may be true of politics.

Richard Neely and Allison Dalton have been rescued after going missing on Friday 23 May  in the Whistsundays off Queensland. They apparently surfaced 200 metres from the dive boat but were not spotted and were taken out to sea by a strong current. They were picked up the following day after an extensive sea and air search.

There seems to be some controversy over whether they were partly to blame by ignoring instructions which might have kept them in the lagoon and out of the current, whether the boat operator was at fault for not spotting them, or even whether they did it on purpose to make money on media interviews and film rights. Since I don’t have the facts, I’m not going to get involved in any such debate or speculation. For whatever reason, it is possible to surface away from a dive boat and not get spotted, as happened recently to a group of Taiwanese divers. All we can do is try to minimise the chances of that happening.

As a diver that means carrying devices such as a dSMB, and perhaps a CD or a signalling mirror. Also a whistle might be useful and a torch in case it goes dark. Beyond that some people carry an EPIRB which is a tracking beacon that can be homed in on by Search and recovery aircraft. I’ve also heard discussions about hand held VHF radios in pressure-proof containers, although I am less convinced about that. On some dives I’ve also carried a bottle of fresh water and a sunhat. Whether all of that survival kit is appropriate for all dives is open to question. I certainly wouldn’t bother with it on a nice gentle dive on Crescent Island in Hong Kong for example, which is very sheltered and not susceptible to currents. On the other hand I was a lot more cautious diving from a liveaboard on some obscure reefs with strong currents in Indonesia. I don’t have an EPIRB, but I was carrying 2 dSMBs, a whistle, torch and a bottle of fresh water.

At South China Diving Club, it is mandatory for all divers to carry a dSMB on all club dives. This was introduced after a situation where 2 divers surfaced away from the boat on Breaker’s Reef, which is quite a way from land. There was a swell which made it difficult to spot them as well as a current. It took half an hour to find them because it was very difficult to spot 2 small heads bobbing on the surface of one big ocean.

Anyway, whatever the full story, it is good news that these 2 divers have been found alive and well.

Hong Kong is a big consumer of shark fin soup, as increasingly is China. Unfortunately it is a delicacy that is very popular at wedding banquets. Even ignoring the conservation aspect, I think shark fin soup is highly over-rated anyway, as the shark fin doesn’t really taste of anything and so the soup is a bit like very expensive chicken broth. But it is so widely served at wedding banquets that demand is leading to serious over-fishing. So if you’re considering getting married – Live in Sin and Save a Fin!

Today’s SCMP is reporting that unregulated fishing for shark fins is threatening the existence of 11 kinds of ocean sharks. This finding comes from a study of 21 species of sharks and rays which was carried out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The pelagic sharks that are specifically mentioned in the study include 3 types of Thresher as well as silky sharks and short-fin mako. Sharks and rays are particularly affected as they take a long time to reach sexual maturity and don’t have many offspring. I was diving with Thresher sharks in Malapascua 2 weeks ago, and they are beautiful creatures. Very graceful with their long tails, but with a much stockier body than I had been expecting.

“The traditional view of oceanic sharks and rays as fast and powerful too often leads to a misperception that they are resilient to fishing pressure,” Sonja Fordham, report co-author and deputy head of the IUCN’s shark specialist group, said.

If you’re an SCMP subscriber you can read their article here. If not, well the BBC has a similar report.

On Tuesday 20 May 2008 a television crew managed to capture footage of a flying fish that was airborne for 45 seconds off the southern tip of Japan. You can read the details and see the remarkable video from the BBC. This beats a previous record of 42 seconds recorded in the 1920′s

You can see from the video that it is occasionally slapping the water with its tail which helps it carry on flying. In actual fact flying fish are really gliding rather than flapping their wings, but it’s still very impressive. I was on Vidar’s Empress in Indonesia once having a recuperative beer after a hard day’s diving when one glided up on to the deck and hit one of the others in the group. It looked just as surprised as we did, albeit slightly more stunned.

Photo taken from National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s website.

I often come across one or two brittlestars on a dive. Well scientists have found millions of them on a sea mount in New Zealand. They are on a peak at about 90 metres depth on the subsea Macquarie range, which stretches for 1400 miles south of New Zealand. The mount rises up from 750 metres from the sea floor, and there is quite a strong current sweeping it, which scientists suspect are keeping some predators away. Chances are it is also washing nutrients past, since brittlestars feed by waving their arms about in the current and food sticks to a type of sticky mucus on their arms.

Brittlestars have 5 arms and not surprisingly are related to star fish, but they are also related to sea cucumbers and sea urchins, and such large groups of them have not been seen before.

There is a detailed report on the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s website.
You can see a video on the BBC’s website. But there are also reports elsewhere, such as Reuters, and Times Online.

After an extensive survey by members of a project team called Java Sea Revisited – The HMS Exeter Expedition, the group has “confirmed” the discovery of the wrecks of HMS Exeter and her escort, HMS Encounter.

HMS Exeter was a York class heavy cruiser that was laid down on 1st August 1928, and was involved in the Battle of the River Plate that led to the scuttling of the Graf Spee. HMS Encounter was an E Class destroyer that was launched in 1934. Together they were sunk on 1st March 1942 north-west of Bawean Island heading for the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. They were engaged by 4 Japanese heavy cruisers and a number of destroyers. Exeter was hit in the boiler room and lost power. The crew may have been attempting to scuttle her before the Japanese destroyer Inazumi launched a final torpedo attack. Encounter was hit by 8 inch shell fire shortly afterwards. A second escort, USS Pope, initially escaped, but was later sunk by aircraft from the carrier Ryujo. The survivors were picked up and imprisoned.

The wrecks were apparently first located in February 2007 by a team onboard the MV Empress, owned and skippered by Vidar Skoglie. The others involved included Vidar’s wife, Alice, as well as retired US Navy captain Phil Yuetter and photo-journalist Kevin Denlay. You can read Kevin Denlay’s description of the discoveries of the Dutch cruisers Java and De Ruyter here. These cruisers were sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 Feb 1942, in which Encounter and Exeter were also involved. It was in this battle that Exeter was damaged and limped to Surubaya just prior to her sinking.

Exeter is lying on its starboard side in 60 metres, and is around 30 miles from the position the Admiralty estimated it as being sunk. HMS Encounter is reported as being a few miles away. The diving team are intending to publish a full report shortly.

I had the good fortune to spend 2 weeks diving from the Empress several years ago and had some excellent dives between Bali and West Timor.