Diving Thoughts

Diving the Oriskany (New York Times)

Thanks to Scott, here’s a piece from the New York Times on an aircraft carrier that is now acting as an artificial reef off  Pensacola in Florida. The ship is the Oriskany, which was commissioned in 1950 and served in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. In fact it was the carrier that presidential hopeful, John McCain, took off from on the flight that led to him being shot down and captured.

The deck is in around 20 metres and the hull is at around 65 metres, and the ship has been down since 2006. It is one of the few aircraft carrier wrecks that sits at a depth suitable for recreational diving, which makes it of particular interest. Although it has obviously been “sanitised” to make it a suitable artificial reef, so a lot of the things that would have been on what you might call an unscheduled sinking, are no longer there. No planes for example. Since the things that you find on wrecks are part of their attraction, artificial reefs are never quite the same. But having said that, there are few places you can dive on a wreck of this size, which provides its own attraction.

Coincidentally just after Scott sent me the link to this article, in Hong Kong the History Channel showed a programme on the Oriskany, on which Dan Crowell and 2 colleagues did a series of dives on it. The photography was pretty good. When I switched to NOW TV from cable for the English Premier League football, I got the History channel and I’m glad I did as they’ve got a range of pretty good programmes. For example for divers on Monday evenings here in Hong Kong, there is “Deep Sea Detectives” which is presented by John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, both very well known deep wreck divers from the North-east US. And now on Sundays they seem to have added “Quest for Sunken Warships”, which was the series that showed Dan Crowell diving the Oriskany.

Pity Florida’s a bit far for a day trip from Hong Kong.

On Friday 22 August the whale calf that was separated from its mother was put down by the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. The calf was starving to death and they felt that they had no choice, as there is no contingency for coping with a lost whale calf. Earlier in the week they had tried leading it out to sea in the remote hope of finding its mother, or of it being adopted by a lactating female in another pod of whales. Sadly that didn’t happen and it swam back into Pittwater.

The calf was given six lethal injections and has been taken to Taronga Zoo for an autopsy. Representatives from the RSPCA and the Organisation for Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia were apparently satisfied that it was done as humanely as possible.

The orphan had been called Colin, although that had to be changed to Collette when it turned out he was a female.

The body of an adult whale has been found on the south coast of New South Wales and there is speculation that it could be that of the mother. DNA tests will be undertaken to see if that is the case.

You can read more on the Sydney Morning Herald’s website.

Bad news for a month old humpback whale calf near Sydney, as it has been separated from its mother. It is in the Pittwater area and is attempting to suckle whale-sized boats in a desparate attempt to find food. A typical whale calf would apparently need 230 litres of milk a day, and this one may not have fed for 5 days.

The authorities tried luring it out to sea in the hope that it’s mother might be looking for it, or that it might be adopted by another lactating whale, but it swam back inshore the following morning.

Vets are assessing what the chances are of the calf surviving, but it may be necessary to put it down, which would be a bit of a shock for Australia which is a staunch opponent of whaling. (Rumours that a Japanese “research” vessel has offered to lend a hand putting the whale down are grossly exaggerated!)

The whales migrate from the Antarctic feeding grounds to tropical waters to breed, and are often seen near Sydney.

You can read more in the Sydney Morning Herald, or there’s a video on the BBC.

Near Adelaide a group of wild dolphins have been seen “tail-walking”, which is not typical dolphin behaviour. Instead it is taught to dolphins in captivity as a trick at shows. It turns out that one of them female wild dolphins spent a few weeks in a dolphinarium 20 years ago where she may have seen other dolphins performing the trick. She was there because she suffering from malnutrition, but she didn’t undergo any training while she was there.

Scientists suspect that this has now become a type of culture for this particular group of dolphins. They are continuing to monitor the group to see if there is anything that triggers the behaviour.

So culture is not something that is confined to human beings. Come to think of it these dolphins are more cultured than some of the people I know, myself included!

You can read more from the BBC.

Last year the BBC filmed a documentary called Pacific Abyss, where a number of renowned divers dived the waters around Micronesia. They were based on Big Blue Explorer, which I was fortunate enough to dive from a few years ago in Palau. They were primarily diving in the 60 – 150 metre depth range using rebreathers, and in doing so they managed to find 13 new fish species. There are an additional 15 creatures that may also be new to science, but these need further study to confirm.

This photo from the BBC shows a bright blue damselfish which has been named Chromis abyssus in honour of the expedition. Richard Pyle was one of the divers on the expedition and he had actually seen one of these damselfish over 10 years earlier, but this was the first time that specimens had been collected.

More information is available from the BBC, which is showing the 3 part series from 17th August.  The photography and filming is spectacular.

The Greek historian, Herodotus, provides the first reference to a circumnavigation of Africa in around 600 BC, which was made by the Phoenicians. They were strong seafarers and traders who lived in the area that is now part of Lebanon and Syria. They are also credited as one of the first civilisations to use an alphabet extensively.

An expedition is setting off from Arwad Island, off the coast of Syria, to recreate such a circumnavigation in a replica of the type of ship the Phoenicians would have used. It is entirely wooden and has only one sail.

They will be sailing clockwise round Africa, and the most challenging part of the trip will be getting around the Cape of Good Hope which is subject to some nasty storms and rough sea conditions. They hope to get there in December / January.

The entire voyage is estimated to take a year.

More information is available from the BBC.

Holland & Barrett, the UK’s largest chain of health food stores has stopped selling shark cartilage capsules.  This is partly as a result of a year-long campaign by Bite-Back which is a UK-based organisation dedicated to the protection of sharks by reducing demand for their meat and fins.

Over 3000 supporters sent Bite-Back campaign emails to Holland & Barrett’s headquarters asking them to discontinue selling the capsules.

Having said that, Holland & Barrett do still seem to have them listed on their e-commerce website.

Click here to find out more about Bite-Back, and their accouncement about Holland & Barrett.

Diving on the south side of Hong Kong is a bit of an acquired taste. Visibility tends to be worse than other areas of the territory. There can be stronger currents and there is the potential for more depth. You tend to either have a very bad dive, or a very good dive, you very rarely have an average dive there. In fact for 10 years I avoided south side dives because I had too many bad dives there.

However I became a convert when I found that there is some extremely good soft coral, particularly on the north shore of the Beaufort Channel. Unfortunately this is often too exposed to dive, but on Saturday we may have found a reasonable alternative. On the south coast of Po Toi is an exposed bay with a muddy bottom of around 25 metres. Not so promising so far, but close the island the cliffs continue down into the sea and things are much better. However the real bonus is a little wall that starts at around 12 metres. I’m not sure how far down it goes, because I hit it swimming in towards the island at around 16 metres. I couldn’t see the bottom, but in Hong Kong waters that’s not saying much! However there was a profusion of fans and colourful soft coral on it, and shoals of fish, nudibranchs, crabs, and even a moray. The coral may not be quite as good as the Beaufort Channel, but in my one dive there, the fish life seemed better.

And the real bonus – it’s only 10 minutes from the Po Toi Seafood restaurant. Not a site if the wind is coming from anywhere in the south, but otherwise this is definitely somewhere we should go back to.

Autosub6000 is an autonomously controlled robotic submarine which is going to be used on 2 month-long expeditions to map the Cayman Trough. This lies between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands and is formed by the Caribbean tectonic plate moving away from the American plate. Autosub6000 will be used to find volcanic vents on the sea floor. Then a second submarine, Isis, will sample liquid and sediment from around the vents, as well as collecting animal specimens.

The project is being led by Dr. John Copley of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton (NOCS), using the research vessel, the James Cook.

If the researchers find that marine life there is similar to that from around similar vents in other parts of the world’s oceans, it will indicate that ocean currents contribute to the patterns of life by transporting larvae around. If the animals they find are very different, then it will show that the vents are more isolated and independent.

You can read about testing of Autosub6000 from NOCS’ website. And there are more details on the expedition from the BBC.

Researchers from the University of Rostock in Germany have used a simulated night sky to look for evidence that seals navigate using the stars. Seals often go on foraging trips that can take several days, and it looks as though they might use the stars to navigate. It’s possible that they orient themselves at dawn and dusk, when they can see coastal landmarks as well as the stars.

You can read more details on the BBC’s website.