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Underwater Wakulla- October 31, 2013
Field Report By GREGG STANTON
Thursday, October 31, 2013 at 3:00 am (Updated: December 18, 12:49 pm)
I am visiting Curacao, an island just north of Venezuela.
I have been here for six days attending the American Academy of Underwater Sciences and
teaching a Trimix class to colleagues from Colombia.
You find me at breakfast right now. I'm eating a breakfast of crushed crackers, chopped fruits, in
milk with Gouda cheese on the side and water to drink. Its 8:30 a.m., and no sign of our students.
There is no urgency since we have plenty of time now that we have completed almost all the
required dives for the Trimix class and most of the skills.
They are very happy with the results, but don't like the pace. My argument is make hay while the
sun shines. Their reply is the sun always shines!
Either they are immensely fortunate or I am a hopeless Yankee. So the pace will now slow down. Island time!
With our AAUS meeting now over, papers presented and a successful dive yesterday afternoon ending in a night dive, we are now
ready for more theory of helium diving, and trimix routines for the next three days with my two students. One will stay two more days
and fly out on Friday, Nov. 1, along with me.
Bernardo, the local Dutch gas blender, took us to Snake Bay and an easy entry-exit place complete with a picnic table and sand
beach. He said he could not join us since we were so slow and would likely end up returning after dark.
We were and we did, but these folks were very comfortable with night diving, so much so that one student did not even have a light.
He just hung around the other’s cave light after it got dark.
Visibility here is... well, at 200 feet I could see the surface waves -- from the underside, of course. The coral is unscarred and plentiful.
Black coral swiggles protrude from the reef everywhere.
Large Brain and lettuce corals cover the wall. Sponges are seen in abundance and of many shapes.
I saw six lionfish, one very large and very few very small fish. There were plenty of pelagic fish in small schools along what might be
called a wall, more a steep slope. It leveled off at 220 feet on a sand flat.
At around 250 or so I am told the edge of their world can be found. The ledge is an undercut that if you go there you will be in an
overhead environment. I asked but they told me they know of no caves.
And I could not get them to tell me how far in this reverse ledge goes. Bernardo said the island is like a giant mushroom. Talk about the
ideal mesophotic zone (the depth and life forms below 150 feet and above 350 feet) in the ocean.
And we swam 5 minutes from shore, 7 minutes run time to a depth of 200 feet. The beach we dove is 10 minutes drive from the lab
and five by boat down the coast.
These folks do not know what the term logistics means. And I am back in my Hawaiian lifestyle, but without the surf. Many entry sites
are ledges with rolling waves crashing in.
How do I get a CCR to perform with the shallow-water entry? For now, I differed to a beach entry.
If I go missing, I tell my wife, I’ll blend in to the landscape around here – I'll surface when I sober up. Who needs blood pressure
medicine when you have -- what we called in Hawaii -- Polynesian Paralysis.
It’s like narcosis, you can function reasonably well as long as you focus on the mission. But when you let your mind slip, the sun, the
sea and the warmth of the Island take you away.
It's a different world.