Treasure of the Great Basses Wreck

Mike Wilson and two teenagers, Bobby Kriegel and Mark Smith cruise the reef to photograph three big but friendly groupers, when they discover two small cannon—an exciting find.  Wrecks have sparked the imagination of divers and non-divers alike.  On the next dive, they discover a scattering of silver coins.  The exploration of an old wreck transformed into a treasure hunt.  The find started the story of what came to be called the Great Basses Reef wreck or the Taj Mahal wreck. At that point, I am hooked into the story.

Every summer, I select a few books to read while sitting in the late evening Alaska sunshine.  My selected themes are pretty narrow, shipwrecks, nautical adventures and finding sunken treasure.  The Treasure of the Great Reef by Arthur C. Clarke, author of countless science and science fiction books, tops the list this year.  The book, written in 1964, hid in plain sight for a couple of years on the “to be read” shelf one of the several bookcases that populate my home.  I loved Clarke’s science fiction as a kid.  I did a rather elaborate book report on his one of his first novels, A Fall of Moondust, in my ninth grade English class.  I made a scale model of the transport Clarke described and simulated a "breaking news" format for the oral presentation to the class.  I earned an “A” for that effort.  You may not recognize the name, but many will know his most famous novel, 2001:  A Space Odyssey. I can only imagine what a report would have been like had I been reporting on this current selection.

Wrecks and sunken treasure fascinates many of us.  So it is with me since the discovery of the mother load of the Atocha in 1985, the first treasure-laden wrecks to snag my interest.  I learned that investors in that enterprise receive treasure, not cash, when the annual division is made.  I recall bulk treasure from the Atocha being sold on early variants of the cable home shopping channel shortly after the division of treasure found in 1985.  I own a small piece of the Atocha, in the form of a replica coin stamped from the melted down from one of the thousands of silver bars discovered in the wreck.   A book about the Atocha is also on my summer reading shelf.

The coins were instrumental in identifying the wreck.  Not only were the coins minted in the same year, Clarke describes another unusual feature, 

“when we weighed the cemented coin masses and calculated how many coins they contained the answer came out to be almost exactly 1,000.    It was obvious what had happened; the coins had been packed in bags of 1,000 which had been sealed after counting…When the ship had gone down, the bags lasted long enough for the outer layers of rupees to become cemented together by the action of the sea.  Thus, those inside the lump were perfectly preserved while the whole mass retained the shape of the original bag.”

The Wikipedia article on the wreck features the above image of one of the coin-bundles-in-the-shape-of-bag, showing exactly what Clarke described.  Looking at the image I can imagine bags of silver coins on the bottom, fused into a mass over time by the peculiar chemistry of seawater and silver.  Searching further, I found that the some of the coins are now being sold online for prices ranging from $399 to $549.

Hitting the Water--My Experience with the Dunker.

In the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman” during a simulated aircraft ditching Aviator Candidate Mayo (Richard Geer) successfully removes himself from a contraption that looks like a cross between a jet fighter cockpit, mechanical bull, and water park ride.  You may recall that another candidate did not successfully escape requiring Drill Instructor Foley (Lou Gosset Jr.) to dive into the pool to save the about-to-be-drown candidate.  Despite great performances by the actors, the apparatus, known as the “Dilbert Dunker,” steals the scene.  An article on the device on Naval Aviation Museum website notes,  although it was Hollywood that introduced the device to the general public in the motion picture… for generations of naval aviation personnel the “Dilbert Dunker” that sent them plummeting into a pool during water survival training was a rite of passage.”  The same can be said for personnel trained in Alaska by the Department of the Interior’s Office of Aircraft Services (OAS).

My own experience in the dunker occurred at the Alaska Club East swimming pool a couple of weeks ago as part of the Water Ditching and Survival training sponsored by OAS.  The training is mandatory for personnel whose field work may require them to land or takeoff from water or participate in extended overwater flight.  In my case, the latter applies, an airborne count of beluga whales in Cook Inlet.  While the chances of flying this mission for me are slim, I would not be able to participate without the training.  Our dunker was not as elaborate as that used by the Armed Services.  Our dunker is made from pvc pipe and web straps and pushed into the water a positioned by people rather than pneumatic-hydraulic power.  The cage is about the size of a Cessna 150 cockpit.

The ditching training consists of a six step process:

1. State emphatically, “I AM A SURVIVOR” which creates a positive mental state to help meet the challenge of ditching.  
2. UNPLUG the flight helmet from the communications system, breaking a tether that could prevent escape. 
3. OPEN THE DOOR, BRACE.  Opening the door prior to impact helps ensure an exit that might otherwise be jammed closed by aircraft hull damage. 
4. WAIT 4 SECONDS after all violent motion has stopped and SIT UP from the brace position.
5. CLEAR EXIT PATH of any debris or obstruction in front of you with a sweep of the hand and GRASP REFERENCE POINT –such as the aircraft airframe adjacent to the door.   Firmly establishing the reference point combats disorientation that may result when the aircraft comes to a halt in an unusually attitude, such as upside down in cold, dark water.
6. RELEASE SEAT BELT and EXIT  the aircraft, swimming away from the hull and towards the surface to being careful to try and avoid any debris or aircraft fluids, such as fuel, in the water.

Successful completion of the exercise required three exits using this procedure.  We teamed with another student for the exercise.  If either student did not follow the procedure correctly (an instructor monitors the steps both above and underwater) the exercise would need to be completed.  The first immersion was usually a straightforward sinking of the dunker in the upright position, followed by more complicated scenarios, such as the aircraft on its side, in which case both students had to swim out of one exit, or inverted.  Creative instructors develop a number of different situations. Aircraft do not crash and submerge in a singular way.

Students committed the six steps to memory by verbal and tactile repetition, we talked and felt our way through the sequence.  The repetition establishes “muscle memory” for performing the steps in the correct order.  The simulation also creates stress.  My training as a scuba diver, swimmer, and lifeguard provides a certain ability to cope with stress underwater.  The simulation created an entirely different and unfamiliar situation that raised the stress level.  

During one immersion where the cage went nose down and came to rest inverted.  I inadvertently let my grasp of the reference point go for a brief moment while removing the three point restraint (lap belt and two shoulder belts).  I found myself on the “ceiling” of the cage on the floor of the pool.  It took a few moments to reset my reference point and I swam out of the cage just as the safety monitor was giving the order to raise the cage.

Water Ditching and Survival--The Personal Flotation Device aka lifevest

“How likely are you to use this training in the next thirty (30) days?”  It is a standard question on an effectiveness-of-training evaluation form.  What caused me to chuckle on seeing it and the responses was the subject matter of the just-completed course—Water Ditching and Survival.  As part of the course, I had been immersed in a simulated small aircraft cabin, extricated myself, righted a six-person life raft, climbed in the raft, and pulled in one of my fellow student.   “Not very likely, I hope” was my initial response muttered to myself.  But, considering that preparation is the object of the training and that risk management techniques are woven into the content of the course, “very likely” is a good choice.  Preparedness and training is part of risk management for the mission, whether flying point-to-point or flying 50 miles offshore over the Beaufort Sea on a Bowhead Whale Survey, as I did back in 2005.

What makes the “very likely” response even more likely is that at the beginning of summer in Alaska, airplane travel in the next month is a likelihood.  (Three “likely” words in one sentence might make air travel inevitable.)  Airborne is how we get around, especially in a small plane if we are going to locations beyond the road system, which may entail water takeoffs and landing or flight over water.  For example, two of my five neighbors have small airplanes on floats.  That is the only means to get to their cabins on two of Alaska’s uncountable lakes.  For work, when we visit villages to speak with the residents, we go by charter, propeller-driven, aircraft.  Our coastal destinations usually means an overwater takeoff and approach for landing,

The preflight safety briefing--pay attention

The applicability of the training is not just limited to general aviation aircraft.  The inflatable personal floatation devices (pfd) used in the course are the same as those devices that the cabin attendant on a commercial airline tells you during the preflight briefing “are stowed under your seat for your use in the unlikely event of a water landing.”  Think of how often that any passenger, including yourself, checks to see if the pfd package is indeed stowed where the attendants, safety instructions, and placards say it is stowed.  Hopefully the previous occupant did not take it home as a souvenir of the trip.  You think I am kidding?  Go to EBAY and type “airline life jacket” in the search line. Luckily, most are from out-of-service airlines.  Want a new one of your own?  Check out the marketplace of every aviation product you could (n)ever need—Sporty’s Pilot Shop

We examined a number of inflatable pfds as part of the course, ranging from the airline type to more elaborate suspenders and vests with pockets.  All types are activated by pulling the tab, which activates the CO2 cartridge, filling the device’s air chamber.  We were advised to check that the CO2 cylinders were serviceable and had not been previously activated by unscrewing the cylinders from the trigger mechanism and examining the neck of the cylinder to make sure they were still sealed.  As a backup, tubes allow the wearer to orally inflate the air chamber.  “Do not activate the vest until you are outside the airplane” the instructor reiterated, otherwise the buoyant vest trap the wearer in a submerged aircraft.” For the same reason, the instructor cautioned against using any device that automatically activates on contact on water. 

“Pockets are useful”, one of the instructors noted, “because the survival gear on board the airplane, which is really ‘camping gear’—it makes waiting to be rescued more comfortable—may not make it out of the airplane and to land.  In that case, you will need to survive with whatever you have on your person.  That should include items like a firestarter, knife or multitool, signaling device and some kind of high energy emergency rations, at a minimum. Think of your situation and what you might need.”  (Except for the rations, I carry the essentials on my wrist with the Alaska Survival Bracelet.)

I used volunteer with the Alaska Office of Boating Safety to do water safety education programs for children.  In that capacity, I learned almost everything there was to learn about pfds and life jackets.  In the not too distant past, I was certified as a Red Cross water safety instructor, lifeguard instructor, and lifeguard.  Most of what I know is applicable to aviation, with some caveats. For example, I have an inflatable suspender style pfd that activates on immersion in water.  I use these for openwater sailing.  They are not to be used for flying.

Underwater Grappling and the Canadian Club

I recently encountered a website that highlights diving-as-adventure advertisements from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, including those that linked underwater adventure and intrigue with liquor. 


As a youngster in the 1960s, the only “grown-up” reading material around the house (other than the evening newspaper which I delivered for many years) was my mom’s subscription to “Redbook” and my dad’s subscription to “Newsweek.”  Turning the pages of the latter, must have been where I first encountered the liquor advertisements about hiding a case of Canadian Club Whiskey in a remote locations around the world including the Great Barrier Reef and then challenging readers to seek it out.  A unique kind of treasure hunt! The campaign forever fused “Canadian Club” and “adventure” in my young mind, although I have never consumed the product.  According to a recent article in the Daily Mail, several cases have yet to be discovered. This campaign reminds me of the geocaching craze that swept the country in the late 1990ss and early 2000s with the advent of portable and affordable global positioning system units.

About a decade prior to the “hide a case” campaign, Canadian Club had other advertisements that none-the-less sought to link the whiskey with adventure.  One of these ads highlighted doing underwater judo in the Virgin Islands, circa 1960. 

Early 1960s Canadian Club Advertisement

It’s sink and swim when you grapple with underwater judo!

1.  “Under the sea off the Virgin Islands, with no way to breathe, I was recently introduced to a wet and wonderful local variety of wrestling,” writes George Atcheson, an American friend of Canadian Club.  “Wearing only a face mask, the object is to pin your opponent to one of the ring poles—or make him surface—while the snorkel equipped referee keeps score.  As a former Navy from man, I thought it would be a cinch.  How wrong I was!  Rounds were only two minutes each, but before the first thirty seconds were up, my lungs were bursting from the strain.”
2.  “No holds are barred—but it’s not easy to make any of them stick when you’re sometimes wrestling upside down.  When I found myself in a neck lock, I thought for sure I’d be forced to go up for air.”

3.  “Breaking loose, I angled my opponent toward one of the poles—but he proved too slippery for me.  Finally, after several more rounds, we invoked the rule of “mutual exhaustion” and, heading for the surface, ended the game in a tie."
4.  Back in Saint Thomas, we all gathered at the Hotel Caribbean for a good talk and a pre-arranged meeting with a good friend—Canadian Club.”

I did actually try underwater judo of a sort, Mizu Jitsu, offered as underwater safety and self defense course designed for divemasters and lifeguards, on a trip to Honolulu in 2008.  I had gone to Oahu to do some diving and compete in an ocean fin swim race at Ala Moana.  I was a lifeguard instructor at the time and the advanced training offered by Mizu jitsu was something I wanted to try.  Many of the techniques we practiced in Mizu jitsu were similar to the escapes practiced in lifeguard training.  The pool exercise, which culminated dojo mat training, took us through a series of drills.  The final encounter in the training, shown in two photos, was pretty much as described above in the Canadian Club ad, except the after-encounter beverage was a soft drink consumed pool side. 

Who knows when the skills come in handy.  Maybe fighting off claim jumpers on my sunken treasure site as they try to steal the missing case of Canadian Club.

Coral Reef--My Epiphany

I spent a week diving the Kona Coast in 2013 and repeated the trip in 2018, going so far as to stay in the same condo, have a nephew as a dive buddy, use the same operator, and dive some of the same spots.  In that respect, I am consistent (some would say “predictable” while others might suggest “dull”) but in 35 years of dive travel, I have seldom visited the same location.  This trip revealed the effects of coral distress in a relatively short period of time (especially when one considers the growth rate of corals) and thier omnipresence in our experience.  The discoveries alarm me. 

A healthy coral on the Kona coast 2018

Diving on coral reefs in the Florida Keys (1995), Bonaire (1998), Australia (2011), Hawaii (2013 and 2018), Grand Cayman (2016) and Fiji (2017), the fields of colorful coral seemed endless and ageless.  On a drift dive with my brother in Florida tethered to the a Norwegian buoy float that marked our progress to the following boat, migrated over coral reefs that seemed to go to the limits of of our air consumption and beyond.  The Salt Pier in Bonaire was a close as one could get to residing in a tropical aquarium. The bommies of the Great Barrier Reef, I am told, are hundreds or thousands of years old.  Surely, these widely separated coral communities transcended time and space.

Daily, the internet heralds details about the recent devastation of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, a place that I visited for 10 days in 2011 and absolutely came to love.  But, I have no frame of reference for visualizing the effects of a three year “marine heat wave” (water temperatures well above normal) that from 2014 to 2017 had caused “29 percent of the 3,683 reefs comprising the Great Barrier Reef lost two-thirds or more of their corals.  This high mortality rate threatens the ability of these reefs to sustain their full ecological function.”  That still leave a lot of healthy coral in place and an emerging strategy seems to focus on the remaining corals.

A few weeks before going to Kona, I saw the movie "Chasing Coral" a film about the demise of coral in different parts of the world over a one year period.  The dramatic decline shown in shocking resolution on the big screen of the BearTooth Theater Pub in Anchorage drew gasps from the assembled matinee crowd.  But, sipping a microbrew while viewing the carnage does have a way of tempering indignation and stepping into the cold, bright sun reflected off a Alaska snowscape after does make the problem seem remote.

The areas that we dived in Hawaii suffered a coral bleaching event in 2015.  Coral bleaching occurs when corals, stressed by high water temperatures or other changes such in nutrients or light, expel symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae which give corals their color.  Seeing white coral, we describe them as “bleached."  I noticed a lot of coral rubble, algae covered sick corals being invaded by urchins, some coral that was half dead, half healthy, and wsome that seemed unaffected that seems unaffected.

A partially alive coral head, Kona coast 2018

Coral appears half alive, half dead, Kona coast 2018

Urchins and other competitors invade the coral's structure

Coral rubble

The video shows first-hand pbservations of a healthy coral that had many more fish than the nearby dying coral that had only a few reef fish swimming about its branches.

My dive buddy, Luke, remarked “you seem to be taking a lot of pictures of the coral”   
“Yeah,, “I want to get some images before I forget what I see.”  

Baselines have a way of recessing in the memory, which always seems to remember ideal underwater vistas. I know something is wrong.  I see it firsthand.  The state of coral has my attention.  The devestation is not complete.  There is as much if not more "alive" than "dying" or "dead".  But, what is the trend?  Now, I need to figure out what I can do about it.

Manta Madness

Manta soars overhead on the dive

A must do dive for anyone going to Hawaii is the night dive to experience manta rays feeding on plankton.  The operator to do it with is Kona Diving Company.  Luke, my dive buddy for the week, and I did the two-tank late afternoon and night dive. 

The first dive is an exploration of the site at Garden Eel Cove just offshore of Kona Airport.  It is dive done in the waning hours of daylight, when there is only one other dive boat on the site.  The dive team reconnoitered the area.  We were in a four diver team, not including the leader.  One of the other two divers had an irritating of dropping in from above and furiously kicking whatever was around him.  It got to be quite tiresome after a few minutes, so we gave him a lot of space with which to churn the ocean.  I had seen mantas at this location on a previous late-afternoon dive, but I did not see any today.  Earlier in the day, we observed the impressive aquabatics of the mid-water column courtship ritual of a couple of eagle rays.  We saw nothing as remarkable as that on this dive.

The anchorage was noticeably more crowded when we returned to the boat.  The flotilla of vessels of every type headed to this spot hauling divers and snorkelers who wanted to observe the mantas feeding, a spectacle not to be missed.  The KDC crew presented a rather detailed natural history of the species, including information on the unique patterns on a manta which allows observers to identify individuals.  The crew related that photographers were encouraged to submit photographs in order to identify previously unknown individuals.  If your photograph establishes the presence of a new individual, the photographer may select a name for the critter.

The spot pattern is unique to the individual, like fingerprints in a human.

The crew explained that divers would be stationary on the bottom, shoulder to shoulder, shining a dive light upward, which would illuminate the plankton on which the manta feed.  Snorkelers on the surface would do the same, shining lights downward.  Supplementing these hand-held lights were spot lights placed on the bottom.  Divers went without snorkels and the barrel became protuberances that could scrape on ensnare a manta passing overhead (yes they get that close). 

Boats of every size continued to arrive at the site.  One of the catamarans carrying snorkelers tossed our boat a bow line which the crew secured to a clean on our stern.  The situation reminded me of the scene from Jaws of all the boats in Amity harbor preparing to go after the shark, only in our case it was nearly dark.  The operators are so confident that the diver or snorkeler will see a manta that many offer a guarantee that if a manta is not seen, the customer can get a free manta dive.  The number of boats and people in the water are testament to the popularity of the dives.

We entered the water as a group and saw to the mooring line with which we would make our descent to the bottom.  Not only does this strategy keep the divers together as a group, the line provides a reference to a diver who may otherwise become disoriented during descent.  Once on the bottom, we were taken to our designated area in 33 feet of water.  Our purposely slightly negative weighing kept us firmly on the bottom during the dive which went on for 45 minutes.  The mantas would come “flying” in consuming the plankton illuminated by the lights and then ascend toward the surface to continue feeding on the plankton illuminated by the lights on the surface.  The mantas moved in a surface-to-bottom loop, moving from one cluster of lights to the other.  

At one point, the 14 mantas seemed to be in a scrum as they completed each loop.  Everywhere were mantas.  Yet they managed to avoid colliding with each other and the divers and snorkelers, getting so close as to allow a diver to reach out and touch the critter, although we had been admonished to keep our hands to ourselves.  The manta body has a mucus veneer which protects the manta.  Touching the manta could remove this mucous to the possible detriment of the animal.  One has to kill the urge reach out at times as the mantas approached within what seems like inches as they pull up from the bottom of their loop, buzzing the diver.

Say aaaahhh

The experience can be summed up in one word—“fabulous” or an emphatic "whooaa.".  The three-quarter of an hour dive passed quickly.  Given the tunnel vision caused by the mask and the limited aura of illumination from the lights mantas seemed to be everywhere and come out of nowhere doing precision approaches and turn on a dime evasions as they passed. 

Levitating Luke and Peak Performance Buoyancy

The Lotus Position

As part of the dive trip to Kona, Luke participated in the Peak Performance Buoyancy (PPB) training offered by Kona Diving Company.  Hailey was the instructor for the two dive in-water portion of the course and I was teamed the two of them to complete the group.  We dived at Windows and Aquarium. As Hailey remarked, “every dive destination in the world has a site called ‘the Aquarium’” and I recalled just such a site in the Channel Islands of California and a reef bearing that moniker in the upper Florida Keys.

Achieving near perfect buoyancy is greatly emphasized in the course as the foundation to becoming a competent diver.  Gone are the days of having students weighted to be negatively buoyant for stability on the seafloor and then adding air to be buoyancy compensator to become positively buoyant.  The predictable outcome was divers who plowed the bottom of the sea.  Correct weighting and buoyancy control as a means of being an efficient diver seem to be the goal of today’s training protocols.  It is the foundation of personal achievement in programs such as those that come from the cave exploration and mapping experience of Global Underwater Explorers. 

I have seen over-weighted divers flailing in a movement of arms and legs as they bounce across the reef, leaving a path of broken coral as if blazing a trail for others to follow.  They are more of an air powered anchor with fins rather than efficient diver.  Their disturbance of the habitat is not intentional; the divers don’t set out to destroy the experience they so highly prize.  Rather it appears to be the result of poor fundamentals, inadequate techniques, and lack of practice from infrequent diving.  Training like PPB addresses the first two of the three factors.

The in-water training put Luke through a series of exercises, which started with properly weighting him to be neutrally buoyant when he exhaled at the surface and progressed with exercises to becoming a streamlined and efficient diver.  The first exercise involved an evaluation of his underwater swimming technique to eliminate things like sculling to maintain position. The second exercise involved picking up weight pouches, practiced over a sand bottom so as to eliminate the possibility of damage to the habitat, starting with a single one-pound pouch and progressing to a multiple pouches for a total weight of five pounds.  Next, Luke practiced maintaining vertical and horizontal hover for safety.  The culminating activity--assuming the stationary lotus position in the water column for as long as possible-- seemed to bring all the skills together.  Hailey coached Luke through each exercise using and signals and notes scribbled on a dive slate.  Touring the reef between exercises allowed Luke to incorporate techniques he learned into his routine movement.  I tangentially took part in some of the exercises and noticed a marginal improvement in my own technique.  I guess a return to fundamentals is sometimes in order to rediscover what we know, what we have forgotten, and to eliminate those little nuances of inefficiency that have crept into our technique.

 

Picking up the weight pouch

Luke did great.  He held the lotus position for more than 80 seconds, a very respectable time.  He appeared to pluck the weight pouches from the bottom as if they were very fragile without disturbing a single grain of sand.  He held depth at the safety stop as well as I, a diver of thirty four years.  Most noticeable was the easy efficiency with which he moved through the water, like he was born to it, a natural merteen.  The payoff was the remarkable improvement in air consumption, extending his time underwater by at least 20 percent compared to the beginning of the week.  He is the kind of diver with whom I am pleased to share my dive adventures. Besides, like I said above, you have to use the skills to keep them perfect.

Moving efficiently across the reef

Hover at the 15-foot safety stop