Canada
Global
In 2020, while the rest of the world was locked up in their homes during a global pandemic, I was ‘stuck’ on a little island in the Western Caribbean. I’m a marine conservationist and research diver, and I had been managing a dive centre – spending most of my days underwater for 3-5 dives teaching SCUBA, and volunteering for the local marine park doing reef surveys and coral restoration work. For several years I experienced a never-ending revolving door supply of awesome divers of all levels, from Discover Scubas to Extended tec, all wanting to experience the islands’ wrecks, walls, seamounts, and shallow reefs. Fast forward to when the island closed its airport from March to August of 2020, it is safe to say that the entire dive community on island was in a Groundhog Day type of lull. The few shore dives and extended beach time did not suffice, and I had to get my gills wet! Thus, when the opportunity to dive 2000 feet deep in a submersible presented itself, I couldn’t say no.
The meaning of yellow submarine took on a whole other meaning for me when I first climbed on the Idabel, a small homemade deep-diving submersible, engineered and built by the pilot himself (Image 1). The Idabel has a large plexiglass viewing bubble for two passengers at the bottom, plus 9 viewports for the pilot in a standing position, and various features including twin ballast compartments, a 350-pound droppable lead weight, a high-pressure air system, and redundant propulsion systems. Next thing I know, the hatch was closed, and we were over the edge of the reef wall that I had spent over 2000 scuba dives on, and down we went.
The descent was fast – since the sub is docked less than 1000 feet away from deep water, our drop was nearly vertical. We were about 1,500 feet deep along the southern edge of the Cayman Trench offshore of Roatan, Honduras. As the sub-lights lit up and my eyes adjusted, I felt like I was face-to-face with a gigantic snow-covered mountain range. The pilot explained that fossilized reef chunks from the last Ice Age have sheared off the wall, which, coupled with natural sedimentation over hundreds of years, has created this dramatic terrain. Next to the underwater mountain, a dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis spp.) was seemingly waiting for me, twirling in the deep and putting on quite a show (Image 2). Many photos and videos later, my enthusiasm for ocean creatures was way out in the open, and the pilot asked if I wanted to spend another few hours at depth to explore some of the larger boulders further out. Of course, I said yes! He took a heading and out into the darkness we went.
The descent was fast – since the sub is docked less than 1000 feet away from deep water, our drop was nearly vertical. We were about 1,500 feet deep along the southern edge of the Cayman Trench offshore of Roatan, Honduras. As the sub-lights lit up and my eyes adjusted, I felt like I was face-to-face with a gigantic snow-covered mountain range. The pilot explained that fossilized reef chunks from the last Ice Age have sheared off the wall, which, coupled with natural sedimentation over hundreds of years, has created this dramatic terrain. Next to the underwater mountain, a dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis spp.) was seemingly waiting for me, twirling in the deep and putting on quite a show (Image 2). Many photos and videos later, my enthusiasm for ocean creatures was way out in the open, and the pilot asked if I wanted to spend another few hours at depth to explore some of the larger boulders further out. Of course, I said yes! He took a heading and out into the darkness we went.
“Is this what space feels like?” I asked myself. It was cold, dark, and expansive. We were traveling along a silty bottom that seemed endless. But it certainly wasn’t empty. In fact, we passed quite a variety of deep-sea life: urchins, snails, a shark, and several species of fish (searobin, tinselfish, tripodfish, slimeheads), some quite a bit larger than I had expected!
Out of the darkness, a large boulder emerged with one singular giant coral fan rooted steadily on its edge (Image 3). The lights from the sub disturbed a fish resting in the fan, and as we went up over the boulder they illuminated the translucent white sponges, orange squat lobsters, and unknown species of octopi that decorated the many crevices.
And then I saw it – an amazing deep-sea coral reef – a colorful array of royal purple and bright yellow with spots of orange and dots of white covering massive boulders (Image 4). Deep-water corals like these live below the photic (or sunlit) zone in depths between 800, with some able to survive 6,000 feet deep! These differ from the more well-known shallow water corals in that they do not rely on photosynthetic algae and don’t need sunlight to grow, but rather rely on food in the water column and other types of symbiosis.
At 2000 feet down, my entire viewing bubble was filled with huge coral fans nestled with brittle stars, dozens of crinoids (feather stars and sea lilies) and intricate sponges, tube anemones, and more fish and squat lobsters. This area was just teeming with incredible marine life and it was breathtaking!
Two of my favorite captures from this area include a photo of a Lophelia coral head with what looks like old tube worms (Image 5) and this delicate sponge adorned with crinoids like a Christmas tree (Image 6). Lophelia corals are structure-forming species that provide habitat for others and are known to be critical species in deep-sea biodiversity hotspots. To say I was impressed is an understatement, but we were nearing 6 hours and it was time to ascend. Back up the wall, we took a few minutes around the 500-foot mark to try our hand at having a visit from a hammerhead shark or devil ray but no dice, so the pilot released the air into the ballast tanks, and up we went. I heard bubbles rushing by as we neared the surface and just like that, I was back in the bay for a golden sunset. What an experience!
All images courtesy of Francheska Krysiak
