Our World – Underwater Scholarship Society in Australasia

Way back in March 2009 while at OzTek I met Simon Talbot, the University of Tasmania diving officer, and he suggested that during my scholarship year I do my ADAS Scientific Diving Course with him down in Tasmania, so last November I left sunny Mexico for drizzly Hobart to take Simon up on his offer.

The great thing about the ADAS Scientific Diving Course is that it is essentially the ADAS Commercial 1 course except that its components are specifically tailored to the needs of a scientific diver. For me the best thing about this course was the fact that once I had completed it I would have Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) certification to be able to be employed to work underwater as a maritime archaeologist.

The course itself is run through the University of Tasmania as a three week intensive and it certainly lived up to this reputation. The first week saw us spend our days immersed in diving theory from physics and physiology to legislation and it must be said that by the end of the week we were all more than ready to get into the water.

Week 2 saw us introduced to the joys of diving in the Derwent River where 13 degree water temperature was the norm and anything greater than 1.5 metres of visibility was a luxury. In these conditions we were instructed in various scientific diving techniques such as laying out transects, searches in zero vis and the use of hand tools underwater while diving on both single and twin tanks.

 

One such assessment saw us putting together a puzzle underwater which involved juggling numerous nuts, bolts and washers and four pieces of wood which constantly tried to make a break for the surface – all making for a challenging but fun experience. After the days diving we usually got back to the motel around 7pm and after a quick dinner we hit the books to revise the various theory modules in anticipation of the final exam. However, it must be said that studying in a motel room with 3 other guys is not particularly easy especially when one of them is Steve Lindfield (the 2008 Rolex scholar) and the options for procrastination are readily available.

After one week of theory and two weeks of practical exercises it was time for us to sit the final exam which involved three modules covering all of the material we had learnt over the previous three weeks and taking in total around 5 hours to complete!! After this marathon effort everyone was ready for some liquid refreshment so we met up for dinner and celebrated the end of the course happy for the experience, but even happier to have it behind us.

One of my highlights during my scholarship year was spending a month volunteering for the Earthwatch program: Whale Sharks of Ningaloo Reef.

So it was great that after presenting my scholarship video and officially handing over the Australasian scholarship to Matt, I found mysaelf flying back from New York City, one day at home and then on another plane, this time headed straight back to the red dust of Exmouth and the turquoise waters of Ningaloo Reef.

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Brad Norman the founder and project coordinator of the research, education and conservation group, ECOCEAN, had invited me back to work as a team leader for this year’s Earthwatch volunteers. This involves spending days on the local tourist industry boats – of which there are seven working out of Exmouth and three from Coral Bay, collecting identification photographs of the sharks and uploading these to the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library.

Using the unique spot pattering behind the gill slits and above the pectoral fins individual sharks can be identified allowing non-invasive and accurate estimates of the shark’s population size and movement patterns. Spot pattern data at Ningaloo goes back as far as 1995 and currently has identified over 500 Different whale sharks visiting Ningaloo Reef.

With an unprecedented number of photographs and video collected from the public and tourism industry at Ningaloo Marine Park recently, ECOCEAN was able to create statistical models demonstrating a modestly increasing annual population visiting Ningaloo. But this year I witnessed something special. From all accounts 2009 was the best season on record! Sharks were in abundance and tour operators had no problem finding sharks to entertain the growing number of tourists.

From Ningaloo alone, latest figures have shown 193 whale sharks identified this season, not including the sharks that have managed to hide from the cameras! We have also been seeing an increased number of smaller whale sharks feeding at the reef and returning in subsequent years. This gives me optimism for shark conservation, especially when we know the plight facing the many other species of sharks around the world!

 

To get some idea of shark size and population structure, people have traditionally estimated shark size or, on the odd occasion with cooperative sharks used a tape measure to record their length. In recent years, stereo video has become the most accurate and practical way to measure fish underwater. So for the past three years, ECOCEAN, in association with Murdoch University, have invested in a diver operated stereo video camera system to accurately measure the shark’s size.

This was my job. After learning about the technology last year, I was ready to measure some beasts! Saying that, pushing a 20 kg camera frame through the water following a swimming shark was challenging at times, especially in rough conditions! But this year I was able to measure 20 sharks, pushing the total to 38. Unfortunately no sharks have been remeasured yet, but with proof that many of the sharks are returning to Ningaloo every year, it is only a matter of time before we can start to get some accurate estimates of growth rates. Nevertheless the data collected now is enough for a scientific publication that I am currently working on with Brad and George Shedrawi.

Like any other oceanic creature, many mysteries will still remain about the whale shark. But with new technology, come new insights. So for the past two seasons, Brad Norman and Adrian Gleiss, a PhD student from Swansea University in the Wales, have been testing the use of ‘daily diary’ tags to find out what these magnificent creatures get up to when they are out of sight. This genius of a tag detects every movement of the shark in sub-second resolution by measuring 13 parameters eight times a second.

 

This was an exciting experiment and involved staying at a remote shearing station on the Ningaloo coastline, using two small vessels and our own chartered spotter plane to find the sharks.  We got off to a slow start, tagging only one shark in 3 days, as the majority of the sharks had only recently moved up the coast towards Exmouth and were stuck further south.

After a decision to re-locate we eventually hit the jackpot on the last day tagging sharks up to 7.5m long with the remaining three tags. With the tags attached to the second dorsal-fin like a “clip-on” earring, the tags release after three days and float to the surface allowing us to relocate them using VHF radio antennas.

But that forms another problem. Searching the open ocean in a small boat looking for a small orange piece of foam was like the proverbial needle in a haystack.  But we had trust in Adrian and he came up with the goods. With me skippering the boat at sunset and 5 miles off the Ningaloo coastline, We were able to find the tag and after a big swan dive from Adrian, we all celebrated with the WA equivalent of VB – an ice cold Emu Bitter!

The next day was easy picking up the other two floating tags without a problem, although there was still one $5000 tag out there. We gave up on it. The following week Brad received a phone call and someone had found the tag on a remote beach not far from where we tagged it! Once again – stoked!

The tags allowed us to reconstruct the movement of the sharks down to every wink of the eye and documented vertical movement of these giants. As sharks do not have a swim-bladder and are heavier than seawater, they are able to passively glide down searching for food and actively swim back to the surface. Furthermore, the tags revealed much more information including sudden bursts of activity, both at the surface and at depth, this may be indicative of lunge feeding, similar to many baleen whales, such as humpbacks.

This was a memorable trip and shows just what the scholarship can do. New friends and opportunities to visit beautiful parts of the world while gaining first hand experience and harnessing new technologies for future research.

Without the rush of the scholarship I had more time to experience the desert state, this stint in WA latested 3 months and during that time I was able to enjoy a few road trips, camping and some fantastic diving.

For a week I stayed with local underwater photographers, Ross and Mary Gudgeon, we did several dives together and Ross taught me a few new tricks to photography and Photoshop. I was then lucky enough to dive the world class Navy Pier with the best conditions ever! All the staff working there had never seen water of that clarity and there were fish absolutely everywhere including a few grey nurse sharks! I was stoked.

 

Back in Perth I attended an international fish biology conference, where I was awarded a very prestigious award! The D.D. François award, but that is a story for another time!  I also spent some time at the Uni of WA analysing the stereo video footage of the whale sharks.

Now, I have decided to take on a PhD through UWA and just received a scholarship to study deepwater fish. I start in January before heading off to Guam and conducting fieldwork over there for several months looking at depth as a refuge from fishing pressure. Pretty exciting!  So hopefully I will continue to blog on this site as there will sure be plenty of stories to come!

Best fishes, Steve

One of the most important things that you learn early on as a Rolex scholar is the need to be flexible and adaptable as your plans can change very quickly – fortunately often for the best. This was the case for my next project.

I had scheduled to spend some more time in the USA but when that fell through I found myself with three weeks free and no plans. However, this was soon to change as while in Wisconsin I had been working with Tamara Thompson a maritime archaeologist who suggested I contact a friend of hers who is the Professor of Underwater Archaeology at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán in Mexico. 

Before I knew it I was winging my way from the USA bound for a town called Merida on the Yucatan Peninsula to meet up with  Professor Guillermo “Memo” de Anda and help him out with his research.  For the last several years Memo has been investigating the archaeological remains of the Mayan people in cenotes (lime sink holes) throughout the Yucatan Peninsula.

 
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The Mayans were a very complex society which occupied the Yucatan region from around 4000 years ago and who have to their credit such amazing structures as the temples at Chichen Itza and who practised a range of sacrificial and funerary practices which involved the sacred cenotes.

The first thing that struck me when I arrived in Mexico was the sheer number of people and the humid heat, definitely a major contrast from autumn in Wisconsin! One thing I didn’t realise until I arrived in Merida was the fact that there are no above-ground rivers in the Yucatan instead all of the peninsula’s water runs underground and is accessible only where it comes to the surface in the form of cenotes and it was for this reason that wherever there are cenotes there are often the remains of Mayan buildings.

My introduction to cenote diving was more than I could have ever hoped for. After gearing up in the 40 degree heat and climbing down the seemingly endless ladder it was a relief to finally get into the water! As we descended I was struck by the amazing clarity of the water and it wasn’t long until I caught my breath as I caught sight of a pile of bones next to a fragmented pot.  

As we continued exploring the cenote more and more artefacts were found and each was in turn photographed and recorded from amongst the boulders and stalactites. Over the next week we dived 3 more cenotes around Merida each more amazing than the last.  However, the dive that is the most memorable was a night dive on Halloween where we dived a cenote into which a Mayan temple to the God of Death had collapsed.

As we entered the dark water our torches lit up the cavern and as we descended we began to see the crumbled remains of the temple amongst the rocks. When we reached around 30 metres Memo pointed his torch towards a pile of rubble and as I got closer I could make out the shape of a carved head. As we began to ascend I started looking amongst the rocks and found a number of human bones from Mayan sacrifices.

When we reached the surface I asked Memo about the carved head and he told me that it was the remains of a statue of the God of Death which definitely made for a memorable Halloween!

 

As well as cenotes the Mayans used dry caves for their ceremonies and funeral offerings and the day before I was due to leave Mexico I was fortunate enough to take part in an expedition to record such a cave.  On the Thursday three of us set off with our guide Jorge who is one of only 3 people in the world who knows the route through the cave and into the Mayan ceremonial chamber.  

As soon as we descended into the cave I began to realise what I had got myself in to as we climbed, squeezed, rappelled and slogged our way deep into the cave system until after 4 hours we finally arrived in the ceremonial chamber. As we spread out and explored the chamber Jorge called out and pointed us towards a Mayan pot which had been placed to collect rainwater for the Mayan ceremony over 3000 years ago.

The pot has been sitting there so long that a stalagmite had actually built up and over the pot showing just how long it had been sitting there. After recording the various artefacts in the chamber it was time to start the long slog back to the entrance unfortunately we were not the only ones who were heading for the outside world and we were accompanied by thousands of bats who thought nothing of flying into your hair and brushing past your face in the dark.

Eventually after 8 hours underground we covered the 3km return trip and made it out into the fresh night air exhausted but absolutely stoked.

 

When I first approached Keith Meverden and Tamara Thomsen, maritime archaeologists with the Wisconsin Historical Society, about coming to dive with them in October two things must have gone through their minds.

Firstly, why does someone want to come all the way from New Zealand to dive with them in the Great Lakes especially in October? And secondly, what are we going to do with him?

As Keith and Tami were to find out  I am hugely interested in shipwrecks, and even as far away as the other side of the world, the Great Lakes have a reputation for having some of the best preserved wooden shipwrecks around

Fortunately for me although it was coming to the end of their field season Keith and Tami decided to take me on and organized some projects for my time in Madison. By the time I arrived in Wisconsin the Lakes were beginning to get pretty cold but this did not dampen my enthusiasm as I had heard that the visibility of the Lakes was amazing and this combined with the fantastically preserved shipwrecks meant that I was very keen to get out diving and I can promise you that it did not disappoint!

Our first day of diving saw us taking the boat out to the wreck of the Ocean Wave a wooden schooner which sank in 1869. As we entered the water and descended I caught my breath as the wreck came into view although she had been sitting on the lake bed for 140 years the Ocean Wave was amazingly intact with her bowsprit still standing and eagle figure head still clearly evident. What made this dive even more incredible was the visibility which was at least 40 metres something I had never experienced before in any of my diving around the world.

I was also really stoked when Tami who is a TDI instructor offered to help me get my advanced nitrox and decompression procedures certifications so that I could explore some of their deeper wrecks during my stay. Over the next few weeks I completed my courses and managed to dive a number of amazing wrecks including the Daniel Lyons, Fleet Wing, Frank O’Connor, Australasia and ultimately the Rouse Simmons and the Walter B Allen which both sit around 50 metres.

At the end of my time in Wisconsin it was hard to leave knowing that I might never get a chance to dive such fantastically preserved shipwrecks in such great visibility again – but it was a great opportunity to see the hard work that Keith and Tamara do to protect this fragile resource so that people from all over the world will be able to come and literally dive into the past for years to come.

 

After an overnight train from the moors of Scotland all the way down to Fort Cumberland in Portsmouth I met up with Mark Beattie-Edwards and Mary Harvey from the Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS). The Nautical Archaeology Society is a fantastic organisation which provides resources, training courses and publications for anyone interested in underwater archaeology from complete beginners to hardened professionals.

I had chosen to spend time with the NAS to learn more about how interested members of the general public and maritime archaeologists can work together to research and protect shipwrecks. I was very fortunate in that the first weekend I was with the NAS, Mark and I traveled up through the traffic on the M25 to the town of Hunstanton to help a number of NAS volunteers survey the wreck of the steam trawler Sheraton.

The Sheraton was built in 1907 and between 1915 and 1917 she was used for boom defence work. Later, in WWII she served as an armed patrol vessel before she came to an inglorious end, washed onto the beach at Hunstanton in 1947. This was the second year that the team had worked on the Sheraton and the aim was to supplement the measurements gathered the previous year and to complete the photomosaic that was started in 2008.

Over the weekend members of the team worked taking measurements and drawing the key features of the wreck while others took photos for the mosaic. To this end, the wreck was divided into metre square grids and photos were taken of each square with a camera on a tripod. Once back in Portsmouth (as the new guy) it was my job to carefully stitch together all 86 photos using photoshop to create the photomosaic a very time consuming and frustrating job. However, once it was completed the photomosaic was a very useful tool showing the wreck from a unique perspective. 

I found my time with the NAS both really enjoyable and useful giving me heaps of ideas for integrating interested people with maritime archaeology. After leaving NAS it was time for me to head back to New Zealand for some much needed R&R before I take off to the USA to dive the Great Lakes which I will talk about in my next blog.

 

The next stop on my grand tour of Europe was back to the UK where I spent the month travelling around and working with a number of different organisations involved in the management and protection of shipwrecks. My first hosts were the coastal and marine team at Wessex Archaeology, one of the largest archaeological practices in England. The team consisted of a number of maritime archaeologists who as well as undertaking commercial maritime archaeological jobs for clients such as the Port of London are also the contractor for the Protection of Wrecks Act on behalf of the UK national heritage agencies. The commercial nature of Wessex maritime work means that all their diving is done with surface supply so although I wasn’t able to dive with them it was very interesting to see both their equipment and methods of doing archaeological work. I found my time at Wessex really rewarding as I not only got to meet some great people but also to see how maritime archaeology can be undertaken on a commercial basis.

Next up I decided to visit the historic coastal town of Cornwall on the South West Coast of England where Jim Standing the director of Fourth Element and the European Scholarship Coordinator was based. Cornwall is exactly as you might imagine an English seaside town to be with hundreds of small boats moored along a shore which is littered with nautical themed English pubs. Cornwall is also known for its diving and Jim and I managed to fit in a couple of dives including one rather successful foray for scallops. One of the definite highlights of my time in Cornwall would have to be my tour of the A.P. Valves factory. This company produces the Buddy brand of diving products and has been one of the most popular diving manufacturers in the UK since 1969. Recently they have moved into the production of rebreathers namely the inspiration and evolution and it was a great experience to see not only how these amazing bits of kit are made but also tested in their custom built lab. It would have been wrong to spend any length of time in Cornwall without trying the local culinary speciality so on the last day of my stay Jim took me down to Lizard Point the most Southerly Point of the UK to have Cornish Pasty’s and it must be said that neither the view nor the pasty disappointed.

From Cornwall I travelled to Portsmouth to spend some time with English Heritage (EH) the Government organisation tasked with the management and protection of shipwrecks within English waters. While there I got to work on a number of projects which aimed to raise the profile of protected shipwrecks among the diving and general public alike. My time with EH was really interesting as it gave me a unique insight into the kind of roles and activities which are needed to manage and protect underwater cultural heritage on a national scale. While in Portsmouth I also visited the historic dockyards which is the home of the Royal Navy and also the historic ships HMS Victory, HMS Warrior and the amazing Mary Rose.

 

My next project saw me taking the train across England and up into a beautiful but very rainy Scotland. My destination was the town of Kenmore on the edge of Loch Tay where the maritime archaeologists Nick Dickson and his wife Barrie had offered to host me at the Crannog Centre, a museum built around their excavation of Crannogs there since 1980. Nick and Barrie had organised a whole range of projects for me to take part in and I found myself doing everything from helping out at the museum, operating the sidescan sonar during a survey of the Loch and even building a replica Bronze Age log boat.

My final trip for the month was from Loch Tay up to the Orkney Islands off the northern tip of Scotland. The Orkney Islands are a Mecca for wreck divers in Europe with the remains of a German Fleet that was scuttled there at the end of World War One. I was in Orkney to dive the fleet aboard the charter boat Radiant Queen along with the fantastic team from Scapa Scuba. Over the next few days I was spoilt being taken to the sites aboard a fantastic boat and guided around all three Konig class battleships and three of the four remaining cruisers by a hugely knowledgeable divemaster. The diving in Scapa Flow was unlike any I had ever experienced before. The massive ships lie between 15 and 46 metres deep and visibility was such that you could clearly see huge sections of the vessels at a time and make out features ranging from the big 15 inch guns to the officers bath tub! August was such an amazing month not only for the amazing things I got to do but also for all the great people I met along the way and a big thank you must go to everyone who made it all possible