My Dive to the Bottom of the Ocean

Hi all, yes I know its been a few days since I promised to write. But I am actually out here doing a job, so work comes before fun and if I do have a break I'm IMing Jeboleth for much needed conversation. I actually think this will take a bit to write about the entire event. It was just too amazing to simply say, hey cool I went to the depths of the ocean. So bear with me.


I found out I would dive the morning of K-Dude's dive. I immediately began to get nervous, even though my dive would be 24 hours away. I watched them get into the sub that morning, and tried to imagine how I would feel the next day doing the same thing. I can't really recall what all I did that day, working, and such, my brain was so preoccupied. I know I barely ate lunch or dinner and even asked one of the ALVIN mech's to sit in the sub again to get a feel for the space, and hopefully make me less nervous. We had the dive briefing that night at 7:30 and honestly, I tried my hardest to listen to what needed to be done, what data to take, etc, but my brain kept thinking "I'm going to the bottom of the ocean" so concentration wasn't easy. I would be the starboard observer, giving me less duties but still having to record data and help with the mechanical science collecting tools. After all that I did manage to go sit in ALVIN for about 20 minutes, there were another scientist in the sub testing equipment with a mech so it was nice to be there "as if" I were diving.


Once I felt good, I went up to my stateroom to pack my pillowcase. Yes, my pillowcase. I put in extra socks, sweatpants, a long sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, a knit hat (borrowed from one of the ALVIN pilots), my iPod, some migraine medicine (just in case) and a bit of Jeboleth (his shirt and a picture of us at his cousin's wedding). Those were my "comfort" items. The one thing that is important is that you can only bring clothing that is cotton, wool or mostly cotton or wool. Absolutely no nylon, polyester, thinsulate or any other man-made material is allowed in the sub. This is to help reduce fire hazards and static buildup. I took all that to the hanger, put it in the bin for the next morning and went back to try to sleep some. I took some Bonine (anti-sea sickness) before bed for 2 reasons, 1) the sub bobs in the water on the surface and can cause bad bouts of tummy problems and 2) it makes me sleepy so I wouldn't be up all night thinking about the dive. I did manage to sleep quite well.


I woke up at 5 am, with no alarm clock help. This is obviously a rare event for me. I got dressed in my cotton shorts, cotton t-shirt (the Fruity Oatie Bar shirt for those Serenity lovers!!) some socks and my skull shoes. It all seemed to go quickly for me. I tried to eat some blueberry muffin for breakfast, walked around a bit waiting for the go ahead and then some time around 8am, I walked out on deck. This part I remember vividly. There is a stair case that goes up the side of the A-frame that puts ALVIN in and out of the water. These stairs lead to a retractable bridge that you walk across, stop, take your shoes off (no shoes allowed in the sub) and you climb in. The walk up those stairs was the most anxious moments, my heart was racing, half nervous and half purely excited. When I was taking my shoes off, you can see the water and its a long way down! I had a flashing thought of "oh please don't drop your shoes off the boat!" I climbed into the sub, the ALVIN mech wished me good luck and I climbed down the little ladder into the sub. My heart racing.


I reached over to P-Man, who I had already told I was nervous, and he smiled at me and gently told me that it would all be okay. That made me feel much better. The next few moments were having our ladder taken out of the sub so we had more room, adjusting the cushions, pillowcases, and our pilot WBS doing last checks. They wished us luck from the top, removed the protective cover and sealed the hatch. There was no stopping us now. WBS had us doing checks and stuff, talking to us, and such that I honestly never felt us being lifted off the deck and put into the water. The next moment I heard "and we are in the water" which I quickly looked at my porthole and yup, there was the water! It didn't bob around nearly as much as I thought it might. And a few minutes later, last checks and WBS radio'd in "ALVIN diving" and down we went.


You really cant feel the descent. I didn't notice any change, the sphere is pressurized, we were listening to music and I was watching the water change from light blue to dark indigo. Then it was all black out the window for a bit. Not too much later the biolumenescene started. OMG!!! I have to tell you that I had the "ooh shiny" moment. I stared out the window watching the little flashes and flickers of iridescent blues from the little biolumenescent critters swimming by. I think it has to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life and I can't even properly explain the colours. Beyond amazing.


Then the water went black again, for quite a while. The entire descent took about 1.5 hours but it was barely noticeable. WBS then said, "okay, look out your porthole, there's the bottom." Yes, the bottom of the ocean!!! And it is another amazing sight. If you've ever seen lava fields, where the land is rocky but ropey, rolly and just craggy, that's what it looks like. And shiny too. The basalt sparkles in the light from ALVIN. This started our many hours of searching the bottom, taking samples and being part of an incredible club of about 13,000 people who have been to the bottom of the ocean in ALVIN over the last 40 years (see ALVIN history and FAQs) 13,000 people is not a whole heck of a lot for a club like this compared to the human population of the world! BTW, if you want to know more about the ship the RV Atlantis that I'm on you can fin it here.


Okay back to the dive memory. We found our water sampler, the LVWS, which we dropped from the ship that morning around 6:30 am, moved it into position, got it set up and started the pumps near a riftia patch. Riftia are the large tube worms (BTW, this picture was one of the ones we actually took during our dive). Our sampler will collect 210 liters of diffuse vent flow water, about 20 - 30 degrees centigrade. We release it acoustically from the ship and retrieve it with the ships crane the next morning. We collected Tevnia too (smaller tube worms), took some chemistry samples, placed other science tools for data collection and collected other tools. It took about 6 hours to do all the work, but it really didn't feel like that long.


A few things I remember best: WBS telling me to look out the porthole so he didn't hit a vent, me videoing a crab moving around a vent and WBS yanking the camera away from me for real data (he was right to do so), me staring out the pilot seat when he let me sit and look out the main porthole at an amazing volcanic black smoker that was more stunning than any video or image could ever, EVER, show. I also saw tons of white crabs, huge shrimp, tiny crustaceans, big tube worms, little tube worms, volcanic rocks, black smokers, shimmering water, crawling creatures that I had no clue what they were, wiggly spiny creatures, eel-like fish, funky orange crabs, and so many other creatures that I can't even describe! I need to buy a book with pictures of all the creatures so that I can know what they are!! (YES, I need another book!!!)


Other things we did in the sub, P-Man and I collected data, I held the sipper toggle switches, we talked about the dive, some history of ALVIN, listened to my iPod. Yes, for all my friends out there, I introduced two people to the Cruxshadows and they really liked them!!! I have to figure out how to tell Rogue his music played at the bottom of the ocean.... We had lunch, I got the special veggie box with an apple, peanut butter and jelly and a Milky Way bar. I skipped the coffee. If you do have to use the "facilities" while in the sphere, there are devices for this, and they will put up a curtain and play music loudly so you feel less embarrassed. However, I am very happy to say that I didn't need to use such facilities, I was able to wait until I got back onto the ship. As Jeboleth said, "Mind Over Bladder." :D The sphere does get some condensation inside, due to the very cold water outside and us breathing inside. By the time we're on the bottom of the ocean I had my sweatpants on over my shorts, my long sleeve shirt on, my sweatshirt on, the knit hat on, and a blanket covering me. I could've used another blanket, but I had to share. The dripping condensation didn't bother me much, I just kept mopping it up with the lint free towels. WBS told us a previous diver was a freaking a bit when they saw the water and thought the sub was leaking. Which is kinda funny cuz if the sub was leaking, it would likely implode before you could think about it leaking! We were good though. We even "flew" through an underwater volcano, it was very cool!


Finally, what felt like was much too soon, WBS said that it was time to surface. :( Damn, I was just loving this too much to leave now. Of course I was nervous before the dive, and now I just didn't want to leave! It took us another 1.5 hours to surface. During this time we spent most of our time taking pictures of each other, making sure the data was all recorded and doing some checks of the sub. The only down side to the sub dive was the low oxygen levels. We have to have a lower oxygen level to help reduce the risk of fire. This sometimes causes side effects to the divers, P-Man got a headache and I kept taking little sleepy nods. Luckily I had no headache of any kind!!! We got our stuff together, and suddenly (or rather it felt like suddenly) we were on the surface. The zodiac boat was there, the divers were in the water hooking up the tow line and we were cruising over to the Atlantis. My dive was nearly over, and the "worst" part was about to come. The Initiation Event.


All first time divers are initiated when they return to the ship. In some manner, cold water, food, ice or something is dumped on them, shoes are messed with, clothes are messed with. Hazing??? Maybe, but I prefer to call it fun camaraderie. I knew when we were moving towards the ship that something would be waiting for me, but not what it would be. The hook up to the ship was a bit more like when you're at an amusement park ride and the metal hooks into a track and it smacks and jerks quickly. Not bad, just a bit jolting. We got all hooked up, the A-frame pulled us up and onto Atlantis and we waited a few minutes. In that time we pulled the last few things together, made sure our stuff was neat, we would get the pillow sacks later that night. The hatch was opened and we were welcomed back, they dropped the ladder back down for us to leave and P-Man was the first to get out. Then I climbed up the ladder to leave.


I got out and quite a few folks were on deck to welcome us back and to see what would happen to me. I reached into the bag to put my shoes on (which had been chilled nicely in an ice bucket apparently) and suddenly felt gushy in my toes. Ewwwwww. I tried to knock out the stuff but they were screaming at me that I "had" to leave the shoes on, ick. The walk down the stairs was quite squishy, in what I later found out to be a lovely mixture of banana, goldfish crackers and Nerds. Yum? When I got at the bottom of the stairs they led me over to the side to sit on a bucket. Then I was dumped over my head with a huge bucket of diluted diffuse flow vent water mixed with toilet paper. I reeked of sulphur and had toilet paper pieces all over me. Yay, I was officially one of the 13,000 divers!


It took me washing my hair 3 times to get the smell and the toilet paper pieces out. And then it was dinner time. I'm sure there are more memories, and when I have them I'll add them to the next posts to make sure I try to recall it all. My senses went into overload from that day's activities. I was 2511 meters (or 1.58 miles) below the surface of the ocean for about 9 hours. I've done a lot of cool things in my life. I've walked across the islands of the Galapagos, I've hiked the Andes mountains (and into a dormant volcano), I've rode a wire guide over a lake to the base of a volcano in Costa Rica, I've stood on the northern most shore of Ireland in winter (yes, that is amazing), I've traveled Europe by myself from Amsterdam to Rome, I've snorkeled the clear waters of the Carribean and climbed the ancient Mayan pyramids in the Yucatan, but this event, this event blows them all away. My few words to describe my adventure: Amazing, wonderful, exciting, and awesome. I love my job!