A Great Day at the Office

By Greg Workman

Juan Perez Sound - On the chart it looked like a good spot to find coral. All the ingredients were right: steep terrain, high current, just enough depth. The multi-beam sonar showed a rocky ridge running south to north, its summit at about 80 meters. The western side was gradually sloped but its eastern side is a nearly vertical wall dropping to over 300 meters.

We launch the subs in the late afternoon. Me and my dive partner, Sheila McKenna, buddy up at the surface, check in with dive supervisor, flood our ballast tanks, and throttle down. As we descend we try to keep each other in sight through a dense layer of jelly fish at 200 feet, then at 500 feet through a heavy layer of krill and the herring feeding on them. By 700 feet visibility starts to clear and we can see each other again. Then at 980 feet there’s a loud bang as I hit something. On previous dives I could see the seafloor approaching, but even though I’ve stopped I can’t see bottom.

I look to my left, then my right. “WE HAVE  PRIMNOA,” I radio to the surface over the underwater telephone.

I’ve landed on the crest of a large rock and on both sides of me are colonies of red tree coral (Primnoa pacifica). We’ve found what we’ve been looking for. Adrenalin courses through my veins - no chance I’m going to get cold this dive. Time to go to work.

The subs are equipped with high definition video cameras. One of our main goals is to film as much video on the species, size and density of corals as possible. I hover off the rock, spin the sub and start filming.

On this rock alone there are over 20 colonies ranging in size from half a meter high and wide to monster colonies a meter and a half high and two meters across. Around the bases are cup corals, zooanthids, hydroids, and small anemones. Each colony serves as mini condo for a variety of invertebrates. I see several species of crabs and shrimp hiding in the branches and on one colony I see the scourge of deep water corals, Hippasteria, a sea star that grazes on corals.

Then it’s time to collect a sample for species ID and I fire up the manipulator arm. Stretching out the arm while trying to hover is challenging for a guy who never played video games. I reach out, get hold of a medium size branch with the claw and try to break it off. No luck. The stuff is so tough the sub is swinging around as I move the arm so I get less ambitious and grab a smaller branch for a sample.

As we climb the ridge wall we come across several more aggregations of red tree coral, many sponges anemones, and cup corals. At around 800 feet we start to run out of red tree. At 400 feet we pass trough a school of mixed yellowtail rockfish and boccaccio and continue on up to the surface. As I approach the surface I kill the thrusters, add a little air to the ballast tank and ascend in silence. Man, what a great day at the office!