P-MAN XV Update #20 - Exploring the Nepheloid Layer

11 April

If yesterday's SCUBA expedition was a "whole lot of nothing," today's was even more deserving of that description. We did three dives, and Dan did an additional short 4th in a cove, in Western Lagoon. Unfortunately, it seems we got to the bottom right as the tide was at its lowest and it seemed to stay there all day. The best visibility in this area is with an incoming tide. But we didn't have that. And on top of that, we ran into nepheloid layers. Now you're probably thinking that I just made up that word. We learned it from Scripps and I thought for sure they were trying to pull the wool over some recreational SCUBA divers' eyes. You know, like "Hey Ensign Colmer, go get me a left handed smoke shifter." But nooooo...here's Wikipedia's take on the Nepheloid layer.

So they weren't taking advantage of us. But the nepheloid layer prevented us from doing much. On the first dive, we had minimum visibility and after searching, we said we needed to keep this one on the list. We never saw a thing that resembled the SSS image. The second dive was into a 'neph' layer so we called the dive off.

On the third dive, Pat had some nice visuals of Casey slowly disappearing into the nepheloid layer: first his fins, then from his hips down, then just his head showing and then poof! He was gone. All the while Casey kept looking over his shoulder to see if this was some sort of hazing ritual and we weren't following him. But of course we were. We called this dive off also.

We got some great training in low/no viz, slow ascents, hovering, looking at lots of blue. But not much else. Dan and Joe did a short dive during one of our breaks on a known Dihatsui wreck. So, at least they saw something.

Nick our boat captain

 

 

During our surface intervals,
we looked closer at some of the Rock Islands.

We did get to watch Joe and Nick try to catch some fish that were being hunted by some seabirds. No fresh sashimi for us.

Joe in the kitchen

Casey on our last dive day.

Then back to base, back to the house and out to dinner with Pat and Lori Colin. They're pretty excited about the Norm find because it got them looking in Western Lagoon, a place that no one thought had much sea life. They're finding out there is quite a bit and it's exciting for them to be able to document it.

And this brings to a close the SCUBA-diving part of our mission: need to be nitrogen-free by the time we start flying home. Tomorrow, we will conduct some more interviews and plan to go hiking if we get some actionable intel.

- Flip Colmer

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