Odyssey engages in “commercial marine archaeology”, a practice that (rightly) makes many people uneasy. Odyssey is a listed company and aims to profit from sharing in the treasure retrieved from the wrecks it finds and plunders. They make use of ROVs and sophisticated sidescan sonar technology to sweep the ocean floor for potential targets. The company’s founder and CEO, Greg Stemm, is extensively profiled in this article.
Interestingly, the article refers to exploratory work that Stemm did in the Dry Tortugas in the 1980s. Daniel Lenihan rants about the plundering of underwater resources in this area in his gripping book Submerged. He worked in the region at around about the same time as Stemm was working wrecks there… Later, James Delgado, a colleague of Lenihan’s and author of Adventures of a Sea Hunter, challenged Odyssey’s claim that they are more than just treasure hunters, interested solely in commercial gain:
“The issue is one where the flash of gold and silver obscure or overwhelm the type of careful work that yields treasures of a different sort,” Delgado wrote. “We base our opposition to treasure hunting on the track record of those years of lost opportunities and lost history, and the challenge we issue to Odyssey is to show how they are different.”
Read the full article here. There’s more on this tomorrow…
A Top Gear special about James Bond’s cars put us in a frame of mind to enjoy some vintage Bond. Tony thinks Roger Moore was the best Bond; I am torn between Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton, and Daniel Craig. For me, Roger Moore is at the bottom of the list (jostling for position with George Lazenby). Chronology, Tony’s fondness for Moore, and the fact that we only have about three James Bond DVDs swayed us towards a re-viewing of For Your Eyes Only.
For Your Eyes Only doesn’t only feature a convoluted plot, ridiculous foreign villains with hilarious accents, and a ridculous foreign Bond girl – also with an hilarious accent. It also contains extensive underwater footage that can teach us about the behaviour of sharks, what to wear when diving (yellow PVC overalls and gumboots), and how to manoeuvre a hard diving suit inside a shipwreck.
That said, the underwater scenes are surprisingly slick and well-shot for a movie made in 1981. They were filmed in the Bahamas. Carol Bouquet, the actress who plays Bond’s main squeeze, Melina, apparently had a sinus condition that prevented her from doing underwater stunt work, so the close-ups of Moore and Bouquet were filmed on a sound stage with fans blowing and special lighting. Bubbles were added afterwards. If I’d had this knowledge when I watched the film I’d have looked more closely at those sequences; without knowing they were filmed on dry land, I admit that they are very convincing.
In the screen capture below, I’ve grabbed a moment of the action as Bond and Melina take a submersible down to a shipwreck (the St Georges) lying over 100 metres under the sea, and exit at depth to penetrate the wreck and retrieve a very important computer. They run across the sand in their yellow gumboots. While inside the wreck they encounter a villain in a hard one-man diving suit, and a vigorous battle ensues. They blow him up, but are unaffected by the concussion despite being only a couple of metres away when his suit explodes. Upon returning, victorious, to their submersible, they are set upon by another villain in a one-man submersible with various pointy bits and cutting devices. There is an extended wrestling match between Bond’s submersible and the villain’s.
The divers race across the ocean floor from their submersible
Curiously, although both Bond and Melina are breathing a mixture of helium and oxygen (because they’re diving so deep), their voices are unaffected by the helium, and sound completely normal. They also move through the water with remarkable ease, and – mysteriously – a large amount of light penetrates down to the shipwreck at 100 metres. No mention is made of the decompression obligation they’d have after their underwater high jinks.
If you want to combine a love of diving with a fondness (or love) for James Bond, you could do a lot worse than For Your Eyes Only. You can also check out Thunderball. You can get the DVD here if you’re in South Africa, otherwise here or here.
It turns out that June is a really good time to go and dive in Durban, especially if you’re from Cape Town and feeling cold and damp. We spent 17-21 June in Durban, dived three days and enjoyed the warm weather (shorts and t shirts are suitable), warm sea (22-24 degrees) and excellent conditions.
On the boat – Patrick of Calypso, Maurice, Craig, Tony, Clare, Christo
We stayed at Ansteys Beach Backpackers, in their self catering units. It’s a 15-20 minute drive from the Bluff to the dive centre at uShaka Marine world, but we enjoyed the proximity to Ansteys Beach and the convenience of the facilities and nearby shops. They have a one toilet roll policy (after which you have to buy your own), which caused some ill feeling for certain members of our group!
Ansteys Beach
Ansteys Beach Backpackers sign
Ansteys Beach Backpackers
Odd wreck near the harbour wall
Craig, Maurice and Tony packing up outside the wet room at Calypso
Christo packing up at Calypso
We dived with Calypso Diving and Adventure Centre, where Tony has worked as an instructor and done some of his training. The dive centre is busy, with six instructors on the staff. Their shop is a short distance from the wet room where the compressor is situated, right on the beach front. Patrick at Calypso has recently discovered some fantastic deep (suitable for technical divers) wrecks around Durban, most notably the HMS Otussubmarine (videos here and here) lying at 105 metres. He runs an extremely professional organisation and we felt safe and relaxed diving with Calypso.
Calypso dive shop at uShaka Marine World
Over the three days that we weren’t in transit, we did six dives. Tony and I skipped the dive in the Lagoon Tank, but it’s a very special one indeed. We dived the wreck of the Fontao and the Coopers light wreck, as well as three dives on the Blood Reef complex opposite the old whaling station on the Bluff. The reefs of Durban are populated by the same colourful tropical fish we see in Sodwana, but there’s a bit less coral and more rocky superstructure.
We had a fantastic time in Durban, and are happy to add it to our list of “not too distant” warm water dive destinations along with Sodwana and Ponta do Ouro.
We’ve already seen something about one of the US Navy’s recent requests for new research: a device to monitor divers’ vital signs, and – if necessary – counteract incipient decompression sickness.
Exploring the deep ocean requires immensely complex, robust technology, as the human body is powerless against the forces found there. Wired.com reports on another US Navy requirement. It wants someone (anyone!) to develop a flexible, lightweight (under 400 pounds/180 kilograms) one-man deep sea diving suit to replace the mini submersibles and extremely bulky, unmanoeuvreable one man suits that they currently use. A flexible suit would make salvage of items and travel on the ocean floor a cinch.
A rare, windless day in January allowed me to do a dive at Long Beach with students, and then to take the boat out to Shark Alley straight afterwards. While we were packing up at Long Beach a gentleman arrived with a home-made, one man submersible on a trailer. For air, he would just breathe what was inside the craft. He was hoping to test it at Long Beach. We couldn’t stay long enough to observe the test, but the man reckoned he would be able to take it down to 30 metres, if the initial test succeeded. If the shallow water test failed, he could open the hatch and swim to the surface.
The interior of the submarine
Inspecting the hatch
The home made submarine on its trailer
After our dive at Long Beach, Gary decided that the best way to get to the yacht club down the road was to drive there on his scooter, in his wetsuit. This would also give him good protection in an accident!
Gary heads off to the yacht club
We headed out of the yacht basin, south towards Shark Alley in the boat. Over the radio we heard a call from the SAS Amatola, a navy frigate, warning that they were going to be firing in the direction of Roman Rock lighthouse and for all boat traffic to stand by.
SAS Amatola and friends
There were a lot of fishing boats out, and many of them called the Amatola for more information on exactly when and where the target practice was to take place. Unfortunately the Amatola had either switched off their radio or the operator took a coffee break, because there was absolutely no reply. Not everyone was surprised by this fact. We all snaked out along the harbour wall, one boat after another, to avoid any flying bullets.
SA Navy patrol boat
It was a beautiful day down at Shark Alley, and the divers had a wonderful time. Some of them were British visitors, and they were delighted to meet our charismatic broadnose sevengill cowsharks.
Divers ready for action
A peaceful day at Shark Alley
Looking towards Smitswinkel Bay
On the way back we heard more warnings that the Amatola was firing, but no specifics as to what areas to avoid. I’m still here, so we managed to avoid the guns!
Newsweek recently published two articles on the exploration of the ocean.
The first concerns Sylvia Earle and Robert Ballard, both pioneers of ocean exploration. Ballard favours unmanned Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) allowing so-called “telepresence” in the deep ocean by humans, while Earle favours putting actual humans in the ocean as opposed to robots. Aside from the deeper issues it raises, it’s an excellent potted biography of both these eminent ocean explorers, as well as an introduction to the mechanisms available to us when plumbing the sea’s greatest depths.
Ballard’s thoughts on the subject of exploration – and the trajectory of funding – are explained like this:
“The body is a pain,” says Robert Ballard, the marine geologist who discovered the Titanic, striking a common note about the problems with manned travel. “It has to go to the bathroom. It has to be comfortable. But the spirit is indestructible. It can move at the speed of light.”
For two decades, he’s been arguing the virtues of “telepresence” technology: remotely controlled subs and rovers, pumping video to an unlimited number of researchers worldwide. This year he seems to have finally closed the conversation. While the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) pulled money from manned exploration, Ballard’s telepresence efforts comprise “the only federal program dedicated to systematic exploration of the planet’s largely unknown ocean,” according to NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.
The second article is a response by directorJames Cameron to Robert Ballard’s assertion that unmanned submersibles are the future of ocean exploration. Cameron visited Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, nearly 11 kilometres deep, in March 2012. His view is that
No kid ever dreamed of growing up to be a robot. But they do dream of being explorers. And inspiring young minds and imaginations is one of the most important things we can be doing if we want a future supply of engineers and scientists insuring our lead in innovation.
Andrew Thaler of Southern Fried Science (the best ocean-related blog I read) wrote an eloquent summation and response to both these articles. His assertion is that there is actually very little distinction between manned and unmanned ocean exploration, particularly at the extreme depths that the Deepsea Challenge expedition operated at (and at depths much less than that, too). Cameron did not look out of a viewport or window in his submersible; he viewed the output of an array of 3D cameras, on a screen, from inside the sub. Thaler makes his point convincingly:
Technology doesn’t create explorers, explorers create technology. Any tool, from Wormcam to Alvin, that provides a glimpse into the wonderful unknown, is a tool worth having.
It is the ocean that inspires us. Everything else is hardware.
His point is that to get caught up in what is very nearly a purely semantic discussion over which form of exploration has greater virtue and potential is to miss the point that funding is lacking and political will to explore the ocean is low. Perhaps one day, when we’re knee deep in ROVs and manned submersibles, we can have this discussion again. For now – anything that assists people to see what’s under the sea is a good thing.
In the grand tradition of putting the cart before the horse (or similar), I read the coffee table book accompanying the locally-produced television series Shoreline before watching the series. The book gave me serious wanderlust, and the series did the same. Four presenters (a marine biologist, an archaeologist, a historian and a main anchor) travel the 2,700 kilometres of South Africa’s magnificent coastline, exploring the events that shape both the coast and human history.
My favourite was the helicopter footage – in truth, if the series had just been a continuous helicopter shot of the entire coast, with pauses for loo breaks, I’d have watched it. There were some surprisingly moving stories related to the war – the loss of the troop ship SS Mendi, carrying over 800 troops of the South African Native Labour Corps to France, struck me in particular. Most of the troops were rural Pondo people. The vessel was struck by another ship in the English Channel, and began sinking immediately. The men, gathered on the deck of the ship, were exhorted by their chaplain to meet death with dignity:
Be quiet and calm, my countrymen. What is happening now is what you came to do… You are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers… Swazis, Pondos, Basotho… So let us die like brothers. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war-cries, brothers, for though they made us leave our assegaais in the kraal, our voices are left with our bodies.
They apparently danced and sang as the ship disappeared beneath the waves. There is a memorial to the men in Port Elizabeth. I found so much grace to be exhibited here, by soldiers who were fighting a war to defend a country that had very little time for them, and placed them at an economic and social disadvantage.
I was also all stirred up by an interview with two elderly ladies who were members of the South African Women’s Auxiliary Naval Service (SWANS). Almost 300 women served as harbour defence staff (monitoring defence systems) and administrators during the latter years of World War II. This opened up a whole world of possibilities to the women of that era, whose career options were as limited as one can imagine in 1940. It must have been very empowering to these women to be able to participate and perform vital wartime functions in the service of their country.
One of the harbours where they served was Saldanha Bay, where a system of mines defended the bay from invasion by enemy submarines. On 1 June 1944 one of the SWANS on duty detonated two rows of mines after spotting a suspected enemy submarine on her screen. This story, as well as the revelation that during World War II there were Catalina flying boats (totally awesome planes that could float) stationed at Lake St Lucia in northern KwaZulu Natal, which flew patrols to Madagascar and back, looking for German submarines, surprised me. South Africa seems so far from the European source of the war, but there were German U-boats all the way down here and a serious war effort taking place.
For the water babies, there’s some wonderful footage of a dive with coelocanths done by the chaps from ReefTeach in Sodwana Bay, and a shark dive on Aliwal Shoal. Sand sharks in Langebaan Lagoon, shysharks at Arniston, seahorses in Knysna, leatherback turtles nesting at Sodwana, and the larger cetaceaninhabitants of our coast are featured in various episodes. Unfortunately the segment on the KwaZulu Natal shark nets was poorly done, with a propaganda speech that implied that the nets are a benign invention, with most of the sharks caught in the nets surviving to be released, and not many other creatures caught at all. There was however an excellent piece on the NSRI, which I hope alerted many South Africans to this national treasure and the need to support its efforts.
The script – written by the very brilliant Tom Eaton – makes full use of the strengths and knowledge that the presenters bring to the series in their personal capacities, and there are very inspiring and pride-inducing moments that made me very pleased to be South African, and living here. I can highly recommend this series. The production values are surprisingly high given that it’s an SABC production (no offence intended). We sent it as a gift to Tony’s son in Denmark and I hope it helps him to understand some of what we love about this country.
The official website for the series is here. You can get the series on DVD here. There’s also a companion hardcover book, that you can get here.
If you’ve watched the Discovery Channel series Treasure Questor the HMS Victory Special, you’ll be familiar with Odyssey Marine Exploration. The company uses sophisticated underwater imaging technology to search for long-lost shipwrecks (and their valuable cargoes) on the ocean floor. They then use advanced salvage techniques and remotely operated submersibles to retrieve anything of value, sell it, and (hopefully) turn a profit. It’s an appealing business model, but – as the company has discovered – it’s not quite as straightforward as it sounds.
This article picks up where the television series left off. It shows that archaeology for profit is not without its risks, and illustrates how costly it is. Odyssey has now diversified into other activities involving deep sea exploration, such as prospecting for metals and minerals underwater.
Even if you’re unfamiliar with the work of Odyssey and their business model, it’s a good read. Click here.
How would you like your own remotely operated vehicle (ROV) the size of a lunchbox, weighing 2.5 kilograms, operational to depths of 100 metres, and customisable with a wide range of parts to perform just about any function you can dream up for it? Meet OpenROV, the open source underwater robot that you can connect to your computer via a USB port, and that streams live video via tethers to the surface. It’s built from a kit that costs about $750 (just over R6,000) and is one of the most nifty things I’ve seen in a long time.
