“Be Vewy Vewy Quiet... Weʼre Hunting Coral”

This past Saturday was a first for me, diving wise. I got to play “science geek”- it was fun (diving always is) and educational as well.

The Backstory: Several years ago my friends Mike Barnette and Joe Citelli were diving out in the Gulf of Mexico when they came across Oculina coral, which isnʼt supposed to be there. There are large Oculina banks found off the Atlantic coast of Florida, extending from Ft. Pierce to Cape Canaveral, representing the only colony of deep water Oculina Varicosa on Earth... or is it? http://oceanica.cofc.edu/oculina/home.htm

Mike Barnette is a Marine Biologist with NOAA, and took particular interest in the Oculina that he and Joe came across in the Gulf. Heʼs been trying to get back out there to obtain samples of it for genetic testing for several years. Due to conspiracies of wind, weather, and the difficulties of finding a boat to take you 75 miles Southeast of Panama City, sampling just hadnʼt come to pass, until this past weekend.

On Friday Mike (aka Barney) drove up to Panama City with the Endeavour. Knowing it was going to be a LONG ride, we met at the launch on Friday night, loaded up the boat and headed out to the middle of nowhere.

Everyone managed to snatch at least a little sleep during the sometimes bumpy ride out.  As dawn neared we found ourselves about 10 miles from our destination, and we also found some nasty weather on the horizon. It started looking like we might have to turn tail and run for home. We sat out sunrise, and finally saw a little break in the clouds, right in the direction we needed to go. Since it looked like the weather was going to slide right by us we decided to go for it. We motored the rest of the way to collection site and dropped the hook.

Barney and I geared up and rolled over the side into 230ʼ of warm, clear Gulf water, while Brian and Mark stayed topside to run the boat. Upon reaching the bottom we saw several nice clumps of Oculina on the rock ledges around the hook. Barney proceeded to photographically document the Oculina in situ, as well as the collection of samples, while I did the actual collecting. We collected three nice samples from different areas and all the photographs we needed, and were ready to pull the hook at 15 minutes. We were getting ready to send up the goody bag containing our samples when had a little scare- one of the handles on the goody bag was rusted through and chose that moment to break off. We improvised a secure closure for the bag, and sent it topside, then we pulled and fouled the hook and completed our decompression.

We surfaced after an uneventful decompression to find a glorious day topside. All that threatening weather had gone, the sun was shining, and we had coral samples. After climbing back on the boat and securing our equipment Barney and I proceeded to preserve several branches from each coral sample in ampoules of alcohol per the instructions of the scientists back at the lab.

This was where the whole project got really interesting for me. We all know that coral reefs provide habitat for lots of other sea creatures, but who would have thought that these clumps of branchy coral would have provided a home to so many other critters? Our accidental “by catch” included several small fish, some crabs, at least a dozen brittle stars and a small Moray Eel. Unfortunately the fish didn’t fare too well due to the lift bag ride up, but the crabs, brittle stars and moray seemed to be okay, so after getting our samples on ice we carefully collected them from the samples, goody bag and deck and released them back into the wild. Most of them went happily, but Mr. Eel was a little grumpy about being disturbed. He was about 12”-18” long, and about as thick as a finger. Barney had to make several attempts to finally catch him so we could let him go. In the process he got a little mad and was busy trying to bite Barney with his tiny little mouth. We didnʼt hold his bad temper against him, though, and finally got him headed back to his native habitat.

So what happens now? Barney will be shipping the coral off on Tuesday morning to LSU, where they will do some DNA testing on it. This will tell us if it is the same as the Oculina on the Atlantic coast. According to Barney, if it is the same, that could have implications for fisheries management.

With the collection accomplished we headed toward home, but stopped for a fun dive on the Zinnia on the way in. 

The Zinnia began life as the Narcissus and she was a Coast Guard buoy tender that was ultimately used for target practice by the Air Force, and now rests in about 180 feet of water.  She’s a small ship so it doesn’t take long to visit her, but she’s covered in marine life and the amberjack here are as friendly as ever.  Given the Zinnia’s remote location, she does not see a lot of divers.  After all four of us got a chance to make a quick dive on the Zinnia, we headed for the dock and some much needed food and rest.

On Sunday, we loaded up the boat for a trip to the Red Wing, south of Destin.  The Red Wing was an iron hulled schooner that sank in the late 1800s.  Mike had a set of numbers for her probable location so we were off.  After a lengthy trip we arrived on site and began looking for the wreck on the bottom. It wasn’t long before the wreck appeared on the bottom finder, so we began to prep the shot line.  It took a couple of tries, but we finally got the line out and stationary on the numbers.  So three of us geared up while Mark took charge of Endeavour.  We rolled over the side and headed down the shot, eager to visit a wreck that we knew had been seen by very few people.  As we descended we were met by a large group of amberjack that accompanied us all the way to the bottom.  Unfortunately when we arrived, the only thing waiting for us was our grapnel hook.  We had missed the wreck.  The worst part was that the presence of all the fish told us we hadn’t missed it by much.  But given the fact that we only had about 6 feet of visibility and we were in over 300 feet of water, this wasn’t the time for lengthy searches.  So we cast our light beams around us, hoping to spot something but coming up empty handed.  With only eight minutes on the clock, we aborted the dive and headed for the surface.  Mark was waiting patiently for us, and after boarding the boat we motored toward our last target of the weekend.

The Johnny O’Neil, as it is locally known, was a steamer that also sank in the late 1800s.  Mike had a theory about her true identity and wanted to check for some particular features.  But since Mark had been kind enough to handle the boat for our previous dive, we stayed topside while he had the wreck all to himself. 

During his tour around the wreckage, Mark was fortunate enough to locate a great porthole and rigged it up for a ride to the surface.  Then it was our turn to dive.  As it turned out, Mike was able to confirm the wreck features that he was looking for.  So he’s fairly certain about the wreck’s identity.  I won’t steal his thunder here, but you can read about it on the AUE website.

Another great weekend of wreck diving.  We’re looking forward to our next chance to get out there and take another shot at the Red Wing.