Author: Sofia Grabiel Butler

After I got back from the Shootout, Sea Rovers Dave Caldwell and his wife Heather Knowles invited me to join their charter boat, the Gauntlet, to dive the famous Chester Poling wreck on the Fourth of July!

I drove up to Beverly bright and early to meet Dave, Heather, and the rest of the folks on the charter that day. I was happy to learn that Sea Rover Maura Keane and friend of the Sea Rovers Ferdinand Vesely were also going to be diving with us! I got to catch up with the two of them and with Dave, and met the other couple divers I didn’t already know. 

 

As we got closer to the mooring of the Poling, we broke out the Fourth of July themed donuts and Heather drew up a diagram of the wreck to show me what we would be seeing. The Poling was a coastal tanker that sank off Gloucester in 1977. It got caught in a huge storm that ripped it in two before it sank. The bow end is still diveable, but only for tech divers since it rests at about 180 feet. At 90 feet, the stern end is a much more popular site, and it was this end that we were going to dive! I had heard of the Chester Poling before, and knew it was somewhat of a rite of passage to dive it as a new East Coast diver, so I was really excited that Dave and Heather had offered to take me along.

When we got to the wreck, we divided into groups and entered the water one group at a time. Heather and I were the second group to go in, so after we suited up we did a giant stride entry off the back of the boat and started to descend along the line. This was my first real dive with my new dry glove system, so we took it slow as I got used to the feeling. Diving in a drysuit feels a bit like getting shrink-wrapped, and you add just enough air to the suit as you descend that you aren’t getting pinched or squeezed, but it’s still a weird sensation that I wasn’t used to having in my hands. You can also feel, as you move your hands around, that the air travels to or from your gloves depending on how elevated your arm is. It’s weird but cool!

As we got to the bottom of the line, the wreck came into view. For our first dive, we did a big loop – swimming down along the starboard/right side of the deck all the way to the stern, then heading back up the port/left side then back to the line. As we went along, I could see that the entire deck was covered in teeny tiny sea stars, each less than half an inch! 

There were plenty of fish that took refuge around the wreck too, including the resident wolf-fish that Heather and I saw under the stern! After we made it back around to the line, we ascended up to the boat to get ready for our next dive. When we got back on the boat, Heather told me that we would be penetrating into the wreck on our next dive! She gave me a rundown of what to expect and what rooms we would try to go to while we offgassed on our surface interval. Soon enough, it was time to head back to the wreck! We swam back to where we saw the wolf-fish and swam into the wreck via the open hole in the stern. We swam through and emerged a little farther up the ship, through a large hole that had formed in the deck of the ship. We then swam down the length of the ship to another hole, this time in the side of the ship. From there, we swam from room to room, through corridors and between the skeletons of collapsed walls. In some rooms light found a way in through gaps in the wall or ceiling, or through a porthole, but in many of the rooms our flashlights were the main source of light. As we swam through, I could see lengths of rope with algae growing over them, and the remnants of the galley’s kitchen appliances. It was super strange to think that this was once a working ship that people lived on! Finally we swam up through a gap in the deck and made our way back to the Gauntlet, but my mind was still on how otherworldly and exhilarating it felt to swim through a sunken ship!

Back on the boat, we changed out of our gear in time to sing Happy Birthday to Dave, (his birthday was two days prior!) as Maura and Ferd brought out the beautiful cake they had made! We all handed out slices as we made our way back to the dock. 

I had an absolutely amazing time on the Gauntlet with Heather and Dave, and I’m so so grateful they offered for me to join the charter! It was lovely to see Dave again, and to meet and dive with Heather. It really does feel like I’m a True New England Diver now, and I can’t wait to dive more wrecks in the future!

— Sofia

At the beginning of the Shootout, Sea Rover and wildlife cinematographer Cristian Dimitrius showed us a short film he had made last time the Shootout was held in Bonaire. It all started when he decided he wanted to try to get footage of the giant silvery tarpon that hunt off the house reef at night. He and the Backscatter guys set up a fake moon by stringing a bunch of lights together and mounting them on a float tied to the dock, with the idea that they’d be able to capture the tarpon in “natural” nighttime lighting. This short film was amazing. The tarpon were zipping around, stalking the small schools of bait fish until they struck. In the dark water with only the “moon” to illuminate them, it looked otherworldly.

Cristian has really expanded my appreciation and fascination for wildlife filmmaking. I watched a lot of nature documentaries growing up, so seeing Cristian present at the Film Festival at the Sea Rovers show blew my mind. His outlook on the shooter’s role as a storyteller and ambassador of nature really resonated with me, and it’s been amazing to have the opportunity to learn from him at the BSR show and at the Shootout.

So, when Cristian said that he’d be setting up a “moon” for some tarpon dives this year, I got really excited. The first night, I decided to watch from the dock rather than dive, given the number of people planning to be in the water. That turned out to be a good call, and I watched the silhouettes of the tarpon glide in and out of the light as they hunted. The divers followed them and I could see the flashes of their strobes as they took photos. 

Several nights later, Cristian set up the moon again. This time, it was only a few of us: Cristian, me, Jemma (this year’s OWUSS photography intern), Backscatter’s Christina Chapman, and Nauticam’s Vicky Liu. We set out the moon and let it be while we geared up, hoping that by the time we got underwater it would have already attracted bait fish. Based on what I had seen from the surface the other night, I was expecting three, maybe four tarpon. But no! After about half an hour, there were probably ten to fifteen tarpon gliding under the light before attacking the schools of small bait fish. They would stalk in and out of the light at the sea floor, and then emerge from the darkness into the water column and snap at the school in a huge gulp. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! It felt like a nature documentary.

Eventually the lights of the fake moon ran out of battery, but with our video lights on we could still see the hunting tarpon. The bait fish would stay in the light too, so wherever we were was where the tarpon would come to. It was mind-blowing, and we stayed in the water with them as long as we possibly could, until our cameras and lights died at around the two-hour mark.

It was definitely the coolest dive I’ve ever done, and it was an incredibly unique experience that I know will stay with me for a long time. It was also really special to share it with some of the new friends I made at the Shootout! I highly recommend checking out Jemma’s film of the tarpon (this was her final product, like my Christmas Tree Worm video).

— Sofia

As the two interns invited to the Digital Shootout, both myself and Jemma Paradise (the Our World Underwater photography intern, who I became good friends with over those two weeks) each made a small film for the Shootout crew to show before the awards ceremony on the final day. Jemma focused on the tarpon we saw on our night dives, and I picked…Christmas tree worms!

Christmas tree worms are found at almost every dive site in Bonaire, and are really common in tropical waters around the world. They’re a staple of Caribbean diving, and something that I feel a lot of divers tend to pass over in favor of other subjects. I’ve always thought they were whimsical, with all the different colorations and patterns they can have, so I used them to practice my macro photography and snooting. This posed an extra challenge when it came to video, since we were not supposed to use tripods on the reef and I had to be as stable as I could without one. Christmas tree worms don’t move, but you do have to be careful not to spook them too much with your movement or light, or they’ll vanish into their tunnels in the coral. I learned recently that their spiral structures act as gills, so the worms can’t breathe when they’re hidden away from predators (or divers). They have to re-emerge to be able to breathe, even when they don’t know if it’s safe yet or not. With this in mind, I tried my best not to spook them when I was shooting them.

Some of the seminars throughout the Shootout covered various video editing techniques for editing in Premier Pro, like white balance and color correction, stabilization, and slow motion. Sea Rover and Shootout crew Joel Penner was a huge help in getting my own video off the ground, since I was using DaVinci Resolve instead. Having the theory from the seminars was really helpful, but I definitely needed Joel’s help when it came to understanding where to find different tools in the interface and finding a good workflow. Originally I had big ambitions of doing a highlight on Christmas Tree Worms, nature documentary style. Sea Rovers Berkley White and Cristian Dimitrius were incredibly generous with their help, making sure that they were able to give me the guidance that I needed to see my plans through.Cristian is an incredibly inspiring cinematographer and a truly generous person, and I learned a lot from his storytelling seminars.He was really kind and went through several iterations of storyboards with me, brainstorming interesting shots or ways to set up my story. Eventually, we realized that my mini-documentary idea was a bit too ambitious, and I needed to find a different way to tell the story I wanted to.

Partway through the Shootout, I had gone to Sea Rover Erin Quigley’s nighttime talk about her own journey in underwater photography. She started out as a Shootout guest before joining the crew and becoming the amazing photographer and post-processing wizard she is today. I met Erin at the Sea Rovers Symposium in March, and was really excited that I would be able to spend more time learning from her at the Shootout as well. It was really inspiring to hear her story, and she closed her talk by reading two quotes she wanted to share. After her session, Erin and I talked some more and she gave me really valuable insight and advice about finding the same fulfillment and joy in my career as she has. It made me even more excited for the opportunities of the Internship, and for my journey as a diver. The quotes she read lived in the back of my mind for the rest of the Shootout, and when it became clear I bit off a tad more than I could chew with my dreams of a mini-nature-documentary, I found myself thinking about those poems again. I decided to use those quotes as narration, since they carried the same resilience, perseverance, and hope that I had been surprised to find in Christmas tree worms.

I’m proud of the final product I was able to make, especially considering that it’s the first video I’ve ever made, and that I didn’t use a tripod for any of the shots! You can find the final video here. I’d love to make that more documentary-esqe video later on, but I’m glad I decided to give myself more creative freedom with this one. I definitely couldn’t have done any of it without the mentorship of Erin, Joel, Berkley, and Cristian, so I am incredibly grateful for all of the guidance, inspiration, and help they and the rest of the Shootout crew gave me throughout those two weeks! I can’t wait to keep shooting and learning as I continue on my photography journey.

— Sofia

I recently had the incredible opportunity to attend Backscatter’s annual Digital Shootout in Bonaire! Every year, Backscatter hosts this two-week long underwater photography event, giving photographers and videographers a space to push their skills to the next level. Here, divers like me can learn from the best of the best in photo, video, and post-processing. The Shootout staff is an incredibly knowledgeable team from Backscatter, Nauticam, GoAskErin, and New Media Soup. On top of that, we’ve got a whole contingent of Sea Rovers here, both as guests and on the Shootout crew! Incredibly grateful to dive with and learn from such amazing and lovely people.

The team at Backscatter has been incredibly generous in providing me with a camera setup for this summer. I received my gear (a TG-7 camera and housing, with a Backscatter MiniFlash 2 and snoot) in its travel case a few days before I left for the Shootout, and met with the Backscatter crew via Zoom to help me understand how to put it all together and configure the settings ahead of time.I’m fairly new to underwater photography, so I really appreciate the Backscatter team taking the time before and during the Shootout to make sure I had all my questions answered! Once I got the hang of my camera, I got to try out some of the latest demo gear that Backscatter and Nauticam both brought to the Shootout for guests to demo over the course of the event, which was really exciting as well.

The Shootout schedule itself is packed: two morning boat dives, then after lunch we had the option to go on an afternoon dive (either on the boat or at the house reef) or to stay at the resort and stop in at the “Creative Cave,” where the Shootout crew were available to help troubleshoot or give advice and tips. Once the boats got back, there were two seminars hosted by one of the Shootout crew members. For example, on just the first day we had seminars in wide angle and macro techniques from Sea Rover and Backscatter founder Berkley White and Backscatter CEO Jim Decker, respectively. The next day, Sea Rover and renowned Lightroom master Erin Quigley (this year’s Boston Sea Rover Diver of the Year!) walked us all through her workflow and taught us the power of Lightroom Classic and how to effectively wield it. And that was just in the first two days! Every single seminar was somehow even more mind-blowing, and I learned an insane amount each time – whether it was about storytelling techniques, strobe placement, capturing light rays, or editing video.

On top of that, our dives themselves were really informative too! I’ve only ever used the “underwater” mode on a camera before, so manipulating all the different settings to get the exact exposure I wanted was very new to me. But practice makes perfect, so I spent a lot of dives just focusing on deliberately dialing in my exposure and adjusting my strobes or snoot the way I wanted for each shot. The seminars were all so inspiring and I tried to apply as much as I could of what I had learned when planning my shots (“Do I have an interesting background? Is the shot dynamic? Does it capture behavior?”). Here are two of my favorites!Once we got back on land I would hunker down in the Creative Cave and upload and edit my photos. Every other evening there was a critique session where we could submit a few photos for the Shootout crew to give feedback and tips for how to improve it (either in the water or in post). Even for the critiques where I hadn’t submitted anything, it was really helpful to hear their feedback on other people’s photos and think about how I might be able to improve my own. On the nights without a critique, one of the Shootout crew would give a talk about their own work, or about their personal journey, or about an interesting technique like fluorescence or blackwater.

I had so much fun and learned so much at the Shootout, and I can’t believe that it’s over! I can confidently say that this has been one of the most amazing learning experiences of my life, and I am so so grateful to have been able to start my underwater photography journey at the Shootout with guidance from such incredible and kind people.

— Sofia

After my time in Beverly, I spent the second half of the week back in Woods Hole to join the NAUI Rescue course Sea Rover President Kim Malkoski was teaching at WHOI. Kim and her coworker Giorgio led lectures on the first day, and then on the second Kim and us four students dove off the dock at WHOI for the practical section. We practiced different surface towing techniques, and made sure we knew how to properly ascend while carrying another person. At the end of the dive, we stayed in the Well, a hole in the dock where divers can enter and exit from, and all took turns thrashing around and generally trying to be as uncooperative as possible to give our ‘rescuers’ as much of a challenge as possible. I had a lot of fun with that part! I’m really glad I got to join the class, and I learned a ton, so am excited to have the chance later this summer to complete my training and be Rescue certified, since I wasn’t able to join the final examination day.

Kim also walked me through a lot of dive planning techniques I hadn’t been exposed to before! We calculated my SAC (Surface Air Consumption) Rate, which describes how much air a diver breathes in a minute at the surface, which helps them calculate how long their air supply will last at depth. We also walked through several techniques of planning a dive based on different limiting factors (bottom time, air consumption, etc.) and dive profiles. I’m really glad I had the chance to learn all of this from Kim, I can already tell it’s going to come in handy in the future.

On my last evening with Kim, we stopped by her WHOI friend Emily’s house, where Emily was having a barbeque! I met a bunch more of Kim’s friends and coworkers from WHOI, tried a quahog stuffie for the first time, and bulldozed through some exquisite corn dip. I also graciously and heroically defended Kim from dying of asphyxiation by eating her portion of the mango salad (to which she is allergic).

It was so lovely to return to the Malkoski home, and I both learned a ton and had a great time. Thank you again to Kim, Vin, and the whole Malkoski crew for being so welcoming to me! I can’t wait to visit again.

– Sofia

Sea Rover Dave Caldwell works at the Harborcenter in Beverly, Massachusetts, and graciously invited me to come in to work with him for a few days! I learned that on top of enforcing harbor regulations and managing boat traffic, Harbormasters respond to all kinds of emergencies on the water as well. Thankfully, both my days with Dave were relatively calm and everything ran smoothly. No capsized boats on our watch!

I joined Dave for all his morning and afternoon patrols, where we drove the Harbormaster boat around the Beverly area to search for anything amiss. When Dave heard that I’d never driven a boat before, he was more than happy to show me the (metaphorical) ropes and help me understand some of the boating rules he helps enforce as a Harbormaster, like the no-wake-in-the-harbor rule. I was really excited to be able to drive a boat for the first time, and am so grateful to Dave for being so willing to teach me! I got lots of practice maneuvering through the harbor channels and between moorings, and also got to head out further all the way to Bakers Island, being careful not to get too close to any of the lobster buoys that could get tangled in the propellers. The Beverly Harborcenter has three boats they use, two larger ones for further and faster trips like this, and a smaller one for maneuvering around the harbor. I got the chance to drive all three thanks to Dave!

 

On my second and last day in Beverly, Dave invited over his friend (and friend of the Sea Rovers) Dean Julien, from the Beverly Fire Department, to give me a tour and overview of their Dive Rescue Team operations! He showed me inside the Dive Rescue truck, where the team’s dive gear is assembled and ready to be donned at a moment’s notice, and explained the process of responding to rescue dive calls. Seeing inside the truck was fascinating, but there are also so many hidden compartments around the outside of the dive truck, including a full gas compressor, dinghy, extra tanks, and gear for ice diving. Then, he took me on board the Fire Department dive boat, which was docked by the Harbormaster boat, and showed me the various firehoses and dive setups there too. Dean was incredibly kind and really thorough in his explanation of his work, I loved talking with him! I’m really grateful that Dave invited him over.

On top of his work at the Harborcenter, Dave and his wife Heather Knowles run a dive charter on their boat, the Gauntlet (more on that in a future post!) and travel the world diving in caves and mines. Both of them are accomplished tech divers, Dave himself being NAUI’s Northeast Manager, and it was absolutely incredible to hear about their diving escapades and see some of the videos they’ve made to document those dives! It’s a whole other world of diving that was really fascinating to get a glimpse of. If you want to see some of these videos, they can all be found on Heather’s YouTube account here.

Thank you so much Dave for hosting me at the Harborcenter!

– Sofia

On Sunday June 8, I got up at sunrise to drive down to Connecticut. Rick Simon (a Sea Rover and former Intern!) had invited me to come wreck diving with him on his boat, the R/V Integrity. Rick and Eric Takakjian (also a Sea Rover) both captain the ship, and as we loaded our gear and tanks onto the boat, I met the friends of Rick and Eric’s who would be diving with us.

We got to the wreck in plenty of time, so once we dropped our anchor we hung out for a bit on the boat. After a while it was clear that this maybe wasn’t the best site to dive that day — huge swells coming off the reef nearby were rocking the boat too much. We decided to pull up the anchor and move to a different wreck about 90 minutes away, a tugboat called the Mary Arnold.

Once we arrived, we dropped the anchor again and Mike went down after it to make sure it was secure. Once he came back with the all-clear, everyone hopped in the water. Well, everyone except for me and Rick — we couldn’t just leave the boat unattended! Once the first group resurfaced, Rick and I finished gearing up, accompanied by a fantastic selection of 70s hits courtesy of the radio playing over the speakers.

Rick and I hopped in the water, and descended along the line. I had some equalization issues during my first week with the Malkoski family, but was happy to find that I was able to equalize my ears no problem! The Mary Arnold is about 60 feet deep, and as we descended down, the wreck’s tall engine came into view. Rick and I left strobes on the line, as a way to communicate who was still on the wreck, and then set off to explore the wreck itself. 

The Mary Arnold sank in the 40s, so there’s been plenty of time for algae, sponges, and cold-water corals to encrust the pieces of the wreck. When it sank, it broke apart, so sections of the boat are strung around the area. There were lots of big fish hanging around the wreck, and we found a few lobsters hidden away as well. I even spotted a ribbon of nudibranch eggs! We started at the engine and made our way over and around to the six-foot-wide propeller (much bigger than I thought it would be!), which was covered in cold-water corals and algae that swayed in the swell. It was really exciting to see the corals, since most of my cold water dives have been shore dives at sites with more kelp or seaweed than coral. I was hovering right up close to get a good look at the coral polyps, so I didn’t realize we were looking at the propeller! Rick and I had a very funny pantomimed underwater conversation as he tried to explain to me what we were looking at.

Once we boarded the boat again, we laid all our gear out to dry on the deck and started getting ready to head back. At this point it was time for lunch, and we were all hungry. Luckily, we came prepared! We made some delicious sausages for the ride back, and I talked to Rick’s friend Eric about the group’s wreck-diving adventures and learned about how their rebreathers work.

I’d never dove off Connecticut before, nor had I done any wreck dives, so I was really excited to experience this new kind of diving, especially with Rick, who clearly loves it. I’m so glad he invited me to come along! I had a blast and can’t wait to head out with Rick and the Integrity crew again.

– Sofia

During my first week at WHOI with Kim, I had the opportunity to meet for an afternoon with Sea Rover Dr. Roger Hanlon at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. As someone who loves all things cephalopod, it was amazing to meet Dr. Hanlon and talk about his work studying cephalopod behavior! We talked especially about some of his current research into what cuttlefish camouflage actually looks like to the predators the cuttlefish is trying to fool. I learned that he met one of his research partners at the Boston Sea Rovers Clinic, and Dr. Hanlon walked me through what they’ve been working on in the past few years.

Cephalopods like cuttlefish and octopuses are in complete control of how they appear to the outside world, and are able to change their color, pattern, and texture within the blink of an eye to match their surroundings. The question Dr. Hanlon and his team are asking is what the camouflaging animal looks like to other sea creatures, since they all perceive color differently. Some (like us) have three color receptors, while others have two or four, or more! Mantis shrimp famously have twelve color receptors in their eyes, which let them see thousands more colors than we can imagine. To understand this, Dr. Hanlon built a camera with sixteen color receptors, to be able to pick and choose receptors to imitate shark-vision or fish-vision. Dr. Hanlon was really kind and walked me through some of the hardware and software he’s been using to gather that data. It was so amazing to see!

Dr. Hanlon took me on a brief tour of the MBL labs, and I got to meet some of the cuttlefish, squid, and octopus that live there. They all had fun names, which I loved. One cuttlefish, Inigo Montoya, was very suspicious of the strange humans in his room, and changed his skin to have eyespots on the back of his mantle and a rippling white rectangle in the middle. Dr. Hanlon (the Cuttlefish Whisperer) has been studying cuttlefish for so long that he knows exactly what each display means, and was able to translate it for me!

I had a wonderful time talking with Dr. Hanlon. I was already interested in cephalopods, and in behavioral research, but talking with him made me really excited for my own journey as a diver and scientist. We talked about how we both prefer spending time in the ocean rather than in a lab, and he gave me some great pointers about using photography as a part of research. I’m heading to the Backscatter Digital Shootout as a part of my Internship, so I’ll be keeping his advice in mind as I get more familiar with underwater photography.

I will forever be grateful that Dr. Hanlon took the time to meet with me and show me his research, and for how interested in encouraging my own journey he was! It was a fascinating afternoon with a fascinating man.

– Sofia

My Internship has officially started! I spent the first several days in Cape Cod with Sea Rovers Vin and Kim Malkoski (the current BSR president!). Neither of them have seen me dive before, so we did several check-out dives to assess my buoyancy and to practice some skills. It’s been a while since I was in a drysuit, so it was really helpful to get that practice in too.

My first day was a big one: Vin and I went through all my gear, making sure I had everything I needed and that it was all set up correctly. We did our first check-out dive and since the weather was so lovely, and stopped for ice cream on the way home (Vin and I are both big on ice cream, I’ve learned).

That night, the Malkoski family and I drove up to Boston to see the first showing of Sea Rover Keith Ellenbogen’s short film Space to Sea: The Gulf of Maine’s Ocean Wilderness at the Museum of Science. We got to see the film on the huge IMAX screen of the Museum’s Mugar Omni Theater, and Keith spoke about the process and inspiration behind the film before showing it again. The images were all stunning, and did a great job showing the importance and beauty of New England’s ocean ecosystems. My favorite part of the film was a transition from a dark water column full of plankton fading to become stars in the night sky. It was a great night, and there were plenty of other Sea Rovers in attendance to support Keith!

In addition to my checkout dives with Vin, I also got to spend some time at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, where Kim is the Dive Safety Officer! We dove off the dock at WHOI, and I got to meet some of Kim’s colleagues and learn more about what she does in the Dive Office. 

I had the opportunity at the very end of the week to join the DAN Diving First Aid course that Kim was teaching – with so many researchers heading out soon, plenty of people needed to renew their First Aid and Rescue training. We learned how to properly give CPR, bandage wounds, recognize decompression sickness, administer emergency oxygen, and a whole lot more! I’m really grateful that Kim had me join the class, I feel much more prepared as a diver. It was also great to get a glimpse of some of the training that scientific divers like those at WHOI have to go through before they can join expeditions!

– Sofia