Deep Water...

[LONGINUS]

For a long time I have been fascinated by very deep water. I know the exact moment that this began. It started on a trip on a sub when we had a bit of time in hand, we were approaching the equator and decided to spend a day kicking back on the surface, barbie on the casing. The weather was totally clear, not a breath of wind for the last week. We surfaced at night and popped the hatch. Almost immediately I was knocked back by a wall of stench; rotting weed and slime. The boat had started to turn into a reef after a few months of stooging around in the tropics at slow speeds, the baby barnacles were clicking and snapping in the warm air.

Up on the bridge the view was magnificent, no land for over 1000 miles in every direction , enough starlight to read a book by. We were at stop about 5 miles south of the equator in around 6000m of water and there was zero wind, I noticed large shapes, shadows drifting by just out of visibility, wreckage? thought nothing of it and went to bed, it would be a pretty good day tomorrow.

The sun hit the slime and barnacles at about 0530.

It all started to cook immediately. The smell was overpowering. The call was made to scrape the boat down in preparation for a barbie on deck and a swim before getting underway. I got suited up to dive the bottom of the boat with three others and we waited while the shark sentry got in place. It was then that I saw what the dark shapes on the water were last night.

Drifting past the boat were jellyfish the size of a dining room table, great ovals with intricate patterns and contouring, huge skirts trailed behind them. They were spread out at random intervals over hundreds of metres. I knew what was coming next. The sentry always tested their weapon before we dived and now there was a target other than a piece of wood thrown over the side. It wasn't quite like killing an albatross but I was a little uncomfortable at having to go in the water after what followed.

A 5.56MM round travels at around 950metres per second.

The first round hit the nearest jellyfish with a soft thud. An instant thin slit appeared in the front of the animal while about 50 kilos of mass blew out the other side spraying in a fanning arc of white organic matter. Chunks and pieces skipped across the water like smooth stones. The thin slit facing us opened and closed as though the creature was trying to 'heal' itself somehow. After about 10 seconds it stopped and hung open, ripping slightly. The entire mass then rolled over a few seconds later - finished. The soft underbelly lay exposed to the morning sun, a deep red and crimson core colouring now visible, fading to light pink on the streaming tentacles. A burst of automatic fire followed. The mass shredded immediately, tentacles cartwheeling across the slick water. Two seperate hemispheres seperated and sank quickly - beginning the long trip down to the 6000metre mark.

Jokes followed about the 'survivors' closing in for payback....wouldnt want to be going in the water after that etc. To be honest I wasnt that happy about going in either.

We got to work scraping the hull with foot long stainless steel dive knives, they had a nice flicked up point that was good for lifting up barnacles and shell growth. It was all coming away pretty easily. About then I first looked down beneath me. I had never been diving in water this deep. It was a deep blue black. With no rain or shore run off, visibility was unrestricted, only limited by the absorption of sunlight - hundreds of metres potentially. There were four of us in total and looking down now I could see four distinct trails of barnacle and debris stretching down in perfect vertical lines into the abyss. I began to think what was down there. I knew these areas were technically deserts, so far from reefs or seamounts there was nothing except the great whales that had the body fat reserves to get across these zones into richer areas 1000 miles north or south. Still, we were introducing something very different into the system here. It would have been a million years before rich barnacles and crushed shellfish had filtered down to the bottom here. I suddenly had a vision of us 'waking' something up, 'disturbing' something that had been in stasis; waiting for a food supply to raise it from the bottom. This is exactly what we were doing. I imagined a freight train with teeth shooting up from the depths following the chains of food all the way to us and couldnt get it out of my head for weeks.

About then, one of the guys slipped, there was a sharp metal on metal 'tang' and then someone was holding their hand. Thin vapours of blood dissolved into the seawater as they streamed out of his hand - it was disturbingly fascinating to watch. I looked below as his knife spun out of reach, spinning end over end, the polished blade glinting in the sunlight.

The cut wasnt too bad, we put another glove on it to create pressure and started to finish up. About 5 minutes later we started coming up as a group. Looking down something caught my eye; it was the glint from the knife still visible, spinning all the way down into the darkness. I ran some numbers when I got back onboard after that and worked out that the knife must have been at around 300 metres when we left the water. It would take over an hour and a half for it to reach the bottom, and whatever was down there.

As we climbed out onto the deck, it was clear that the phenomena of the exceptional visibility had not gone un-noticed. A few of the sailors had polished up some coins and were throwing them over the side. One young seaman had spent an hour polishing an already bright 20 cent piece with silvo. As he flicked it over the side, I wondered when that coin would next be in the open air. 1 million years? 5 million? 200 million? At that depth, temperature and pressure, the coin would last indefinetly. I wonder what the being that next picked it up would think of it...I wonder what they would make of the Platypus upon it...

I went down below and threw myself around in the showers for a while before crawling into my rack. Dark dreams of the 'freight train' with teeth whipping up from the deep followed...jellyfish as big as cities drifting past in the gloom...

[puurri]

Author, author!!!!

[puurri]

Author, author!!!!

Mind you the RAN frocked up big time when divers were tasked with "cleaning" the props of minehunters with carbide discs that compromised the "nil signature" of hulls. FFS the props were set at =/- 1/2 mm for specs yet I imagine some newly commissioned sub louie frocked it big time but the white shoe mafia smokescreen ......well FFS!

And as for the DOOF subs what the Labour cabinet thought was the go! (extending the hull parameters to frockit big time)

And sending a sub prop (despite "contractual in confidence" agreement with the designers) off to the yanks for analysis.

And other JORN and sundry matters years back. (all in the "Public Domain")

[lambert]

dude that was epic!! bravo

[puurri]

Phillip K Dick writ large. The imagery blows me away!

(And the imagery, the imagery that is conjoured up)

Frightening stuff that I can imagine. (sorta Solaris 1st time round)

[LONGINUS]

And sending a sub prop (despite "contractual in confidence" agreement with the designers) off to the yanks for analysis.

Ah the fun never stopped with those props. I remember we used to thunder around on the surface at 15 knots, half the prop sticking out of the water flogging itself to death, then after the first refit it was discovered we had fractured all the blades. Thats the problem in buying a Sweedish design like those subs and props though - just isnt designed for us aussie hoons to drive it

[black duck]

That's some story Longi. Jules Verne-y

I experienced a super down-scaled version in the Mentawais, pissed as a newt on the trip back to Padang. A plastic chair had been accidentally hurled off the top deck into the drink, no land in sight, late afternoon with the sun just starting to set. I took it upon myself to retrieve the plastic and promptly leapt off the top deck. By the time i hit the water i had no idea where the chair had got to and as the boat was doing about 6 knots i found myself quickly isolated in the deep blue. Looked up to see the skipper screaming at me to swim back to the boat while the engines were put into idle. Took a moment to have a good look around and dive down into the deep blue. Fcuk it was deep...and blue. Nothing quite like it. Gives you a good sense of smallness and the mystery of the ocean.

[LONGINUS]

That's some story Longi. Jules Verne-y

I experienced a super down-scaled version in the Mentawais, pissed as a newt on the trip back to Padang. A plastic chair had been accidentally hurled off the top deck into the drink, no land in sight, late afternoon with the sun just starting to set. I took it upon myself to retrieve the plastic and promptly leapt off the top deck. By the time i hit the water i had no idea where the chair had got to and as the boat was doing about 6 knots i found myself quickly isolated in the deep blue. Looked up to see the skipper screaming at me to swim back to the boat while the engines were put into idle. Took a moment to have a good look around and dive down into the deep blue. Fcuk it was deep...and blue. Nothing quite like it. Gives you a good sense of smallness and the mystery of the ocean.

Thats awesome, definetly something I would do as well. I remember chatting to some locals on Pohnpei about what word they use to describe deep water. I found out that in their native language they have 50 words to describe the colour 'blue' but no word for the colour 'red'. There were no native red flowers so the only time they saw it was as blood which had its own name.

[Animal_Chin]

Wow well written

I know the feeling well... We had a swimex off of the NW coast of WA in about 6km of water. Balmy, deep blue water, just floating around when a mate told me the depth and said 'there could be anything down there..'

I thought about that for second then got shivers down my spine. It's hard to comprehend the amount of water below you and that you are just a tiny speck floating above it all

and btw... from a bosun to bugmariner: ADF tab-data puts f88 muzzle velocity at 930 m/s....

[steve shearer]

Coupla minor quibbles Longy.

Now pelagic weed and barnacles wouldn't stink if you were cruising around in the water.
They'd still be alive and smell pleasantly of the sea.

It would take quite a bit longer than 5mins of sun for that to start "cooking" and stinking up the joint.

Now.....these jellyfish mate.......big problem.
As one who has sailed across the tropics and worked on many boats in tropical oceans and seas...I've never seen a large pelagic jellyfish as you describe, nor heard of one.

The closest I've seen or heard of are large catostylus sp. but they're only as large as a basketball .


Are you sure they were that big?


One other point re: jellyfish.
The mass of a jellyfish is of an approximate density equivalent with seawater...so even are loosing several rounds into them....they wouldn't sink quickly. They'd particles would disperse and drift slowly into the dysphotic zone.


Otherwise, the description is evocative.

On the approach to Guam we hove to atop the Marianas trench on a very calm day and went over for a swim with goggles......diving down and seeing that abyss stretching downward freaked me right out.
It is an alien feeling.

[LONGINUS]

and btw... from a bosun to bugmariner: ADF tab-data puts f88 muzzle velocity at 930 m/s....

skimmer pukes weren't given the sub-carbine variant of the F-88 though

[daryl]

ack ack The water wasn't a tad like that, either when I fell overboard at sea, or in the harbour diving to cut rope off the props. Coming from SA the first clear water I'd seen was at Coffs .

[LONGINUS]

Coupla minor quibbles Longy.

Now pelagic weed and barnacles wouldn't stink if you were cruising around in the water.
They'd still be alive and smell pleasantly of the sea.

It would take quite a bit longer than 5mins of sun for that to start "cooking" and stinking up the joint.

That's a funny one Steve. After 6 weeks under the water breathing totally sterile air you become very sensitive to any external smell. So when we came up, the foreign smell or weed and sea slime really knocks you around. If you had been on the surface the whole time and smelt it, you probably wouldn't have noticed a thing.

Now.....these jellyfish mate.......big problem.
As one who has sailed across the tropics and worked on many boats in tropical oceans and seas...I've never seen a large pelagic jellyfish as you describe, nor heard of one.

The closest I've seen or heard of are large catostylus sp. but they're only as large as a basketball .

Are you sure they were that big?

Absolutely, the deep ocean ocean travellers are enormous. There is so little food out there that they need to be that size to make full use of sun / photosynthesis. I asked a marine biologist about it once and he said they were probably a tropical version of Lions Mane jellyfish. Lionsmane jellys grow to around 3metres in diameter with tentacles streaming another 120 feet behind them. They are actually the longest animal in the world - longer than a blue whale. Anyway, he explained that as they get out of the equatorial region, wind, waves and sea state increase and such a large shape becomes unviable so they actually shrink.

On the approach to Guam we hove to atop the Marianas trench on a very calm day and went over for a swim with goggles......diving down and seeing that abyss stretching downward freaked me right out.
It is an alien feeling.

Get any waves in Guam?

[steve shearer]

Well I was going to mention the lions mane jelly....but seeing as that is unknown in the tropics.........


and quibbling about jellyfish is sort of anal anyway.....so we'll let the jellys slide so to speak ....and anyway whoever let the size of a jellyfish get in the way of a good story.

Yes, pumping waves on Guam.
The chamorros aren't that keen on whiteys though.
Nasty ice related violence when I was there.

[puurri]

Agree on the sense of smell and some are better neurally equipped anyway.
I can smell wild goats at abt 2 km if the wind is right. Others can't until abt 200 yards.

[daryl]

^^ we used paddles to move along a Portuguese Man 'o War that was a couple metres across.

Ah Puurri, I could smell the bucks reading that

[LONGINUS]

Well I was going to mention the lions mane jelly....but seeing as that is unknown in the tropics.........


and quibbling about jellyfish is sort of anal anyway.....so we'll let the jellys slide so to speak ....and anyway whoever let the size of a jellyfish get in the way of a good story.

Yes, pumping waves on Guam.
The chamorros aren't that keen on whiteys though.
Nasty ice related violence when I was there.

Once they know you aren't American it seemed to help. Some of those slums were so bad though that I doubt even Dog The Bounty Hunter would go there. I remember going to the post office and they had a pin board of FBI wanted fugitives flapping under the ceiling fan. I swear to this day that I saw someone walk in who looked exactly like the guy on the top left hand side of the board. All of them were drug related fugitives from Hawaii. Beautiful surf though

[steve shearer]

I lived in Piti, up from the Agana boat harbour and near the seamens club.

There was 7-11 across the road from me where I bought beer and food.
One day, in the shop I heard "freeze"....evrybody down"
cops everywhere with guns.

Eventually we were ushered out....two blokes in cuffs in the carpark...one split open across the head and face from machete attack.
Gang/drug violence in the carpark.

No customs/immigration from the flights from Hawaii so ice was pouring in there.

The Agana boat harbour is a sick wave but super shallow.