What a dive: The underwater realm that inspired James Cameron's new 3D film Sanctum

By Chris Hall

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

This is a real photograph from one of the most mysterious environments in the world

80ft below the surface, the Cascade room in Dan's Cave, on Abaco Island in the Bahamas, is one of the most sensational chambers in the cave system 

No, it's not a still from Sanctum - although James Cameron's new diving film was inspired by a near-catastrophic expedition by the man who took these pictures, Wes C Skiles. 


This is a real photograph from one of the most mysterious environments in the world. You could visit Abaco Island, in the Bahamas, and have no idea that beneath you lies this vast network of caves, accessible by as many as a thousand 'blue holes' - submerged vertical caves peppered with entrances to this forbidding domain.

Of the 1,000 or so blue holes in the Bahamas, fewer than 20 per cent have been investigated, and almost none fully explored

Exploring these passages is the diving equivalent of climbing K2  -  you've got to be exceptionally well trained and well prepared. Even then, safety is no guarantee; Wes C Skiles died during a dive last summer.
Sanctum is dedicated to him.

Of the 1,000 or so blue holes in the Bahamas, fewer than 20 per cent have been investigated, and almost none fully explored. It's a perilous mission to undertake; the caves are pitch black, vast and labyrinthine: the deepest blue holes can be 600ft deep, and the connecting caves run on for thousands of feet in all directions. 

 

Light filters down from the entrance of Ben's Cave (left) in Lucayan National Park on Grand Bahama. There are over six miles of caves under Grand Bahama. The caves can get so narrow that the divers have to remove their equipment to fit through the gaps (right). Here one of the team explores Garbage Hole, with his guideline clearly visible in the foreground

Divers maintain a taut safety line at all times. Without it, it could be nigh on impossible to find your way out before your air supply runs out. Divers carry three tanks of nitrox mix - one to use on the way in, one on the way out, and one for emergencies - and three lights, which are used to communicate as well as navigate. 


Standard practice states that if any one light fails for any diver, the whole dive is called off. 

In Sawmill Sink, another of Abaco's blue holes, bacteria colour the water a violent red, and signal the presence of hydrogen sulphide clouds 

Wes Skiles died during a dive last summer. Sanctum is dedicated to him

As well as the routine hazards of diving, the unique water chemistry of inland blue holes brings its own problems. 


In inland blue holes, a thin layer of fresh water, provided by rainfall, sits on top of denser salt water. The fresh water acts as a lid, preventing oxygen from entering the water. 


Bacteria in the salt water produce hydrogen sulphide as a result, generating toxic clouds of gas, suspended near the surface throughout the caves.
Divers cannot spend too long exposed to these clouds; it can penetrate their wetsuits and skin, leading to nausea, delirium and even death.
These conditions also contribute to the blue holes' interest, however.
Life on Earth began in prehistoric times, when oxygen was vastly less prevalent in the planet's atmosphere. 


By exploring these caves, and studying the bacteria that exist here, scientists can learn not only about life as it was four billion years ago, but as it might exist now on other worlds: it is possible that there are pockets of liquid water beneath the surfaces of Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, and distant planets. 


The oxygen-deficient conditions also preserve animal remains.
Marine biologists have recovered the remains of crocodiles and tortoises with their soft tissues perfectly intact, even after thousands of years. 

Divers thread a careful path between stalactites and stalagmites in Dan's Cave. The fragile rock formations are tens of thousands of years old 

 

 

 

Divers Brian Kakuk and Kenny Broad (left), from the team of scientists exploring the blue holes, surface in Sawmill Sink. A team of divers explore the north passage of the blue hole known as Stargate, on Andross Island (centre). Dean's Blue Hole (right), in a cove on Long Island, is the deepest known underwater cave in the world, stretching down more than 600ft

Virgin Unveils First Ever 'Flying Submarine'

By Timon Singh
From http://www.euinfrastructure.com/

The Necker Nymph

Not content with conquering the air with Virgin Airlines and space with Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson is now making a play for the deep blue sea with an 'underwater plane'.

Named the 'Necker Nymph', this sleek looking submarine allows divers to go to 40 metres below the surface and swin with the fishes in such a nimble way, it is like "flying underwater".

According to Virgin Limited Edition, Branson's boy's toy division, the submarine can even perform 'dolphin-like flips' out of the water.

However while this may sound like a fantastic way to scare surfers, it is not cheap. As you'd expect, this toy is for the super-rich only and costs $25,000 for a week's charter and another $88,000 for the sub's superyacht launch vessel, "Necker Belle."

The only way to whalewatch

Designed and built by renowned engineer, Graham Hawkes, of Hawkes Ocean Technologies, the $631,000 sub actually utilises fighter jet technology in its design. Unlike all conventional subs which use ballast to sink in the water, Necker Nymph uses downward ‘lift’ on the wings to fly down to its desired depth.

Its cockpit also gives divers a 360-degree view of marine life and unsurprisingly Virgin is marketing it as a way to view whales, dolphins and other marine life up close. It is also environmentally friendly as its buoyancy prevents it from landing on reefs and its advanced noise emission technology ensures it doesn't disturb the ocean's ecosystems.

Like Virign Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, Branson's foray into space tourism, the Necker Nymph is the British entrepeneur's latest addition in 'adventure technology'. It seems that while Branson may have a private island, a superyacht and a spaceship it seems he won't be content till he has conquered every possible environment, above and below the waves.

If you're rich enough and curious about renting the Nymph, potential deep-sea divers must take half-day safety courses beforehand and can then dive for up to two hours at a time. You will also have to follow standard SCUBA procedures and will be trained/accompanied by a certified Necker Nymph pilot.

Ancient Cities Lost to the Seas

Dunwich, England, is one of several underwater sites where divers are uncovering new information about historic cultures

• By Robin T. Reid
• Smithsonian.com, July 29, 2009

Erosion—caused by the North Sea's relentless pounding of England's east coast—had all but consumed Dunwich by 1750.

Beneath the slate-gray surface of the North Sea, about a half-mile off England’s east coast, lies the underwater town of Dunwich. Crabs and lobsters skitter along the streets where some 3,000 people walked during the town’s heyday in the Middle Ages. Fish dart through the sea sponge-ridden ruins of its churches, now partially buried in the seabed some 30 feet down.

Erosion—caused by the North Sea’s relentless pounding of England’s east coast—had all but consumed Dunwich (pronounced DUN-ich) by 1750. And the sea’s silty, cold waters made visibility almost nonexistent for the intrepid few who wanted to explore the medieval ruins.

Until now. Thanks to advances in acoustic technology, a group of divers and a geomorphologist are surveying the sunken town this summer using multibeam and sidescan sonars that can detect objects on the seafloor. During a survey last year, the group mapped two churches and found evidence of a third.

“This is absolutely opening the seas up,” said David Sear, the Dunwich project’s geomorphologist who teaches at the University of Southampton. And, he added, the North Sea has plenty to reveal; in addition to Dunwich, Sear would like to use the undersea technology to explore the submerged towns of Old Kilnsea and Eccles that lie farther north.

The English sunken sites join a list of others that span the globe. According to UNESCO, submerged settlements have been found in Egypt, India, Jamaica, Argentina, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and the Black Sea.

“Under the sea is probably the world’s biggest museum,” said James P. Delgado, president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology based in Texas. “There’s not a lot of work going on in this area right now, however. The issues are time, money, interest, and research. Just to do a single shipwreck can take years.... Underwater archaeology costs 10 times more to dig.”

In addition to these issues, Delgado noted a strong push toward conservation pervading the world of nautical archaeology. People aren’t jumping into the water unless a site is in danger or stands to advance research.

For Sear, surveying Dunwich answers a question people in the region have asked for years: Is anything left?

“In the 1970s when I was a child playing on the beach, the last remains of All Saints church were visible on the shoreline,” Sear said in an e-mail. “Hence why I got fired up over the place!...The sand banks grow and decline over time, so there are periods when more of the site is exposed (1970s) and when they are not (now). As the coast recesses, so the banks migrate shorewards covering more of the site. The exposed remains lie in a tidal scour channel between the inner and outer bank. This migrates shorewards too; so in another 100 years different ruins may well be exposed, assuming the coastal morphology remains the same.”

Sear expects to find ruins of religious structures and forts, since they were made of stone. Houses were made of timber or wattle and daub.

Lead diver Stuart Bacon has found several objects since he began his exploration in 1971. One of the most exciting finds to date is a portion of a slab used to cover a knight’s tomb in 1320, a fine example of the prosperity Dunwich once enjoyed.

“Eight hundred houses... a dozen abodes of prayer and worship, windmills, workshops, taverns, shops, storehouses, ships,” wrote Rowland Parker in Men of Dunwich, the 1978 classic reference book about the town. “It would be difficult to think of an every-day commodity in existence in the late 13th century which was not obtainable in Dunwich market-place, either immediately or ‘when the next ship comes in from’ Copenhagen, Hamburg, Barcelona or wherever.”

The sea that brought trade to Dunwich was not entirely benevolent. The town was losing ground as early as 1086 when the Domesday Book, a survey of all holdings in England, was published; between 1066 and 1086 more than half of Dunwich’s taxable farmland had washed away. Major storms in 1287, 1328, 1347, and 1740 swallowed up more land. By 1844, only 237 people lived in Dunwich.

Today, less than half as many reside there in a handful of ruins on dry land. These include portions of the Greyfriars monastery and a corner of All Saints’ cemetery. Beachcombers have occasionally seen bones protruding from the cliffs, left over from burial grounds that are crumbling into the sea. And local fishermen over the years have said they heard bells tolling in the church towers from beneath the waves.

Ghostly sounds or not, the rediscovery of Dunwich continues. Sear wants to create a 3-D map of the church sites found so far. The group wants to expand the survey to cover other churches and structures.

“We’ve got to be in for some surprises,” he added.

Around the world, other sunken settlements have been explored or are the subject of current work:

The clear turquoise waters off Turkey's southern coast reveal the partially submerged ruins of the ancient city of Simena.

* Kekova, Turkey: The partially submerged ruins of the ancient city of Simena are easy to see through the clear turquoise waters off Turkey’s southern coast. A massive earthquake buried much of Simena in the 2nd century AD. Tourists can swim near the ruins or see them from glass-bottomed tour boats.

Two thousand people were killed instantly on June 7, 1692 when an earthquake wiped out Port Royal, Jamaica.

* Port Royal, Jamaica: On June 7, 1692, an earthquake wiped out this Caribbean port, once known as “the wickedest city on Earth.” Two thousand people were killed instantly, and many others perished later. Nautical archaeologists have found eight buildings so far.

In Alexandria, Egypt, divers have found remnants of Alexandria's famous lighthouse as well as Cleopatra's palace.

* Alexandria, Egypt: Divers have found remnants of Alexandria’s famous lighthouse in the bay, as well as Cleopatra’s palace. UNESCO is looking into whether the world’s first underwater museum could be built here.

Several manmade structures believed to be temples built in the 7th or 8th century surfaced off India's southeast coast after the 2004 tsunami.

* Mahabalipuram, India: Several manmade structures believed to be temples built in the 7th or 8th century surfaced off India’s southeast coast after the 2004 tsunami. Some believe they are pagodas that were part of this pilgrimage city, which is now a World Heritage site.

* Tybrind Vig, Denmark: During the late Mesolithic period (5600 to 4000 BC), people hunted, fished, wove fabric, and were buried in this new submerged settlement close to the west coast of the island of Fyn.