Situated on Lake Superior’s northern border with Canada and only accessible by either ferry or seaplane, you can’t haphazardly add a stop along your route to visit Isle Royale. The 45-mile-long island designated as a wilderness area is home to over 160 miles of trails in which only moose, wolves, and few hikers roam, without a single car in sight. Most commonly, backpackers prepare for the 4-5 day traverse from Rock-Harbor to Windigo on either end of the Island connected by the 40-mile-long Greenstone Ridge Trail. It’s safe to say far fewer visitors come to dive the many shipwrecks scattered around the island, as Lake Superior’s waters consistently hover around 40 degrees even in summer months. Given that I’ve only recently been introduced to diving in a drysuit and am a newly minted rebreather diver, I won’t be joining the SRC below the surface on a working dive quite yet, but I am looking forward to seeing the SeaArray system in operation and providing topside support. 

I leave Miami so early in the morning I feel that I might still be dreaming. Finally, the much-anticipated long day of travel is here. Aside from a few emails and phone calls, I still have yet to meet anyone from the SRC team. It was at a short layover in Chicago that I met Brett Seymour, SRC Deputy Chief and Audiovisual Production Specialist, for the first time. From there, we board a smaller plane heading into Houghton, Michigan where we would then catch the Ranger III ferry the following day to get to Isle Royale. It’s always a great sign of what’s to come when you trade bigger planes for smaller planes. Once we arrive in Houghton, we head to the dock to greet AJ, an Archaeologist with the SRC who is heading back from Isle Royale after assisting the park with buoy maintenance. We load up the coolers and head to the grocery store to tackle my most dreaded task; stock up on all the food I could possibly need for the next week on the island. A few panic buys and countless extra aisle pass-throughs later, and I manage to fill up a cooler that I am confident will last me at least a week. 

The next morning, we pick up David Morgan, a Senior Archaeologist with the SRC, who flew in straight from a family vacation in Mexico to join Brett in diving and gain cold water dive experience (talk about a temperature difference). Once all our bags and coolers make it onto the Ranger III, we board and do a lap around the ship to get accustomed to its Wes Anderson-esque design and the many seating options it has to offer for our six-hour journey to Mott Island — home for the next week. Jim Nimz, SRC Dive Operations Specialist, is already on Mott Island after completing various National Maintenance Dive Team tasks the week prior. We spend the evening settling into our dorms, unpacking our food, and becoming acquainted with our surroundings. Because the sun only sets around 9:30 PM, I’m able to squeeze in an evening hike to get to see some of the park’s gorgeous scenery and rocky shores. 

Seth DePasqual, the Cultural Resource Manager at Isle Royale, joins us each morning to discuss our field plans, the park’s priorities, and how SRC can help achieve them. Most of our days over the next week will be spent at the Glenlyon shipwreck, a 328-foot freighter powered by a triple expansion steam engine that sunk after striking the reef during a storm in 1924. The stern and bow sections sit to either side of a shallow relief fittingly named Glenlyon shoal, where the freighter initially ran aground and split in two. Due to the size of the site and the depth range from one section to the other it typically requires at least three imaging dives to piece together the entire wreck — stern, bow, and shoal in the center connecting the two.

Preparing the SeaArray system for the long days ahead, I’m fortunate to go through the setup piece-by-piece with Brett. He has meticulously developed and refined the system over the past four years alongside Evan Kovacs from Marine Imaging Technologies. Each component of the camera array is uniquely selected for ease of use in harsh field conditions, where divers are commonly wearing dry suits, gloves, and thick undergarments greatly limiting their dexterity and mobility. There is a fine balance throughout the system — components need to be robust enough to deal with the wear and tear of extensive field operation yet be replaceable and interchangeable if damaged. Maintaining a modular design, its arms can be folded in, letting it fit through dive doors and limit its footprint on valuable deck space while aboard the Cal Cummings (SRC’s Vessel). In combination with UWIS (a subsea positioning system), real-time location can be relayed to the diver on an underwater iPad, assisting with navigation across big sites and revealing track lines to show coverage and areas that may need more passes. 

Throughout the week, I start each day with a hike on Mott Island, exploring trails, encountering moose, and enjoying the island’s gloomy weather. It’s no surprise many ships have run aground on the surrounding shoals; fog and weather can roll in quickly, reducing visibility to near zero. Depths can drop to just a few feet even miles off the coast. The island’s lighthouses often appear and disappear in the fog, evoking the eerie experience of those who were once on the now-sunken ships. Given the unpredictable conditions of Lake Superior, we maintain constant radio communication to ensure safety, relaying position, status, and ETAs with dispatch centers via the island’s radio repeaters.

Between our daily trips to the Glenlyon, we take a day of long motoring to Windigo, where the SS America, a 182-foot freighter that ran aground in 1928, lies at the entrance of Washington Harbor. This ship is largely intact and sits with its bow in only four feet of water, while the stern reaches approximately eighty feet. The large variation in depth makes imaging difficult as it greatly impacts buoyancy and available light. While I’m not typically used to being on the boat while others are diving, the unforgiving nature and challenge of diving in Lake Superior is not a place to be trying multiple new things out all at once. However, the allure of diving in such a challenging environment is something I am determined to take part in in the future. Funny enough, I can still say I managed to take a dunk in Lake Superior. My overcommitment to hook a subsurface buoy while not hooking my leg on the gunnel taught me a valuable lesson. And yes it’s cold…very cold.

With a week’s worth of imagery collected, every evening is spent combing through images, running preliminary alignments, ensuring backups, and preparing SeaArray for another long field day. Having the ability to process data in the field is not a luxury I am accustomed to, and having portable computers that are powerful enough to run models throughout the night is an incredible asset. Talking through various processing methodologies and data organization surrounds the background of most of our nights, as the desire to streamline and perfect any workflow is always constant and never-ending.

Our last days at Isle Royale are spent repacking the numerous Pelican cases of equipment like tetris into the trailer that will be loaded back onto the Ranger III and towed with us to Denver. We get to meet with the park’s superintendent, Denice Swanke, with whom the SRC summarizes what it has accomplished, what work remains, and future goals. It is apparent that the SRC is first and foremost at the service of the park it is visiting, keeping the park’s priorities at the forefront while managing to accomplish imaging in conjunction with other tasks. Once the crane on the Ranger III picks the loaded trailer up to its deck, the long road back to Denver begins: a day and a half of continuous driving with a short pit stop just outside Minneapolis. David Morgan and I take turns driving behind Jim and Brett who are towing back the Cal Cummings. On the home stretch, one of the trailer tires blows out as though just to keep us on our toes. 

Once in Denver, the unpacking begins, or rather the repacking. Dave, Brett, and Jim are headed to Alaska in a few days and much of the equipment coming out of the trailer will be organized in a pile to head there with them. Dave Conlin, SRC Chief, shows me around the new dive locker, a massive area where things are currently staged as they are being moved from the old headquarters. Building shelves, organizing equipment, and making sense of what belongs where keeps everyone busy over the next few days. 

This trip has given me a glimpse of the operating tempo and caliber of work the SRC provides the NPS, and I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work alongside  the team on more trips this upcoming summer. Stay tuned for my next blog from an expedition to a shipwreck you just might have heard about – RMS Titanic.

I am starting my internship with the National Parks Service by completing a lifelong dream of mine, getting trained to dive on a closed circuit rebreather (CCR). I have yet to meet the Submerged Resources Center (SRC) team beyond our phone calls, but they have sent over an XCCR for me to use for training while taking a weeklong course in the springs of northern Florida, otherwise regarded as the cave diving capital.  Opening the green pelican case to be greeted by the unit inside with National Parks Service badges embroidered on its wing was a very surreal moment, the first of many to come. I will be joined by University of Miami Diving Safety Officer (DSO) Jason Nunn and Jessica Keller who are undergoing their XCCR instructor training from Randy Thornton. Sub Gravity shop manager Brian Sanders-Smith and I will be learning how to walk for the first time over the next week; CCR diving flips open circuit on its head quite literally. The physics of buoyancy operates in a vastly different way from what we’ve grown accustomed to with conventional open circuit diving.   

On Sunday, I meet Jason at the UM Dive Safety Office. All our equipment is staged and ready to be loaded after going through checklists throughout the week to ensure nothing is left behind. Just 15 minutes later, the bed and backseat of his truck are filled with all the equipment we could possibly need over the next week. Five hours on the road and an infinite round of CCR questions I’ve been occupying Jason’s time with, and we finally get to Randy’s house near High Springs, FL where we meet Jess and start to unload all our gear. Randy’s house is set up for exactly this, and I’m happy to be staying with him during this time, making morning setups and evening breakdowns incredibly efficient after long days of diving. We’re expecting Randy and Brian to get in from Utah late at night, so we head to bed; smiling all day is tiring. 

Unfortunately, due to car issues, Randy and Brian only got in around eight the following morning, but after a quick power nap, we got straight to work. We spent the entire day reviewing the units’ components and building it up for a dive. It’s hard to wrap your brain around all the new information thrown at you; saying it is a steep learning curve is an understatement. Luckily for me, I’ve been a complete XCCR nerd over the past year and have read through the manual on multiple occasions.  Never did I imagine I would be getting my hands on one so soon, and the thought that I’ll be diving it tomorrow is simply inconceivable.  Before you know it it’s dinner time, and we go out for pizza to discuss pressing topics: Is the pizza in NY infinitely better than Florida?  Yes. Is it really the water? I can’t say, but it’s in a league of its own, although I might be biased growing up in the northeast. 

Before we can get into the water at Ginnie Springs, home of well-known caves such as the Devil’s Spring System, we have an extensive predive checklist we must go through thoroughly. Overlooking a step or becoming complacent with these can lead to serious diving emergencies and jeopardize the safety and lives of you and your dive team. We hit the water midday by Ginnie Ballroom and prepare to be humbled, growing accustomed to controlling buoyancy and managing three different air spaces. We progress slowly to incorporate some basic drills, and by the end of the day, we get to poke our heads down into the Ballroom, a cavern just below our feet with mesmerizing beauty. The rest of the evening is spent recalibrating my brain to the new physics of CCR diving, rehearsing drills in my head, and digesting all the new information. 

We spend the next two days at Blue Grotto, about an hour’s ride away from Randy’s. Morning checks to make sure everything is in the car before we leave becomes routine, always double-checking your lunch isn’t being left behind. We focus on getting comfortable with emergency drills, dealing with issues associated with hypoxia, hyperoxia, hypercapnia, lost gas, and failures. Creating the neural pathways for these new motions is only one component.  However, having to actively think through the procedures  is a critical part of diving on a rebreather; how your actions  will  affect the loop you are breathing and the gas composition in it means everything.  Constantly playing with your buoyancy throughout this makes keeping track of your thought process difficult, so repetitions matter, and soon enough, all our long discussions about theory start syncing with proper responses. We get to experience the cavern area in Blue Grotto, and with depth comes the welcomed ease of buoyancy control. Blue Grotto is also home to a permanent resident, Virgil, a soft-shell turtle who seems to find a way of paying a visit at the most inconvenient time, swimming within inches of Jess’s and Brian’s masks in the middle of a drill to reclaim his status as the center of attention. After a long day of learning from our mistakes and rehearsing drills, it concludes with some much-needed sushi and completing the remaining final written exams. No rolls are left behind, and any stragglers are added to Jess’s “breakfast sushi platter” (a brilliant idea if you ask me).

The final day is a bittersweet experience. While  I’m excited to graduate from the confines of Blue Grotto and be certified, I’m subduing  the  thoughts that are screaming at me, which means tomorrow I won’t be in the water.  I’ve grown to love the steep learning curve and challenges,  driving  me to want to become as proficient as possible  which  will require hours and hours of practice and logging more dive time, something I’m greatly looking forward to. A massive weather system is pushing its way through the area, and on our way to our home away from home (Blue Grotto), we encounter multiple downed trees, detours, and close calls. Hesitant that the Grotto will remain closed because of lightning, we decide to keep pushing forward, even if that means driving around downed trees on dirt shoulders. By the time we arrive, the skies are clearing, almost as a reward for persevering through the doubts running through everyone’s heads on the ride over. Checks, checks, checks, and then we hit the water, demonstrating skills in conjunction with problem-solving surprise scenarios. We take a tour of the deepest corner Blue Grotto has to offer at thirty meters and follow the cave line, conscious not to silt the narrow corridor and make a mess of the visibility.  Our way up follows a steep and tight slalom-like pass, and we head to the surface to discuss our next task: rescues. If I had to categorize my first rescue attempt, it would be “acrobatic”, and that is being generous. Maintaining and controlling six air spaces is a challenge at best and requires a feel you can only develop with more practice and failed attempts. Caution was my friend on future tries, and after closing discussions, we got to shake each other’s hands as new XCCR divers (Brian and I) and new XCCR Instructors (Jason and Jess)!  The fun didn’t stop there; I had my first-ever peanut butter and jelly sandwich awaiting me in the cooler for lunch. It was good, it was really good, actually it was really really good, and the more bites I took  the  bigger  the smile got on my face I  just  could not hide it.  Peanut butter and jelly, who knew. 

With a new world of diving adventures ahead of us we got back to Randy’s to sanitize and break down our units. I assured Randy I’ll be pestering  him in the future to do  a full  cave course; the peace and almost meditative-like state of diving silently in a dark cave  is something that  still leaves me drooling. That night, we all enjoy laughing at our mistakes made over the course of the week. My personalhighlight reel would include bouncing like a basketball off the bottom while attempting semi-closed rebreather drills and my initial cirque du soleil inspired demonstration of a rescue. We all say our farewells in the morning, load up Jason’s truck  one more time, and head back to Miami. This experience has been humbling, inspiring, and rewarding. I am grateful for being taught by such amazing talent and receiving feedback and instruction from Randy, Jess, and Jason.

But just when I thought my week wouldn’t get any better, Jason and I conspired to dive the following day in Key Largo on the USS Spiegel Grove, all while on the car ride back.  Forecasts are just too good to spend the day out of the water.  As soon as we get our gear unloaded, we go over a dive plan, pack our scrubbers, and load the truck yet  again. The Spiegel is a five-hundred-and-ten-foot-long US Navy dock landing ship decommissioned in 1989 and sunk as an artificial reef off the coast of Key Largo in 2002. The following morning, we hit the water by nine thirty for our two-hour deco dive, and to be quite honest, I am  still digesting what my eyes saw. Spending an hour and a half at depth  between forty-five and thirty meters exploring the ship’s multiple decks and interior rooms while being accompanied by four reef sharks all in complete silence has  easily  jumped to the best dive experience I have yet to have, making past open circuit tech dives seem recreational in comparison.  All  these highlights and I haven’t even fully started my time with the SRC team yet. What adventures await on my upcoming trip to Isle Royale NP can’t come soon enough. 

Growing up between New Jersey and Israel, I learned from a young age while diving in the Red Sea that I am more comfortable underwater than on land. Naturally, I couldn’t get enough. I spent my summers taking as many dive courses as I could — from intros to specialties. Eventually leading me into technical diving where my detail-oriented mind could roam free and obsess about things like equipment configurations, underwater procedures, and dive planning. My passion for being underwater and in the environment I felt most connected with led me to pursue an undergraduate degree in Marine Science at the University of Miami. I was determined to do anything it took to build a career centered around an insatiable passion for diving while contributing to valuable research efforts. 

My passion for our surrounding natural resources also extends far beyond marine habitats. After graduating in 2020, I was fortunate enough to go on multiple cross country motorcycle trips, camping and hiking in countless national parks and forests, which may just be the only thing I would be willing to entertain instead of being underwater. Little did I know many of the places I visited, such as Yellowstone National Park, are not beyond the scope of the Submerged Resources Center. Whether I knew it or not diving was still in the background of my adventures and my newfound intrigue for our national parks would eventually find its way back to me.

Over twenty thousand miles and numerous national parks later, I found myself on a ten-mile-long island in the middle of the Caribbean, Little Cayman. This was my first opportunity to gain hands on field experience researching mesophotic reefs and sea mounts while on a remote field station. It also gave me a taste for what it was like to conduct research operations while applying my passions for technical diving and utilizing the photogrammetry principles I learned in my undergraduate degree to examine mesophotic reefs. 

As my interest in photogrammetry snowballed, I began to search for what was next. An opportunity to refine my skills and collect high quality imagery led me back again to the University of Miami, where I have worked as a Research Associate, responsible for collecting and processing imagery within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, providing reef-scale baseline imagery in support of NOAA’s: Mission Iconic Reefs Initiative, and doing so for other lab groups both within and collaborating with UM. Our models will serve as a crucial tool for examining effects of restoration efforts, continued benchmarks of reef health, and providing an invaluable set of time series data across an environmental scale. 

I’m thrilled to join the Submerged Resources Center this summer as the 2024 Our World Underwater Scholarship Society National Parks Service Intern. Working alongside the SRC team presents the exciting opportunity to further sharpen my proficiency in collecting and processing imagery. I am eager to apply my experience in utilizing high-quality multi-camera imaging systems with robust data processing and management to the workflows surrounding the SeaArray system. The idea that I’ll be able to merge my passion for technical diving and utilize cutting-edge tech at otherwise nearly inaccessible field locations is still hard to believe. I could not be more excited for the adventures that await me this summer, and am thankful for both OWUSS and NPS-SRC for making such an opportunity possible.