There’s one thing I can tell you for sure, Florida and Oregon are definitely on opposite sides of the continent. After leaving the burgeoning summer in the Pacific Northwest, I arrived in south Florida some 20 hours later. There I met up with Brett Seymour, Deputy Chief of the SRC, and together we headed to Biscayne National Park at the southern end of Biscayne Bay.

A little known Park, BISC covers 172, 971 acres of Biscayne Bay. While the eastern most edge of this mostly marine park is delineated by a depth contour of 60ft, the majority of the Park is westward of the outlying keys, which presents some very interesting navigation hazards. After spending 2 weeks in American Samoa, and another on Oahu, you’d think that I would be accustomed to summertime weather in the tropics. But I guess a week on the Channel Islands and another at Crater Lake spoiled me. My head was positively spinning when I got to BISC. Mangroves border the water’s edge, while cicadas drown out all but the loudest boats. But I didn’t have much time to soak in the tropical climate; we had to work to do.

BISC has one of the most ambitious diving operations in the Park Service. Divers are usually in the water almost every day, working on a variety of interesting projects. Biscayne Bay is home to a wide array of shipwrecks and other cultural resources dating back several centuries. But the natural resources of the Park are just as interesting. Most people don’t associate the United States with coral reefs, aside from Hawaii of course, but southern Florida is home to prolific coral reefs. However, there are increasing environmental and anthropological pressures threatening the reefs and cultural resources of BISC, and that’s where the Park Service comes in.

To help combat an invasion of lionfish of epic proportions (more on that later) Park Services divers cull these dangerous trespassers with all they’ve got. However, the sneaky fish are found ever deeper, so the park management of BISC had requested some decompression dive training from the NPS National Dive Safety Officer Steve Sellers with support from the NPS Submerged Resources Center Chief and Deputy, Dave Conlin and Brett Seymour.

On my first full day at the Park I was reacquainted with Dave and Steve, after saying goodbye to them in Denver way back at the beginning of all of this. I also met Shelby Moneysmith, BISC’s tireless Park Diving Officer and the southeast region’s Regional Diving Officer. Shelby had requested this course so that some of her divers extend the lionfish management program to deeper depths. Steve would be teaching the course, with Dave and Brett as support staff, and by some good fortune I was able to participate.

Many SCUBA divers pay close attention to their NDL, the no decompression limit. As a function of breathing compressed air at depth, nitrogen gets diffused into the body’s tissues. As we come up from depth, we need to let the nitrogen safely come out of our tissues in order to avoid complications such as decompression sickness. Most divers won’t stay down long enough to require dangerous amounts of nitrogen, and can theoretically ascend to the surface (safely!) at any time during the dive. Though safety stops (hanging out at 15ft for 3 minutes) should always be made.

With decompression diving, all you’re doing is extending your dive time past the NDL. Essentially you dive deeper, and longer, and then have to make more than one safety stop. I won’t bore you with the details, but just for example after a 120ft dive you might stop at 50ft for 1 min, 40ft for 2 min, 30ft for 4 min and 15ft for 25 min. Of course, that’s all hypothetical. Notice that last stop though, 25 min at 15ft! I’ve had working dives with less bottom time than that! Of course, with decompression diving you’re extending your overall dive time, so you need to plan on bringing a lot more breathing gas than usual. But that’s all part of the training. Are you still with me? Good.

So, day 2 at BISC and we’ve started off our deco training with a nice long classroom session. It had been way too long since I’ve gotten such formal SCUBA instruction! Steve did an excellent job walking us through decompression theory, gas planning and management, contingency planning (safety first!) and safe boating practices. In places like BISC, with a reef on the bottom and nothing but water to the surface, all of those decompression stops are usually done floating in the water column, so you have a lot of different factors to consider.

After a day in the classroom it was time to hit the water. On day 1 of our in-water training we planned on doing two dives each; we were not planning on going into deco. We were tested on our gear handling and gas consumption at depth first. Typically, the bigger the tank the more gas you have to breath and the longer you can dive. We planned on diving with steel 125cfs, that is 125 cubic feet of air. Not only that, but we also each had an aluminum 80 clipped to our sides. With a tank of “back gas” at 125cf, and “off board” tanks at 80cf, we each had a total of 205cf of air to breath! That’s more than 3x what I would normally dive with! Talk about contingency planning. Also, our back gas tanks had H-valves instead of the typical valves you see on a SCUBA tank. The H-valves have to independent regulators connected to them (instead of just 1). That way, if you have a leak on either regulator you can isolate it and save your gas.

 

Day 1 went smoothly, so for Day 2 we planned on executing an actually deco dive. Here we go. Steve would be leading the dive, with either Brett or Dave accompanying us on their rebreathers (more on that later). We lined the gunnels of our dive boat and waited for the skipper’s call. Because BISC sits at the edge of the Gulf Stream, the currents can absolutely rip through a dive site. You need to be ready to coordinate a drop and get to the bottom as a group as quickly as possible. Head the skippers call; all diver’s ready? dive, dive, dive! We backwards rolled over the rail, and hit the water. Immediately the ache from the heavy tanks is relieved as the buoyancy of seawater does its thing. Our slung 80s moved into position under our flanks, and we dropped into the blue.

What does a coral reef look like at 130ft you ask? Just like it does at 45 or 60ft, except the light is a little dimmer, you’ve got a lot more water above you. What’s it like going into deco you ask? It’s no different than any other dive. Your dive computer starts to freak out at you, but of course we had everything planned. It was a remarkably uneventful dive. We practiced our skills, and took a quick tour, nothing out of the ordinary. Your dive team really needs to be on point for this kind of work, so when we reached our time limit we ascended as a team to your first stop . Then to our next, and finally to our last and longest. It’s strange having a “soft ceiling” above you for the duration of a dive. The water was very clear; you can plainly see the surface from depth. But you can’t go up, not until you’re cleared from each depth-stop. With our surface maker buoys attached to our hand-held reels, we patiently waited for our tissues to off-gas. Floating mid-water over a reef 100ft below you, carried helplessly in a current, can be a little nerve wracking. But of course we stayed as a group, floating together and occasionally signaling to one another. Nothing makes you hungrier than watching your computer count down a 25min stop after an already hour-long dive. I’m bringing a candy bar next time.

Day 3 we repeated the same skills, only this time we brought along pole spears. After manipulating our H-valves, and passing around our off board cylinders, we proceeded to scour the reef, looking for our not-so-elusive prey. After all, the whole point of this training was to allow the participating divers to safely hunt lionfish at deeper spots. Swimming around with a hung tank on your back, a normal sized but still large tank, clipped to your side and a spear in hand isn’t easy. But it was certainly a very good training exercise.

After 4 days of deco training, Steve gave Shelby and the BISC divers the green light to continue their operations at deeper depths. Watch out lionfish. But the SRC wasn’t content to sit by and watch, they had their own dives to do. Because of the SRC’s mandate to support underwater resources in parks at a wide range of depths and environments they use closed circuit rebreathers to extend their bottom times, decrease their decompression times, and most importantly accomplish both in the safest manner possible. Normal SCUBA diving is considered open circuit; you take a breath off of your regulator, and exhale it out into the water (hence all the bubbles). Rebreathers recirculate your exhalation, remove the excess CO² and pump back in oxygen to balance the breathing mixture. No exhalations, no bubbles. Rebreathers look like spaces suites without all the body constriction, and are about as complicated.

Dave, Brett and Steve wanted to execute some mixed gas decompression dives to maintain proficiency. Their target was 220ft using a special breathing mix called trimix. I won’t bore you with the details again, but in short trimix uses helium to replace a portion of nitrogen in the breathing mix to minimize nitrogen narcosis at depth. In order to get the gas mixtures precise they had to spend hours at the dive locker balancing the gas mixes and filling their rebreather cylinders and off board “bail out” bottles with the special mixture before diving the next day. Though they’ll never admit it, these guys are kind of a big deal.

Days 4 and 5 we accompanied the SRC out to their site, where they would make a live drop with a narrow window down to 220-230ft to a wreck site called the Sir Scott. After they came back, some 90 minutes later, it would be our turn to drop down, to much shallower depths of course, and hunt for lionfish.  As they worked out their kinks, I was continuously impressed with how humble and nonchalant they were. Refusing help with their rebreathers, off board 80s and 40’s so they knew exactly where everything was in case of emergency, they were more than eager to help us load up with all of our gear.

Steve, Brett and Dave worked through the weekend to help us get comfortable with deco diving, and wasted little time achieving their goals as well. I’d really like to thank them for all of their help. And of course Shelby Moneysmith as well, for being continuously patient and in good spirits no matter what happened. Now that training is over, I can finally get to work with the Resource Management team here at BISC.

Thanks for reading!

After a quick weekend recovery, my gear still wet from the Channel Islands, I arrived in Medford, Oregon, just as the sun was setting. From there I drove up into the mountains, heading towards Crater Lake National Park. I’m sure the drive is gorgeous, but I didn’t make it to the Park until close to midnight. Fortunately, I was let in to my dwelling for the week just in time to crawl into my sleeping bag. By the good graces of the staff here at CRLA I was given a bed at the Science and Learning Center’s Residence. A restored historic build, once home to the Park’s naturalist, the SLC Residence serves as a living center for visiting scientists and artists. This beautiful old building is just another prime example of how the National Park Service manages the natural landscape, as well as historic sites; natural history, renovation and restoration.

The next morning I met up with Scott Girdner, an aquatic biologist, and Kristin Beem, the seasonal aquatic technician. They told me we were headed down to the water, and I couldn’t wait. Because I arrived late in the night I hadn’t gotten a chance to see much of the park at all. As we drove around the rim, the caldera came into view. Words cannot do Crater Lake justice, but pictures can get close. We parked at the top of the rim; at the only place in the Park you can safely access the water. The Cleetwood trail zigzags down the steep wall of the caldera, down to the water below. I couldn’t believe that the Park Service, and any inquisitive visitor, has to hike down and up this trail everyday. Like every Park I’ve been too, each environment presents its own unique challenges. Here at CRLA, nobody complains about a little extra cardio.

As luck would have it, I picked an excellent week to visit the CRLA. Once a month the aquatic ecology team does what they call “Trend Week” i.e. they collect data to add to their long-term trend data set. That Monday we prepped the sampling gear for the week. Because this fragile ecosystem is at risk by potentially invasive organisms, recreational water use of the lake is extremely limited. In fact, the only watercrafts allowed on the lake are the Park Service’s two research boats, and a concession company that runs tours later in the season. Of course, visitors can swim in the lake, but with a chilling surface temperature of about 54º, most don’t stay in for too long.

We had the lake to ourselves as we sped out across the water towards Wizard Island, the prominent mini caldera on the western edge of the lake. The Park Service maintains a boathouse on Wizard Island, so it was there that we loaded the gear onto the boat. We then traversed to the middle of the lake, the sampling area called Section 13. We took a light reading and headed for home. Crater Lake is famous for it’s amazingly clear water, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. The astounding blue water belies the extreme depth below; at 592 meters Crater Lake is the deepest in the United States, and one of the deepest in the world.

Things really got going on Tuesday, when we began our sampling in earnest. I got to meet Mark Buktenica, the Chief aquatic biologist who has been at the Park for over 30 years. We sped out to Section 13, and got to work. Most limnologists, those that study inland lakes and rivers, use relatively simple sampling gear, often dropping water collectors hand over hand into their study sites. But due to its size Crater Lake is in a class of its own, and I know oceanographic equipment when I see it and we were armed to the teeth with gear. We sampled water at different depths, collecting samples that would be analyzed for chlorophyll (signs of phytoplankton) and for water quality. A scientist from USGS typically accompanies the crew for trend week; he brought radioactive C¹⁴, which is used in a study to test the difference in photosynthesis and respiration in the lake. We also took samples from 5 spring sources to look for potential contaminants. I was thoroughly shocked when Scott and Mark took a secchi disk reading (used to determine visibility in the water column) down to over 38 meters! I’ve never even heard of water that clear.

On Wednesday we continued our sampling by doing vertical zooplankton tows. We dropped our net and again took samples at different depths. The clarity of the water is due to the oligotrophic nature of the lake (nutrient poor) and because of that light penetrates very, very deep. All of that clear water doesn’t defuse UV radiation, so the inhabitants of the lake tend to live deeper than they do in the ocean. So deep in fact, that the main layer of phytoplankton, and zooplankton is found at about 120 meters. 120 meters! That absolutely blew my mind. I’ve never heard of the dominant plankton zone being that deep. Back home in California most of the plankton are found in the first few meters!

While Tuesday and Wednesday afforded me my first taste of limnology, Thursday brought my dreams of lake diving to fruition. Diving in the lake has been restricted to Park Service personnel only since 2012, and typically Park Service divers use SCUBA on an as-needed basis. I was thrilled when Mark and Scott decided to try and do some biological surveys at depth. Back in the early 20^th century the lake was seeded with trout, in an effort to attract more visitors. In order to feed the trout the lake was also seeded with crawfish. As it turns out the crawfish voraciously devour anything they possibly can, preying on and out competing a local species of newt.

Traditionally the Park Service has done snorkel surveys for the newts and crawfish along the shore. But last year they decided to try the surveys at depth. Just my luck! I was paired up with Mark, and together we descended into the crystal clear water down to 60 feet. If you think diving in 54º water is cold, the temperature at 60ft was a bone chilling 44º! We each took a turn looking for newts for 20 minutes, at just over 6000 feet; a 60-foot dive is really a 90-foot dive in terms of nitrogen build up. Unfortunately we didn’t see anything at all at 60ft, and I was getting worried I wouldn’t see any newts. But we did another survey at 15ft, above the thermocline, and there life is much more abundant, we found several newts and a few crawfish. The next team of divers, Scott and Kristen, did their surveys at 45ft and 30ft. Again, a similar story, nothing below the thermocline at 45ft, but plenty of newts and crawfish at 30.

Like other at other Parks, the aquatic team at CRLA works four 10-hour shifts, and as we sped back over the lake after de-suiting, I reflected on the priceless experience of sampling and diving in Crater Lake. On Friday I was on my own to explore this incredible Park. It’s hard to get any scale at all; the lake is about 6 miles wide and holds about 19 trillion gallons of clear, freshwater. This relatively young lake, less than 8,000 years old, quickly filled with water after what must have been an absolutely massive volcanic eruption shook the land. My inner geology nerd came out, as I ooed and awed over the incredible landscape in front of me. But I won’t bore you with the details.

It was really a bizarre experience to leave the remoteness of the Channel Islands for the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles, only to find myself in the secluded alpine playground of Crater Lake. This Park only attracts about 500,000 visitors a year, but words cannot describe the splendor of this stunning, yet fragile ecosystem. My visit to CRLA was made all the better by Mark, Scott, and Kristen. For now I’ll enjoy the chilly alpine air, before I take off for Biscayne National Park in Miami, Florida. I’ll be sad to leave this place behind, but a little warm water will be a nice change of pace.

 

Thanks for reading.

Once again, dawn found me driving along on the Pacific Coast Highway, the back of my car full of gear. Like many countless mornings before, I was headed to another port, some place on the map held a ship that would take me out on the ocean. About 70 miles off the coast from the chaos of Los Angeles, CA, the Channel Islands National Park (CHIS) comprises 5 of the 8 Channel Islands. An extension of the Santa Monica Mountain Range, the Channel Islands rise out of the Pacific Ocean to block inclement weather heading towards the populated coast.

Having grown up in Los Angeles, I have always been captivated by the mysterious apparitions visible only the clearest of days. The Channel Islands represent a California that once was, but will never be again. It has always been a dream of mine to dive into the kelp forest around the islands, and now I would finally get my chance.

After making it to the CHIS annex, where I met the field crew I would be accompanying for the week, we immediately began loading gear and food onto the boat for the week. For 6 months out of the year the Park Service’s marine ecologists and technicians embark on 11 5-day long research cruises to the remote islands. Their job is to add an incredible amount of data to an Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) project 34 years in the making. While my background is in kelp forest ecology, I knew I would have my work cut out for me.

After steaming out to Santa Rosa Island, we wasted no time in assess the first site we would be sampling. The Kelp Forest Monitoring project, or KFM, has 33 sites they must visit every season, and when you factor in potential weather issues, that doesn’t leave much leeway in terms of sampling each site. Dive teams identify and count fish, invertebrates and algae, and even quantify substrate. After dropping anchor the first team of divers hit the water immediately to lay out the baseline 100-meter tape and to film the site before the rest of the team gets down.

From there, each buddy pair has a specific set of tasks to complete before a site can be checked off for the season. If conditions, both abiotic and biotic, cooperate, then a site can be completed in about 3 or 4 hour long dives. The Inventory and Monitoring data that the KFM team collects is extensive. Some divers place 1m² quadrats at regular intervals along the baseline and count every organism found within, while others take band transects perpendicular to the baseline and count another slew of organisms. Because I was only there for a week I had the relatively easy job of counting every giant kelp plant found along the baseline (within 10 meters of the tape and only plants 1 meter tall or taller) and counting their stipes (like the stems on a plant).

However, one of the most fun samples techniques we employed was my personal favorite, the roving diver fish count. Usually before substrate data is taken, buddy pairs swim the 100m transect, and out 10 m on each side of the transect, counting every fish on the substrate, in the canopy and the midwater. That’s 2000m² and the water column Not only do you have to count the fish, you also have to identify (ID) them. There are several indicator species that the team specifically looks for, but because everyone swims the transect (but starts at different parts), there is definitely a competition to see who can ID the most fish. Oh, and you only have 30 minute to swim the whole 2000m! So you’d better swim, count, ID and record fast if you want to get your numbers even close to a seasoned KFM divers counts.

Our first day and the next morning we wrapped up our site on Santa Rosa Island. The visibility wasn’t great, and the site wasn’t the most glamorous, but I felt like I was being welcomed home to my old life as a kelp forest technician. However, the highlight of the trip came on our midday steam from Santa Rosa to San Miguel. In the foggy afternoon haze our captain spotted a dorsal fin sticking up out of the water. The team had spotted a small ~8ft great white shark the week before near Santa Barbara Island, so everyone got really excited (we kelp forest ecologists tend to hold white sharks in high esteem). But what our captain had seen was something even more rare. As we slowly approached the protuberance, it grew larger and larger. This was no white shark. We killed the engine and drifted close so we could get a positive ID. Even from afar we knew what we had stumbled upon; a basking shark! These shy and elusive open ocean fish feed on plankton. Like baleen whales they have massive jaws that open wide, allowing the slow moving sharks to swallow great mouthfuls of water. However, basking sharks were hunted to near extinction almost a century ago. This was the first shark seen by park biologist since 1991 and the two sharks observed that year were only several miles away.. This basking shark was huge 25ft long. It didn’t stay around us for too long, but did come and check out the boat on his way out. What an incredible experience! You can view some underwater video taken of this shark at https://www.facebook.com/channelislandsnps/videos/977368515647396/.

After the excitement of seeing the shark, we dropped anchor at our site on San Miguel Island. The weather patterns were strange, preventing us from sampling some sites while allowing us easy access to others. The site on San Miguel Island we sampled on our second day is usually buffeted by strong winds and large swell. Fortunately for us the water around Hare rock was dead calm that day. However, as we dropped down into the green murk it soon became evident why a basking shark was seen so close to the island. The water was a healthy shade of pea soup green due to a seemingly endless cloud of plankton! While swimming in murky water doesn’t exactly make for the best diving conditions, green is typically associated with a healthy and vibrant ecosystem. And that’s just what we saw at Hare Rock.

I’ve never before lived on a dive boat. Typically at the end of a long field day you get to go home, wash your gear and take a shower. Life on a research vessel takes on a similar routine, but your world is reduced to the deck, the galley, your bunk and any open space (which typically gets filled up fast). While some people might find these conditions to be claustrophobic, I had an absolute blast. When the scope of your world is narrowed to diving, eating and sleeping things become a little bit clearer.

For the next three days we cruised to different dive spots, checking the conditions, sampling our sites and occasionally a team of divers would descend into the depths to switch out a wave meter or two. Fortunately most of our days were fairly short. Though on Thursday we had an extra long surface interval while waiting for the current to slack. During our first dive in the morning at Gull Island the kelp was standing relatively straight up, with the canopy splayed out on the surface. By the end of our second dive the kelp was leaning over, the canopy down 15ft below the surface. So we waited on deck, watching on the depth sounder as the kelp dropped lower and lower with increasing current. Sunburnt, and tired we occupied ourselves by napping, eating, or reading. Slowly the current began to slack later that afternoon. We anxiously watched the depth sounder, as the canopy started to rise. As the first kelp blades became visible we eagerly donned our gear and jumped back in the water to finish monitoring for the day.

On our last day we got to do something a little different. As part of I&M the KFM team has deployed ARMs, artificial recruitment modules, which are essentially a stack of cinderblocks held together via metal wire. However, they’ve proven to be an invaluable tool that the KFM uses to monitor the recruit of juvenile organisms to a kelp forest. Because the ARMs are encased, settling invertebrates, and occasionally a young fish, will take shelter in the 3-dimensional structure provided by the cinderblocks. Then, once a year the KFM will disassemble the ARM at a given site, underwater of course, and measure the individuals either at depth or back on the boat. Any organism removed from an ARM is promptly returned before too long. I promise, the sea urchins don’t mind. At our site on Anacapa Island we spent our first dive disassembling, sampling and reassembling the ARMs. After an extended surface interval counting and measuring the organisms we removed, we dropped back down to replace them and spent the rest of the dive exploring the natural beauty of our dive site. It was really refreshing to do a fun dive in a kelp forest after an aggressive week taking data all day long.

I really lucked during my week at CHIS. While the weather could have been a little more cooperative, the cloudy evenings and drizzly mornings showed off the islands in a dramatic light. It can’t all be sunshine and clear water. Also, I doubly lucked out with the weather because we got to dive at 4 of the 5 islands in the Park! Typically a research cruise is contained to one or two islands to reduce the time spent steaming in between. But I was really pleased to have been able to see a wider swath of the Park, and to compare sites across the islands.

While it was definitely a blast to cruise around the Channel Islands, this I&M project is one of the largest and most strenuous within the Park Service. In 5 days we racked up 6202 minutes or 103 hours of bottom time! The data we gathered on our trip has been added to a much lager data set, which can be used by the public and researchers alike. Because of the dedication of the KFM team we have a very solid baseline understanding of kelp forest dynamics. The dataset has been sampled to show trends in oceanographic changes such as El Niño, natural history and ecosystem dynamics. Without programs like this we would have a poor understanding of these vital ecosystems.

I had an incredible time on the cruise, but by the time we hit the dock on Friday I was exhausted. I have to commend the 2015 KFM team for their dedication, unwavering optimism, charisma and their warmth with which they accepted me for the week. I’d like to give a big thank you to David Kushner, the guy in charge of this whole rodeo, Josh Sprague, Captain Keith Durran, Jaime McClain, Ben Grime, Michael Civiello, Amanda Bird, and Ashley Kidd. Now I get another day of R&R before heading up to the high alpine altitudes of Crater Lake, Oregon.

Thanks for reading!

Much like diving, one of the harder learned lessons from traveling is to always be flexible. And patient. After leaving the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Hawaii, I jumped on a red eye for the mainland. My next destination, after another bout of air travel, would be the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (GLCA). After a quick layover in my hometown of LA, and a coffee fueled reunion with an old friend, I headed for Phoenix, Arizona for another layover before my final flight to Page. Though groggy and tired, things were going rather smoothly and I could finally start to relax.

That is, until I got a call from the airline an hour before we were supposed to take off. Turns out my flight was cancelled due to mechanical issues. Well, here we go. I was stranded in Phoenix with 5 others; 2 Russians students, 2 Bulgarians students, and a college kid from Delaware. The airline company promised to put us on a bus to Flagstaff, AZ, that night, and then on another shuttle to Page, AZ the following afternoon. Though I wasn’t happy about missing a day in Glen Canyon, I was happy to finally be moving again. We didn’t make it to Flagstaff until close to midnight, but fortunately the 6 of us were able to get the last 3 rooms in the closest motel. After bunking with the Russians for the night, I was glad to be on our way the next day.

In Page, later that afternoon, I met up with Scott Norwood, the second in command for the GLCA Dive Team, and my supervisor for the week. After a brief visit to the dive locker and adjacent facilities, Scott took me on a tour of the surrounding area. Originally I wasn’t exactly excited about spending a week in Arizona. It’s hard to follow up American Samoa and Hawaii. But what I saw just around the Ranger Station took my breath away. And that was even before we got on the waters of Lake Powell. The bottom end of Lake Powell is stopped by the Glen Canyon dam, which controls the flow of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. All of the wonders of the Grand Canyon are reflected in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, though Lake Powell spaces everything out more. That night I was given the keys to a government Jeep and was off to camp at one of Scott’s favorite spots. I drifted off to sleep at the Lone Rock campground, under the Arizona stars, exceptionally glad to be on the quiet, sandy shores of Lake Powell.

I’m not sure what I expected work to be like at GLCA, the only diving we had planned was a dry suit check out later that week. But I definitely got to witness just how hard it is to run a park with thousands of visitors, mostly on the water, everyday. GLCA is a huge recreation area, and is famous for its houseboats. Because the lake draws so many visitors every year, the Park Service has its hands full all summer. All of the docks, both private and government, are floating but moored to the bottom and chained to the shore via heavy wire rope. However, as the steel rusts and erodes, and as the water level changes, the docks need to be moved and the cables replaced. Work in the park starts early, by 6 am you’re expected to be caffeinated and ready to head into the field. The day gets hot quickly and no one wants to be too exposed to the sun for too long.

We set to work moving cables, and prepping the boat for the day. The majority of GLCA is on the water, so the park service maintains a flotilla of multi purpose workboats. The dive team, which has a legacy of excellence through the NPS, uses a 46ft flat-bottomed vessel as its workhorse. Of all the dive boats I’ve been on this one, the 450, was by far the most impressive.

We spent the day, and the better part of the week, meandering through the finger canyons of the lake replacing wire rope and moving docks at places like Dangling Rope and Rainbow Bridge, both popular recreation spots. On our way around the lake we occasionally stopped to service navigation buoys or help out-of-luck boaters. During the course of the week we worked long and hot hours, using heavy equipment and working hard. But every night I got to sleep under the stars, which was a welcomed change from sleeping on couches and planes.

However, midweek I got to done my dry suit, which was shipped to GLCA from the good folks at USIA, and jump in the green waters of Lake Powell. I didn’t have much experience in a dry suit, but Scott has spent 5 years with US Navy’s Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) and is an expert diver. We did a quick tour of the government dock and then took the 450 to the “log boom”, just a 1/4 mile above the dam. While replacing the chain on the boom, which catches floating debris before it gets caught in the dam, someone had managed to drop a heavy metal ring used to keep the chain from getting tangled. The substrate underwater mirrors the land above. The sandstone cliffs drop into the abyss, in some places over 400 feet down, with an occasional ledge or two at about 30 feet and 60 ft. Scott and I had planned to drop down the log boom’s anchor chain to about 60ft to look for the ring for no more than 10 minutes. Miraculously we dropped right on top of it in 30ft of water and were able to enjoy the eerie green water for a few minutes. Lake Powell, like many other freshwater lakes in the United States, is badly affected by an invasive mussel, which covers everything in the lake not made of sandstone. Afterwards, Scott and I did two more dives on the Antelope Point launch ramp, doing dock surveys and a ‘salvage’ dive, i.e. treasure hunting for refuse left by careless boaters. Though we mostly picked up fishing line, trash, and beer cans, occasionally some lucky Park Service diver finds a camera or a watch.

There isn’t much to see in Lake Powell, manly because the sandstone causes the water to be rather turbid even on a calm day. However, diving in the lake was my first time diving in freshwater, at altitude, and my first time diving in a drysuit for a number of years. With Scott as my dive buddy we explored the murky bottom, searched for lost objects, and looked over the edge of a precipice into the eerie abyss at the bottom of Lake Powell.

Although my stay at GLCA was short, all my misgivings about spending time at the inland NPS unit were instantly abated the moment I saw Lake Powell in person. Arizona is a vastly different environment from the tropics of Samoa and Hawaii; it carries its own character and has very specific demands. The Park Service at GLCA deals with a very specific set of concerns, such as being swamped by the wake from a negligent boater while trying to hoist a 600lb buoy out of the water. But they work hard and earn their mettle. My stay in Arizona was short, but it was made very enjoyable by Scott Norwood, Kendra Nez, the maintenance technician who never seemed to take a break from working, and the rest of the staff out at GLCA. Now I get to head back to LA for a few days of R&R before shipping off to the kelp forests of the Channel Islands National Park.

Thanks for reading!