{"id":36823,"date":"2019-04-12T15:34:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T15:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/04\/12\/off-the-seychelles-a-dive-into-a-never-seen-landscape\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:41:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:41:27","slug":"off-the-seychelles-a-dive-into-a-never-seen-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/04\/12\/off-the-seychelles-a-dive-into-a-never-seen-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the Seychelles, a dive into a never-seen landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ST. JOSEPH ISLAND, Seychelles\u2014 The submersible dropped from the ocean\u2019s surface faster than I had expected. With a loud \u201cpsssssss\u201d the air escaped from the ballast tanks and the small craft suddenly tilted forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within seconds, aquanaut Robert Carmichael and I were enveloped by a vibrant shade of blue, watching streaks of sunlight pierce the water’s surface. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon a large manta ray<\/a> appeared from the darkness below, gently gliding toward our small craft before vanishing into the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A manta ray swims near the submersible during a dive off the coast of the island of St. Joseph in the Seychelles. (David Keyton\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The dive took place off a coral atoll called St. Joseph in the outer islands of Seychelles<\/a> on a mission to explore the Indian Ocean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This body of water is poorly studied and few scientists have ever ventured deeper than the maximum scuba depth of 100 feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than a month researchers from Nekton<\/a>, a British-led scientific research charity, have been using submersibles to dive deep below the waves to document the ocean\u2019s health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We arrived at St. Joseph Island in the early hours of the morning, and this was the first submersible dive at the new site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sea bed suddenly appeared beneath our craft, a landscape no one had ever seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I quickly scribbled down in the mission report the depth and time at which we sighted the bottom: “165 feet, 1144 UTC.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carmichael, a veteran of the sea, relayed the information to the surface via an underwater telephone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its loud static noise would be a constant of our dive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The manned submersible emerges from the water after a dive off the coast of the island of St. Joseph in the Seychelles. (David Keyton\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We moved across a seabed of rock and sand and scattered soft coral until a great darkness opened ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carmichael lowered us over the side of an underwater cliff. Our target depth was 400 feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oceans cover over two-thirds of the Earth’s surface but remain, for the most part, unexplored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their role in regulating our climate and the threats they face are underestimated by many people, so scientific missions are crucial to take stock of the health of underwater ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Able to operate down to 1,000 feet, these manned submersibles give scientists a unique understanding of changes in habitats as sunlight diminishes through the different layers of ocean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We glided with the current as six cameras mounted around the craft recorded its journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the months to come, researchers at Oxford will comb through the footage frame by frame, noting each species encountered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A scientists processes a coral sample retrieved from the Indian Ocean in the waters off the Seychelles last week. (David Keyton)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly a drop of cold water landed on my arm, triggering alarm. Water is best kept on the outside of a submersible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carmichael quickly put me at ease: The difference in temperature between the water around us and our submersible had created a layer of condensation on the hatch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We quickly soaked it up with towels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was curiosity that drew Carmichael to the ocean. “I just wanted to know what was down here,” he said. “It’s stunning in so many ways.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This curiosity has attracted mankind for centuries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe human mind is naturally drawn to grandiose notions of supernatural beings, and the sea is the ideal medium for them,\u201d wrote Jules Verne, author of \u201c20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,\u201d possibly the greatest submarine novel of all time, which opens with fears over a mysterious sea monster sinking ships and harvesting the lives of sailors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirty years after reading the novel as a child, I’m sitting in a tiny glass bubble observing the underwater world like Captain Nemo on board the novel’s submarine, Nautilus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are foreigners to this realm, objects of fascination for the reef shark that approaches us, as curious of us as we are of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The last rays of sunlight cross the sky after sunset while at sea in the waters off the Seychelles on April 1, 2019. (David Keyton\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even in the 19th century, Verne feared the extinction of numerous species of marine life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fears have been proven true. A WWF report<\/a> found that marine vertebrate populations have declined by almost half since the 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fishing is no longer the sole cause. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Man-made pollution, global climate change<\/a> and the acidification of the oceans<\/a> are new challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the oceans slowly soak up heat from the atmosphere, marine species will be affected in different ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some will adapt. Some will migrate to cooler waters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others will disappear, leaving a gap in ecosystems that have existed for millennia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI came into the Indian Ocean hoping I\u2019d see a giant Napoleon wrasse<\/a>,\u201d Carmichael said of one of the world\u2019s largest reef fish. \u201cHere we are, 35 days into the mission and I still haven\u2019t seen one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t