Flash Winter 2007 By Dave Constantin Graduate Student S ixty-five feet down, tanks getting low. The woman from Holland has to bail before she runs out of air. Victor, our dive-guide, takes her up to decompress. I check my air gauge again; almost in the red. I concentrate on slowing my heart rate by taking long, steady breaths. We’re advancing along the north wall of “Kicker Rock,” otherwise known as “Leon Dormido” (the sleep- ing lion), an ancient eroded lava cone off the coast of Isla San Cristóbal, in the Galápagos Is- lands. Fifteen stories above our heads, blue-foot- ed boobies, great frigate birds, and terns swarm the sheer basalt cliffs. Down here, powerful, nu- trient-rich currents feed a galaxy of colorful cor- al, exotic sea urchins, and iridescent tropical fish that makes this place one of the premier dive sites in the Galápagos. Already today I’ve followed a green sea turtle the size of a truck tire on its wobbly course through an underwater canyon, frolicked with a band of curious young sea lions who treated my fins as chew toys, and came eye-to-eye with more swollen, neon-green parrot fish than I could count. For someone who’s previous diving expe- rience consisted of a few dunks in the perpetu- ally cold, low-visibility waters off the Oregon coast, this place is a wonderland. But it holds another significance. Just across Stephen’s Bay, within sight of Kicker Rock, is a small cove called Cerro Tijeretas. This is the spot where, in 1835, Charles Darwin first set foot on the Galápagos Islands. Darwin and the crew of the HMS Beagle reported spotting an American whaling ship docked near Kicker Rock on their approach to the island. What irony that at this very moment when the islands stood poised to reveal their ancient se- crets to the man who would use them to forever alter the face of scientific understanding, others were already plundering their resources. More than 170 years later, the Galápagos must evolve even faster to accommodate the growing human footprint. The island’s 30,000 residents have no choice but to welcome the 100,000 year- ly tourists like greeters at the gates of a theme park. But their race for dollars has largely pushed aside concerns for safety, industry regulation, and environmental integrity. The Galápagos re- mains one of the last great wilderness areas left in the world. I feel immensely fortunate to expe- rience it in this way; I just don’t want to be here when pressure becomes too great and the sleep- ing lion awakens and decides it’s had enough of the human invasion. We’re rounding a corner when the deep-water current hits us, forcing us to cling to the wall to save energy. Everyone in the group except me is wearing thick dive gloves. The coral here is as rough as sixty-grit sandpaper. But I’m just pray- ing I don’t reach into a crevice occupied by some jumpy critter hard-wired to sting, bite, lacerate, or chew its way out of trouble. I keep a close eye on the porcupine-quilled, long-spined urchins, plastered all over the wall in defensive colonies of jet-black, hypodermic menace. A brush against one of these would leave slivers of delicate, nee- dle spines imbedded in your flesh. A harder hit might introduce you straight to the arsenal of fin- er, venomous spines that lay hidden beneath the longer ones, like snakes in tall grass. We’re waiting at this corner for something. From around the bend, a massive school of grin- go fish (so-named by locals because their red- Where the Wild Things Are A breathtaking encounter in evolution’s fishbowl dish-pink coloration resembles a sun-burned tourist) floods across our view. Just then, my dive partner, Diego, suddenly points over my shoul- der, his eyes wide through his mask. I shoot my head around but see nothing except the unfath- omable darkness of open ocean. Whatever it was, I’m too late. When I turn back, I realize what had snuck by me. There, looming just beyond the veil of grin- gos, are the haunting, unmistakable outlines of two full-size hammerhead sharks, each about ten feet long. Instantly, I release my grip on the coral and begin fighting the current, fumbling with the underwater camera attached to my wrist, all the while trying to keep the sharks in view. I feel my- self being pulled toward them. It’s not the cur- rent. I’m caught in a beam, like an alien abductee. A subconscious grin breaks the seal on my mask and the excitement puts my heart and lungs into overdrive. I’ve forgotten all about con- serving air, all about diving Zen. I’m like a kid in the presence of Santa Claus. I stick my camera in the face of the nearest shark, which is no more than four feet away. When I click, boom, it’s gone before the light beam can dissipate. A sec- ond later, the displaced water from its tail wash- es over me like a gentle breeze. The image of that shark moving that fast snaps me out of my rev- erie. I’ve taken it on faith that these things prefer eating fish instead of people. I’m suddenly feel- ing like a clumsy piece of bait; a giant steak packaged in neoprene. Through the murk more sharks arrive. These are scalloped hammerheads, which often travel in enormous packs, although I count only four or five at the moment. I look back and realize how far I’ve drifted from the group. Everyone is glued to the wall in a disciplined formation, while I’m out on a space walk. That’s when I notice the pull of my regulator getting tight. I imagine it’s nerves until I glance at my air gauge. A lump forms in my throat. The gauge reads empty. I see Victor, just returned from the surface, bobbing serenely in the current. I swim toward him, quickly. Remembering my scuba training, I drag my hand across my throat in a cutting mo- tion, the international signal for, “I’m in a pile of shit right now.” Victor waits a beat, then grabs my right shoulder strap as I grope for his. He of- fers me his extra respirator and soon I’m taking full breaths again. This is a good time to surface. Everyone’s run- ning low on air, including Victor. Linked togeth- er, we slowly make our way up the wall to our first decompression stop. The lurching current and the awkward bend of the emergency air hose restrict me to staring straight at Victor or at the wall. It’s a long couple of minutes. I have plenty of time to think about all the weird and wonder- ful things I’ve recently learned about the Galápa- gos, like how none of the dive guides here are licensed. As far as I know, Victor doesn’t even have his dive master certification. Gotta love that frontier spirit. I concentrate on the microuniverse of the rock wall. We make one more decompression stop and I’m breathing as shallow as possible, while still obeying the first rule of scuba diving: NEVER hold your breath. Even a small increase in alti- tude with a chest full of sealed, compressed air could pop your lung like a balloon. Better to make a break for the surface on your last exhale. Not today though. Victor’s air supply holds out to the top. Safely back on the boat, Victor hands me a mayo sandwich with pieces of tuna in it and I politely thank him for this and for his help under the water. Secretly though, I send my thanks to the Galápagos itself for patiently rewarding one more blundering human with an unforgettable display of wildness at its most refined. Study the Galápagos During summer 2006, six journalism students and one environmental studies student participated in a new writing course in the Galápagos. The ongoing sum- mer program is directed by SOJC Associate Professor Carol Ann Bassett through UO International Programs in cooperation with Universidad San Francisco de Quito. It in- cludes three weeks of fieldwork throughout the archipelago and a fourth week of inten- sive writing workshops in Quito, Ecuador. The goal is for students to publish their work in national magazines. Twelve stu- dents are expected to participate in sum- mer 2007. Students say this “in-the-field” experi- ence deeply changed their lives, says Bassett. “It gave them more self-confidence as indi- viduals and as journalists working in a for- eign country. Many of them have now made a commitment to pursue environmental writ- ing as a career.” To learn more, visit jcomm. uoregon.edu/galapagos. The Galápagos’ native wildlife have found some creative uses for human artifacts. This sea lion takes an afternoon siesta on an unoccupied boat in the harbor at Villamil on Isabela Island. photos by Dave Constantin
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Flash Winter 2007 �
By Dave Constantin Graduate Student
Sixty-five feet down, tanks getting low. The woman from Holland has to bail before she
runs out of air. Victor, our dive-guide, takes her up to decompress. I check my air gauge again; almost in the red. I concentrate on slowing my heart rate by taking long, steady breaths. We’re advancing along the north wall of “Kicker Rock,” otherwise known as “Leon Dormido” (the sleep-ing lion), an ancient eroded lava cone off the coast of Isla San Cristóbal, in the Galápagos Is-lands. Fifteen stories above our heads, blue-foot-ed boobies, great frigate birds, and terns swarm the sheer basalt cliffs. Down here, powerful, nu-trient-rich currents feed a galaxy of colorful cor-al, exotic sea urchins, and iridescent tropical fish that makes this place one of the premier dive sites in the Galápagos.
Already today I’ve followed a green sea turtle the size of a truck tire on its wobbly course through an underwater canyon, frolicked with a band of curious young sea lions who treated my fins as chew toys, and came eye-to-eye with more swollen, neon-green parrot fish than I could count. For someone who’s previous diving expe-rience consisted of a few dunks in the perpetu-ally cold, low-visibility waters off the Oregon coast, this place is a wonderland. But it holds another significance.
Just across Stephen’s Bay, within sight of Kicker Rock, is a small cove called Cerro Tijeretas. This is the spot where, in 1835, Charles Darwin first set foot on the Galápagos Islands. Darwin and the crew of the HMS Beagle reported spotting an American whaling ship docked near Kicker Rock on their approach to the island. What irony that at this very moment when the islands stood poised to reveal their ancient se-crets to the man who would use them to forever alter the face of scientific understanding, others were already plundering their resources.
More than 170 years later, the Galápagos must evolve even faster to accommodate the growing human footprint. The island’s 30,000 residents have no choice but to welcome the 100,000 year-ly tourists like greeters at the gates of a theme park. But their race for dollars has largely pushed aside concerns for safety, industry regulation, and environmental integrity. The Galápagos re-mains one of the last great wilderness areas left in the world. I feel immensely fortunate to expe-rience it in this way; I just don’t want to be here when pressure becomes too great and the sleep-ing lion awakens and decides it’s had enough of the human invasion.
We’re rounding a corner when the deep-water current hits us, forcing us to cling to the wall to save energy. Everyone in the group except me is wearing thick dive gloves. The coral here is as rough as sixty-grit sandpaper. But I’m just pray-ing I don’t reach into a crevice occupied by some jumpy critter hard-wired to sting, bite, lacerate, or chew its way out of trouble. I keep a close eye on the porcupine-quilled, long-spined urchins, plastered all over the wall in defensive colonies of jet-black, hypodermic menace. A brush against one of these would leave slivers of delicate, nee-dle spines imbedded in your flesh. A harder hit might introduce you straight to the arsenal of fin-er, venomous spines that lay hidden beneath the longer ones, like snakes in tall grass.
We’re waiting at this corner for something. From around the bend, a massive school of grin-go fish (so-named by locals because their red-
Where the Wild Things AreA breathtaking encounter in evolution’s fishbowl
dish-pink coloration resembles a sun-burned tourist) floods across our view. Just then, my dive partner, Diego, suddenly points over my shoul-der, his eyes wide through his mask. I shoot my head around but see nothing except the unfath-omable darkness of open ocean. Whatever it was, I’m too late.
When I turn back, I realize what had snuck by me. There, looming just beyond the veil of grin-gos, are the haunting, unmistakable outlines of two full-size hammerhead sharks, each about ten feet long. Instantly, I release my grip on the coral and begin fighting the current, fumbling with the underwater camera attached to my wrist, all the while trying to keep the sharks in view. I feel my-self being pulled toward them. It’s not the cur-rent. I’m caught in a beam, like an alien abductee.
A subconscious grin breaks the seal on my mask and the excitement puts my heart and lungs into overdrive. I’ve forgotten all about con-serving air, all about diving Zen. I’m like a kid in the presence of Santa Claus. I stick my camera in the face of the nearest shark, which is no more than four feet away. When I click, boom, it’s gone before the light beam can dissipate. A sec-ond later, the displaced water from its tail wash-es over me like a gentle breeze. The image of that shark moving that fast snaps me out of my rev-erie. I’ve taken it on faith that these things prefer eating fish instead of people. I’m suddenly feel-ing like a clumsy piece of bait; a giant steak packaged in neoprene.
Through the murk more sharks arrive. These are scalloped hammerheads, which often travel in enormous packs, although I count only four or five at the moment. I look back and realize how far I’ve drifted from the group. Everyone is glued to the wall in a disciplined formation, while I’m out on a space walk. That’s when I notice the pull of my regulator getting tight. I imagine it’s nerves until I glance at my air gauge. A lump forms in my throat. The gauge reads empty.
I see Victor, just returned from the surface, bobbing serenely in the current. I swim toward him, quickly. Remembering my scuba training, I drag my hand across my throat in a cutting mo-tion, the international signal for, “I’m in a pile of shit right now.” Victor waits a beat, then grabs my right shoulder strap as I grope for his. He of-fers me his extra respirator and soon I’m taking full breaths again.
This is a good time to surface. Everyone’s run-ning low on air, including Victor. Linked togeth-er, we slowly make our way up the wall to our
first decompression stop. The lurching current and the awkward bend of the emergency air hose restrict me to staring straight at Victor or at the wall. It’s a long couple of minutes. I have plenty of time to think about all the weird and wonder-ful things I’ve recently learned about the Galápa-gos, like how none of the dive guides here are licensed. As far as I know, Victor doesn’t even have his dive master certification. Gotta love that frontier spirit. I concentrate on the microuniverse of the rock wall.
We make one more decompression stop and I’m breathing as shallow as possible, while still obeying the first rule of scuba diving: NEVER hold your breath. Even a small increase in alti-tude with a chest full of sealed, compressed air could pop your lung like a balloon. Better to make a break for the surface on your last exhale. Not today though. Victor’s air supply holds out to the top.
Safely back on the boat, Victor hands me a mayo sandwich with pieces of tuna in it and I politely thank him for this and for his help under the water. Secretly though, I send my thanks to the Galápagos itself for patiently rewarding one more blundering human with an unforgettable display of wildness at its most refined.
Study the GalápagosDuring summer 2006, six journalism
students and one environmental studies student participated in a new writing course in the Galápagos. The ongoing sum-mer program is directed by SOJC Associate Professor Carol Ann Bassett through UO International Programs in cooperation with Universidad San Francisco de Quito. It in-cludes three weeks of fieldwork throughout the archipelago and a fourth week of inten-sive writing workshops in Quito, Ecuador. The goal is for students to publish their work in national magazines. Twelve stu-dents are expected to participate in sum-mer 2007.
Students say this “in-the-field” experi-ence deeply changed their lives, says Bassett. “It gave them more self-confidence as indi-viduals and as journalists working in a for-eign country. Many of them have now made a commitment to pursue environmental writ-ing as a career.” To learn more, visit jcomm.uoregon.edu/galapagos.
The Galápagos’ native wildlife have found some creative uses for human artifacts. This sea lion takes an afternoon siesta on an unoccupied boat in the harbor at Villamil on Isabela Island.
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