Page 30 - AlertDiver_Spring2013

It couldn’t be a better December day to be on the
water in Bermuda. The easterly winds had dropped
to a whisper during the night, and the sun, rising
bright and full of promise, begins to take the edge
off the early morning chill as our skiff skirts Nonsuch
Island and breaks toward open sea. Chris Flook,
manning the wheel, and I are after dolphinfish. Rather
than pursuing the prized four- to five-foot monsters
regularly taken from these waters, we’re on an even
more challenging adventure: We’re out to photograph
the predators’ two- to three-inch juveniles that hang
around floats of sargassum seaweed this time of year.
But first we have to find them.
I couldn’t have a better guide or companion than
Chris, a native Bermudian who has spent his life on the
water and worked as the collector of specimens at the
Bermuda Aquarium for nearly two decades. And we
couldn’t be in a better location for
our hunt than Bermuda. Rising
out of the Atlantic some 700 miles
east of the Carolinas, the isolated,
21-square-mile string of islands
sits on the western fringe of the
Sargasso Sea.
The Sargasso Sea is a huge
swath of the central Atlantic the
size of the U.S., where within the
calm vortex of four clockwise
currents two species of floating
algae from genus Sargassum have
been growing in profusion for
30 million years; some claim it
is the largest organism on Earth.
Storms regularly tear rafts of the
algae free to sail east with the
wind toward Bermuda, carrying
a cargo of animals along for the
ride. The fauna includes a diverse
nursery of juvenile fishes and
invertebrates accompanied by an
unconventional community of
endemic species that have evolved
to live nowhere else.
From my perch on an ice chest
surrounded by buckets, nets and
assorted dive gear, I listen as Chris
explains why he decided to run so far offshore. “Those
drifts we passed back in the bays have been pretty much
picked over by now. We’ll take advantage of the weather
to find some fresh weed to ….” He stops midsentence,
pointing directly ahead. “There — that’s what we’re after.”
I’m up on my feet following the lead of his finger. A
quarter-mile off the bow a blanket of gold spreads across
the horizon. Within minutes we’re running alongside a
bobbing mat of algae the size of a tennis court.
“Perfect, perfect,” Chris mutters. Keeping his eyes on
the water, he cuts the engine and slowly reaches for a
long-handled net. A quick sweep, and the net comes up
dripping. “Bingo,” he chuckles, spilling his catch into a pail
of seawater. A transparent and beautiful juvenile flying fish
the size of my thumbnail skitters about the surface.
“Good start,” he proclaims with a grin.
28 | SPRING 2013
ENCOUNTERS
Fountain of Youth
T E X T A N D P H O T O S B Y N E D A N D A N N A D e L O A C H