HIS Swimming Wonders in the Deep!

Any idea what this is? It is a large Coastal Brown Bear swimming toward the far shore. After studying the charts, I estimated that the Bear was about 3/4 of a mile from the shore toward which he was swimming, and 3/4 of a mile from the shore where he had entered the water. The passengers on the tour boat I was captaining were amazed at the swimming ability of the bear. Fact: Bears that live on islands swim well. This photo was taken in Sitka Sound

between Gragarin Island and Krestof Island. When we came upon swimming bear we were always careful to stay a safe distance as stories circulated about commercial fishing vessels that would get so close that the bear would decide to climb aboard for a little rest. Definitely not something you would want to share deck space with.

A couple of years later, I came upon a bear in about the same area but he was swimming from Gragarin Island to Kruzof Island. He was only a couple of hundred yards off of Gragarin. We hoped that he would abort and go back to Gragarin because the distance to Kruzof was more like three or four miles. With our gentle persuasion by cutting him off out at a safe distance, he finally turned and swam back to Gragarin.

Coastal Brown Bears can run 35 miles an hour. You would never want to try to out-run a Bear. Although they don't swim really fast, you would still not want to try to out-swim a bear. In the short run you may be able to swim faster, but in the long run he would out endure you.

This is a swimming Sitka Black-tail Deer. During the tour season between May and September, I would usually see a swimming Deer about once a month. The area around Sitka, Alaska is an Ocean-Island world.

One day on the way to Juneau from Sitka, I came upon two young deer swimming from Deadman Reach in Peril Straight out to the area of Hoggup Reef. I got too close and the Deer started swimming for the Catamaran. I backed off quickly and the Deer started back for Deadman's Reach area. It was heart wrenching to see those two little Deer swimming their hearts out in that frigid sea. I didn't have time to wait to see if they made it back to shore safely, but I'm sure they did. I hope so!

Another time, I came across a large buck drown and floating in the sound. I'm sure that the Deer tried to swim between two islands and got caught in an outgoing tide. As the current took him out further and further in the sound, he got colder and colder and exhaustion finally won out. That Deer had probably swam between those islands many times, but finally, a series of unfortunate events.

One thing that was always interesting was that when the deer I was watching finally arrived at the shore and climbed out of the water, it would always stop and turn and look at us. Then it would take a short time to rejuvenate from the cold swim before it would shake off the water like a dog, and then slowly walk back into the trees.

It was always spectacular to see mammals swimming in the ocean in Alaska.

I never got any photos of this next story, but one day in Jamestown Bay, I saw a mother Merganser swimming across the bay with about 10 little baby Mergansers on her back. She was swimming like crazy and she kept looking behind her as she swam and it dawned on me why. A Bald Eagle saw an easy meal of Merganser chicks. As the Eagle would swoop down, she would give the signal and all of the chicks would jump off of her back and into the water and under her. She would turn and face the Eagle as he flew by and quake and flap her wings but there was never anything for him to grab in his talons. As soon as the Eagle would pass, her little chicks would pop back up to the surface and jump back on their mamma's back, and she would take off swimming again. It was so interesting watching that hen Merganser fighting for the lives of her little chicks. From the shore, we were cheering every time the Eagle would come away empty handed. Of course there was absolutely nothing we could do for the Merganser family.

One day I saw a Bald Eagle dive into the sea after a spanning Salmon and pop back to the surface with a Cormorant in his talons. When Eagle catch heavy objects in the water they swim to the shore with their catch. The Cormorant was still alive and it flapped and fought all the way to he shore. When the Eagle arrived at the shore he took one bite at the Cormorant and seemed to say, "yuck", and abandoned the Cormorant. Of course the Cormorant wasn't in very good shape because of the tight grip of the Eagle's talons. As it laid there on the shore other Eagles took a taste of the easy meal but also quickly lost interest. Oily Cormorant just doesn't compare with savory salmon. No such thing as a free meal.

Cormorants somewhere in Sitka Sound

An Eagle waiting and watching for a meal in Nakwasina Sound.

Here is a photo that Denalee took of a Coastal Brown Bear from a boat. Bears love to eat the beach grass in the spring before the berries are ripe and the salmon start spanning. Could he be contemplating a swim to another island. "but the water is sooo cold, do I really want to swim to another island?" This a younger Bear but still weights probably 600 to 800 pounds.

Rapture of the Deep

This is a photo that was taken of me in the Blue Hole. It is a very popular Scuba dive on the Island of Guam. One day while working as a dive guide for some Japanese divers, we decided to dive the Blue Hole. The Blue Hole is a hole in the top of a shelf of rock at 60 feet on the South side of the Orote Peninsula. The hole is big enough to drive a large pick-up truck through the opening. It drops down like a shaft from 60 feet to 110 feet where there is a window that opens up to the depths. The very bottom of the blue hole sits at about 250 feet and slopes down from there into the Mariana Trench. (about 36,000 feet deep) We would descend down the hole and then exit out the window and then ascend up the wall facing the open sea. I was leading 5 or 6 Japanese divers down through the hole and I had told them that they needed to stay right at the top of the 110 foot window and to start ascending immediately after exiting the hole. The limits of recreational diving are at 120 feet and as a PADI instructor it was my duty to dive within the proper depths. We dropped from 60 ft down to the top of the window opening out into the expanse of the sea at 110 feet. In the photo above you can see the opening out to the sea at 110 feet in the Blue Hole. We hugged the roof of the window as we exited the hole. As we started ascending I was facing the divers making sure that no one was dropping lower than they should. One Japanese girl in her late 20's, early 30's started dropping at a fast rate. At that depth a body looses buoyancy. The pressure squeezes the wet suit so that it isn't so buoyant. Experienced divers know that at depth you must add air to your buoyancy compensator but these divers were inexperienced. The girl was not aware that she was dropping. I got her attention and gave her the ascend now hand signal. She was about 12 feet below me and she started to kick with her body in a vertical position looking strait up at me. As I looked into her eyes I could tell that she had nitrogen narcosis. I was swimming right next to less experienced divers so that I could watch them carefully and was hoping that she would quickly swim the 12 feet up to me. I was amazed to see that although she was kicking her fins and thinking that she was ascending, she was actually dropping. I immediately motioned to the other divers to cling to the rock face. Then I dropped down as fast as I could to bring her back up to the rest of the divers at 110 feet. When I caught her she was at 135 feet. I grabbed a hold of the yoke of her tank and started ascending with her as she weakly kicked her fins. I looked into her face and could see that she really wasn't aware of what was going on. Once we arrived at the other divers, we started ascending up the wall. From time to time I would have the divers grip the rock wall and rest. By and by we arrived at the 60 foot level. Below is my journal entry of that experience.

It was very interesting for me to see a person under the influence of nitrogen narcosis or rapture of the deep. Below is a definition of Rapture of the Deep from wikipedia.

The deepest depth that I ever dove was 200 feet. I was helping a fellow diver look for a watertight housing for a video camera that he had accidentally dropped. When I was at 200 feet, my entire body felt like that feeling that you have right before you pass out. Mild pins and needles over my entire body. I knew that as long as I moved slowly and kept calm that I could control the nitrogen narcosis that was affecting me. Down at that depth, according to the dive tables, you only have about 10 minutes before you must ascend in order to avoid decompression time at shallower depths. For safety reasons, I spent 15 minutes hanging from the decompression bar under the boat.

Father in Heaven has given us free agency to choose to stay in control of our physical bodies. The feeling of being very close to not having control of my body at depth was very uncomfortable to me. Why anyone would choose to lose control by taking drugs or alcohol is inconceivable to me. One of Gods greatest gifts to us, is that we can choose to be in control.

This is a photo of me diving right above the Blue Hole. I was getting ready to take some Japanese sport divers down through the hole. The tire and chain at the bottom of the photo is the mooring for the dive boat. You can see how strong the current is there by the angle of my exhaled bubbles and the angle of the mooring chain.