As afternoon turned into early evening, the trail gradually narrowed to a meandering capillary. We wound through thick scrub congested by fallen logs, and ducked grasping branches that rained spiders at the slightest provocation.

“Has anyone seen a signpost since we left Floyd’s Prairie?” I yelled behind me. “No,” came the reply through moist air. And after a pause, “Can you see anything up there?” Only the trees, I thought. “We’re heading in the right direction,” I answered optimistically, looking at my compass. “And I haven’t seen any forks in the trail.”

Ultimately my uncertainty was misplaced, and it transformed into a mixture of relief and pride of accomplishment as the bank of the low-lying island came into view a little before sundown. “Piece of cake,” I announced as I hauled my boat out of the water. The group gave a tired, half-hearted laugh and started hauling supplies up the trail to the small cabin where we would pitch camp for our first night in the swamp.

Despite its theme-park-sounding name, the Okefenokee is a pretty serious place. The name itself means “land of the trembling earth” in the language of once indigenous Native American groups, referring to the swamp’s many floating islands of peat that shake when walked upon. Located on the Georgia/Florida border, this Deep South idyll covers roughly 400,000 acres of primal, tannin-stained wetlands, making it the largest “blackwater” swamp in North America.

We had launched our boats earlier that morning from Stephen C. Foster State Park, the only access point on the western edge of the refuge, and initially paddled upstream along the Suwannee River, one of two slow-flowing rivers that originate here (the St. Mary’s River is the other). After a couple miles of easy paddling, a well-marked crossroads pointed us into the 120-mile-long network of boat trails maintained by the National Wildlife Refuge.

Visitors can arrange self-guided trips along these trails with the refuge office, which provides permits for 12 designated overnight trips of varying difficulty, from one to four nights long. The permits allow exclusive access to the trails and the overnight spots along them, making it entirely possible to venture into the wilderness for days without encountering significant signs of civilization, or even another person, along the way.

Paddling alone through this wilderness, the place has an ethereal rainforest feel to it, dense and steamy, packed to the fern fronds with some of the region’s most exotic plants—like micro-forests of predatory pitcher plants—and more than 200 species of birds, including endangered species like wood storks and sandhill cranes, not to mention lurking alligators, venomous water moccasins and an endless barrage of orbiting mosquitoes and biting flies. One can easily imagine that, when the Devil came down to Georgia—presumably for the weather and the company—he holed up here.

—

Once we settled on Floyd’s Island, night came quickly. There are eight campsites scattered throughout the swamp, but Floyd’s Island is the only one on dry land—the others feature stilted, corrugated-roofed wooden platforms built over the water or above peaty hummocks—and the breezeless, tree-covered island harbors significantly more biting insects than the open-air platforms. So, thanks to the flies and mosquitoes, we retired early, with their fitful buzzing, and the humidity, lulling us into a shallow, malarial sleep.

The next day, after portaging our canoes across the island, our time spent slogging into the heart of this vast wetland seemed pulled from the pages of A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Like Jules Verne’s explorers, we had delved into meandering tunnels, battled exotic creatures and emerged through the backdoor of the swamp to find a prehistoric paradise where the canoe path skirted the heavily wooded fringes of shimmering lakes, wide-open wetland prairies bloomed with blankets of fragrant water lilies and the trees and clear blue sky reflected off the water’s famously mirror-like surface.

Each stroke of our paddles set off a cascade of action alongside the boats: Frogs croaked with alarm before belly flopping into the water, dragonflies the size of small birds alighted from their perches to buzz around our airspace, and the protruding yellow eyes of log-like, and otherwise submerged, alligators tracked us cautiously before slipping below the surface.
Occasionally, we’d steer into shady grottoes buffeted by the breeze flowing over the canals and nose the boats into the reeds to sit motionless and watch a crane fishing in the distance or an owl swiveling its head 180 degrees in its treetop perch.

After about four miles, we passed under a canopy of interlocking cypress branches and turned onto a modest river with trees tall enough on either side to block the mid-afternoon sun. And nestled into the underbrush, we found the spacious wooden platform of the Canal Run Shelter boasting an irresistible waterfront view. With plenty of daylight left, we unloaded the boats, set up camp and spent the afternoon exploring smaller side trails unencumbered by the ballast weight of our gear.

After a peaceful night sleeping alongside the dark water with frogs and insects volleying their choruses across the canal, the next and final leg of our three-day expedition pointed back to the start, and like the inbound trail to Floyd’s Island, returning from the center of the swamp proved challenging. The eight-mile path included six miles of the notorious “Orange Trail,” which at times appeared indistinguishable from the surrounding scrub brush and frustrated our forward momentum with a mixture of downed logs and thick peat quagmires that slowed paddling to a crawl.

At one point, caught in one of these dense patches of vegetation, I inched alongside a wide lily pad piled with a handful of chirping newborn alligators about the size of my forearm. The encounter was briefly exhilarating, but in the back of my mind, I knew babies must have a mother nearby. So, I dug my paddle in deep and pushed forward with newfound gusto.

After a full day of paddling and the persistent uncertainty about our direction that one gets when bushwhacking through a particularly dense jungle, an opening appeared in the underbrush like the mouth of a cave, and the trail spit us back onto the wide course of the Suwannee River like walking out the front door. Almost immediately, signposts pointed downstream to Billy’s Island and onward to Stephen C. Foster State Park, bringing the trip full circle, and reminding us we were never all that far from civilization.

It’s a special thing to escape, even for day or two, and explore unhindered through one of the country’s last true wildernesses, and that sense of isolation is realtively comfortable and accessible when it’s supported and maintained by the National Wildlife Refuge like it is here. In a way, we came to the land of the trembling earth hoping to get a little lost. But of course, I never admitted it.

Away.com, Dec. 2009

Calling Papua New Guinea a diverse country doesn’t even begin to describe the variations on culture, language, landscape, and wildlife that perpetually bombard the senses when traveling here. This island nation, which sits just north of Australia in the South Pacific, is comprised of more than 1,000 distinct cultures and 860 native languages, packed into an area the size of California. The histories, beliefs, and traditions of the people fluctuate so wildly from one group to the next that in some places even neighboring villages remain notably disparate.

Despite the presence of modern cities like Port Moresby and Lae, nearly 80 percent of PNG’s population lives in rural areas where many villages and clans still have one foot in the Stone Age. PNG’s interior jungle is, in fact, one of the world’s few regions—second only to the Amazon Rainforest—where native tribes still exist with no contact or knowledge of the outside world.

Not to be outdone, the land, the landscape, and the adventure-travel potential of this practically untapped experiential resource boasts an equally diverse range. For travelers who make the journey, with aid from our PNG Travel Guide, expect introductions to storybook cultures, tours of smoldering volcanoes and geothermal hot springs, artifact hunting expeditions into swampy lowlands populated with brutally friendly (former) cannibals, history-laded treks that follow in the footsteps of the Australians and Japanese who fought desperately here during World War II, scuba diving among the most biologically diverse coral reefs in the world, and so much more.

To tempt the palate with a taste of these—and more—of PNG’s most incredible attractions, click to the next page to uncover ten can’t-miss adventures from around the country.

10. Climb an Active Volcano
In September 1994, plumes of hot ash exploded from the Vulcan and Tavurvur volcanoes on the eastern end of New Britain Island, raining hellfire onto the lively island town of Rabaul, which is flanked by PNG’s most explosive peaks. And even now, much of Rabaul remains charred and buried like a tropical-island Pompeii. A new volcano observatory keeps close watch on things today, and volcano watchers can explore the eerie moonscape of the ruins before hiring local guides to lead day hikes up any of the half-dozen active volcanic vents that ring the Rabaul caldera. Along the way, take a dip at one of the geothermal hot springs found around the vents. Since the last eruption, many people and businesses have left Rabaul and relocated to nearby Kokopo. Managers at both Kokopo Beach Bungalows and Rabaul Hotel can arrange personalized volcano tours with local guides.

9. Ride a Secret Surf Break
Imagine swells rolling through clear-blue South Pacific seas, tossing up consistently beautiful barrels as they pass over lush coral reefs on their way to virgin shorelines, the breaks empty of people except for the smiling, sun-bleached local kids riding shoreward on handmade surfboards. That’s the scene off Lido Village, near Vanimo, in the far northwest of the country, and prime surf spots like this can be found in Kavieng, Weewak, and even Port Moresby. The waves are easily on par with other world-class surf spots in the region—like Indonesia, Tahiti, or Fiji—except for one thing: no crowds. And luckily, even when the word does get out, the waves will remain blissfully secluded due to a surf area management plan enacted by the Surfing Association of Papua New Guinea that limits the number of riders allowed into the water on any given day. Head to the north shore from April to October, the south from June to September. And bring a board—equipment is still hard to find on island.

8. Scuba Dive Kimbe Bay’s Undersea Pinnacles
Located on the north side of New Britain Island, Kimbe Bay sits along the southern edge of the Coral Triangle—a swath of Pacific Ocean famous for its unparalleled marine-life diversity. And true to form, Kimbe Bay boasts more than 900 species of fish among its reefs and more than 400 types of coral—nearly half of the known coral species worldwide. The diving here runs the gamut: nearshore coral gardens burst with color, and offer shallow, sun-drenched reefs loaded with macro-critters like harlequin ghost pipefish and pygmy sea horses. Out in the bay, dive sites like Susan’s Reef fringe the edge of the undersea shelf, where divers can explore the steep walls overflowing with waving soft corals and clownfish hiding among the tentacles of their anemones. And just outside the bay, coral bommies and undersea pinnacles—like Inglis Shoal and Kimbe Island Bommie—rise from the open ocean to within 50 or 60 feet of the surface and attract swarms of roving sharks, great schools of Pacific barracuda, and other pelagic predators.The Walindi Resort is the only dive operation on Kimbe Bay. From the resort, which is nestled into an oil-palm plantation overlooking the bay, guests can make day trips out to the diving grounds. For hardcore divers, Walindi also offers itineraries on its liveaboard dive boat Febrina, which explores the farthest reaches of Kimbe Bay and beyond.

7. Hunt for Artifacts in the Sepik River Valley
The people of the Sepik River valley are famous worldwide for their distinctive carved spirit masks, cassowary-bone daggers, and other artwork. Even the design of the PNG government’s Parliament building in Port Moresby is based on the haus Tambaren, or spirit houses, of the Sepik Region. But despite their renown, the incredibly diverse people who populate the banks of the Sepik River and its tributaries live today much as they have for hundreds of years, hand-line fishing from dugout canoes, subsisting off the starchy pulp of the prevalent sago palms and passing down stories of their war ravaged, cannibalistic past through their art, dances, and oral traditions. No roads permeate the thick jungles and grasslands that flank the country’s largest river, so the only access into this remote section of the country is by bush plane or boat. Trans Niugini Tours operates the riverboat Sepik Spirit which visitors can live on-board and make forays by flat-bottom boat on artifact-hunting expeditions to nearby villages.

6. Spend the Night in a Sepik Family House
Go beyond simply visiting the villages and shopping for artifacts in the Sepik River region, get a firsthand look at local life by spending the night with a native tribe. The Karawari Lodge arranges overnight trips at the Kungriambun, Konmei, and Kaiwaria villages along the Karawari River, a tributary of the Sepik. The villagers provide accommodations in one of their stilted, sprawling family houses, and the accompanying guides furnish it temporarily with sleeping pads and mosquito nets. During the day, visitors can take nature walks or go fishing with the village women, and at night join the meals and storytelling around the fire before heading off to bed.

5. Hike the Historic Kokoda Track
World War II buffs shouldn’t miss an opportunity to hike the infamous Kokoda Track. The full length of the track stretches nearly 60 miles across the rugged mountains of the Owen Stanley Range, following the path of a bloody WWII campaign between Australia and Japan from Owen’s Corner to the village of Kokoda. While it’s the most popular trek in PNG, and a veritable rite of passage for many Australians, Kokoda is not for the casual hiker, as it passes through sweltering jungles, up and down impossibly steep ridges, and across fast-flowing rivers. However, along the way it offers the opportunity to explore historic battlefields, hand-dug trenches, and war artifacts, as well as to make overnight stops in local villages to learn the culture from natives and each village’s history along the track. Hiking end-to-end can take anywhere from four to 12 days depending on the pace and fitness of the hikers. Numerous trekking companies like Kokoda Trekking [link to www.kokodatrail.com.au] offer expeditions along the track, arranging logistics like track permits, village visits, and porters to carry gear and supplies.

4. Scale Mt. Wilhelm, PNG’s Tallest Peak
At 14,790 feet, Mt. Wilhelm is the tallest mountain in PNG, and while the climb is relatively challenging, it’s not technical and doesn’t require extensive mountaineering gear or experience. The hike to the summit passes through tropical, temperate, and alpine forests—there’s even the possibility of snow at the peak—and from the top it’s possible to see both the north and south coasts of the country. Excursions to the summit with PNG Trekking Adventures start with transport from either Goroka or Mt. Hagen to Betty’s Lodge at Keglsugl on the side of the mountain. The following day involves a leisurely 3-hour hike to the base camp, where climbers can stay for a night or two, taking short walks and acclimatizing to the altitude. For the summit hike, climbers leave the base camp around 1 a.m. in order to reach the peak by sunrise and then make a full descent back to the lodge at Keglsugl before catching a ride to town the following day.

3. Dance with Highland Tribes at the Country’s Largest Sing-Sing
Every August, more than 50 different native tribes converge on the Kagamuga Showgrounds in the Highland city of Mt. Hagen to perform traditional “sing-sing” dance celebrations in full tribal dress for the Mt. Hagen Cultural Show, the largest of its kind in the country. The Highlands of PNG are home to some of the country’s most colorful and impressive displays of native culture—like the ornately plumed Huli Wigmen of Tari who emulate the bird of paradise, and the elaborately sculpted masks of the Asaro Mudmen, which depict malevolent forest spirits—and this cultural show is a can’t-miss for visitors who want to join the festivities. Trans Niugini Tours has been offering Mt. Hagen Show itineraries for nearly three decades with accommodations at the Highlander Hotel in Mt. Hagen.

2. Spot the Elusive Bird of Paradise
All around PNG, bird watching is big business. There are around 700 species of exotic birds to be found across the country’s many ecosystems, but one bird in particular—the bird of paradise—seems to top everybody’s “must-spot” list. The Huli Wigmen have prized the lavish feathers of these birds for hundreds of years, as evidenced by the Huli’s elaborate headdresses featuring bird of paradise feathers and their traditional dances, which mimic those of the birds in their natural habitats. The Tari Gap region is the place to see as many as 13 different species of bird of paradise, as well as visit the Huli in their own villages. The Ambua Lodge offers bird watching and Huli village daytrips from its Tari location, beneath a canopy of mountain rainforest.

1. See the Skull Caves of Milne Bay
It is believed that many years ago, in the pre-missionary days of Milne Bay Province, an important person who died was buried upright in the ground with his head poking out, covered by a clay pot, and over time, once the skull disconnected from the body, it was taken to a special cave to be stored along with the skulls of other important tribespeople. Jump forward to today: These caves are no longer in use, but a number of them have been opened up in the vicinity of Alotau. The Tawali Resort offers day hikes through the jungle to visit these skull caves—some literally loaded with ancient craniums. The day starts with a boat ride to the trailhead, ends with a refreshing dip under a tropical waterfall, and includes bird watching and orchid hunting along the way.

See Original Article at Away.com

Belted into the passenger seat of a four-door pickup — the bed full of dive gear — I’m rolling down a narrow stretch of paved road that cuts through a buzzing swath of Yucatan jungle listening to my dive guide, Nat Wilson, explain the mythology behind the freshwater-filled caverns we’ve been diving for the past couple of days. He’s just finished the part about how the ancient Maya believed the openings of these cenotes served as portals to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld, when he hits the brakes and swerves to the shoulder. “You see that?” he asks, his outstretched finger pointing out my side window. “What?” I ask. “The jungle?”

“Through this hole in the trees. See its tail?” I look harder — fairly impressed that he could spot anything through the dense underbrush — and I see it, a blue bird about the size of a pigeon with a twitchy tail. “That’s the motmot,” he says, adding that the Maya considered mot- mots to be the guardians of the cenotes. “In reality, they hang around the caverns because it’s the only access to fresh water out here,” Wilson says. “And these days, us cave divers watch for the birds to help us find the entrances.”

Of course Wilson — the training director and in-house cave guru for Dressel Divers — doesn’t need a motmot to help him find the cenote we plan to dive. Though there are dozens of cenotes open to divers, one of the most popular is the Dos Ojos system — the name means “two eyes” and refers to the two primary cavern openings, called the “East” and “West” Eyes, which when seen from afar look like two eyes protruding from the jungle floor. And while this area is increasingly subjected to throngs of swimmers who splash around the entrances, Wilson assures me that deep inside the caverns it’s a whole different world.

In order to get underwater before the tour buses crowd us out, Wilson rolled up to my resort bright and early. Luckily I’m staying about midway between Playa del Carmen and Tulum — in the heart of cenote country — and when we show up, we have the place to ourselves.

We park next to the trailhead that leads to the main entrance at the East Eye, strap on our gear and head down. I notice smoke billowing up from brush fires around the opening, and when I ask, Wilson explains that the locals, modern-day Maya who own the land around the cenote, build the fires as offerings to the gods. “Really?” I ask hesitantly. “Of course not,” he answers with a laugh. “They’re for the bugs.” I slap a handful of mosquitoes slurping from my ankle.

Despite the bonfires, the mosquitoes are drinking their fill from our exposed feet and hands, so we make quick work of a back flop from the dive platform into the crystalline water, do one final gear check and descend to the floor of the pool, where two guidelines are tied off at the mouth of the cavern. The right guideline, called the Barbie Line, follows an easy, well-lit path. On the left, the Bat Cave Line extends 65 feet into the opening of the submerged cavern before hanging a left into a darkened side passage. We take the latter.

Wilson assumes the lead, hovering skillfully a couple of feet above the line to avoid stirring up the bottom, and I frog-kick gently to keep pace as we slip into the dark passageway, flashlight beams bouncing off the stark-white limestone formations — thick floor-to- ceiling columns and hanging stalactites that formed eons ago before these tunnels filled with water.

After swimming a few minutes, we make another left turn into a large chamber, where a narrow beam of light coming through a small hole in the distance provides dim illumination while we follow the contours of the wall. From here, we follow the guideline as it slopes upward, leading us into the dive’s eponymous feature: the bat cave — another large, circular chamber, this one only partially filled with water, leaving an open-air space in the top of the room.

Bearing left, we circumnavigate a jumbled pile of rock slabs, which had fallen from the ceiling to create a mesalike mound in the center of the room. Along the circumference, we explore a fissure beneath the limestone that constitutes the jungle floor 40 feet or so above our heads. And meandering through the tight maze of stalactites and stalagmites, we pass underneath some of the most delicate formations I’ve seen in any of my dives through these cenotes. The ceiling bristles with soda-straw stalactites — pencil-thin protrusions that blanket the surface en masse like a bed of nails.

At the far end of the chamber, Wilson stops and motions me to the surface of the water, tinged green by sunlight from a small opening in the roof. Popping up into the air pocket, I remove my regulator and take a breath of the cool, damp air. True to its name, the ceiling of the cavern boasts clusters of small bats; occasionally one swan dives from its upside-down perch and — wings spread — glides over the electric-green pool only to arc upward and alight once again.

Eventually we drop back down and continue around the other side of the room, following the line back the way we came and emerging along the edge of the West Eye. Here, our line runs into itself at the passageway back to our starting point. We hold our lights to our chests; from this vantage point, the sunlight filtering through the main entrance puts the cavern in silhouette, and “laser beams” of light stream in along the edges.

After we climb up to the dive platform, Wilson starts back up the trail, but just as I’m about to turn and leave, I see it again: the small blue bird, tail bouncing disjointedly, perched on the lip of the cavern as if overseeing our departure.

Need to Know
Getting There: The majority of Riviera Maya’s divable cenotes are off the main highway between Playa del Carmen and Tulum. Most U.S. airlines fly to Cancun. From the airport you can drive, take a taxi or hop a colectivo (shared van) for the 60- to 80-minute drive down the coast.

When to Go: Water temps (75-77°F) and calm dive conditions are constant year- round. The Yucatan’s high season runs from December through April with cooler air temperatures and less rain. The rainy (low) season runs from May to November, but many resorts offer reduced off-season rates, so it’s worth considering.

Operator/Accommodations: The Barcelo Maya Palace (barcelomayapalace.com) is part of the Barcelo Maya complex, which sports five amenity-rich all-inclusive resorts of varying price points stretched along nearly a mile of white-sand beach. Arrange your dives at the on-site PADI IDC center, Dressel Divers (dresseldivers.com), which has a multilingual staff and certified cave/cavern guides.

Price Tag: Rooms at the luxe Barcelo Maya Palace start at $170 per person, per night, all-inclusive. Dressel Divers’ excursion to the cenotes is $70 and includes lunch. Tanks are about $40, but you’ll get discounts for buying multiple fills.

Can’t-Miss Topside Adventures: Tulum is one of the best-preserved coastal Mayan archeological sites and has some of the region’s nicest beaches. (Tip: Go early to beat the crowds.) You can also explore tropical jungles and coastal mangroves at the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve.

Download Full Article

West New Britain Island

Sepik River Basin

Western Highlands

Puerto Rico 10/25/09-10/28/09:

Rio Camuy Caving Expedition, San Juan Marriott Press Trip

I know what’s coming. As I exit through an opening in the lava-rock cavern called First Cathedral — a popular dive off the Hawaiian island of Lanai — I hear the high-pitched din of clicks and squeaks building above the noise of my bubbles. A pod of spinner dolphins is approaching, the volume of chatter signals that more than a few are heading my way.

My gut tells me the dolphins will pass through the sand channel alongside the cavern. So, I make a hard right, swimming fast, before I dump the air from my BC, plant my knees on the seafloor and lock my gaze west down the length of the channel.

For about three minutes, the sound grows. Then, just as the cacophony crescendos, the pack leaders swoop into the mini canyon at the edge of my visibility like an undulating bullet train that’s just jumped the tracks. They move in a tight formation, a seemingly endless line. Individuals occasionally break from the crowd, careening down to skim the seafloor, or bolting for the surface.

This is Hawaiian big-animal diving at its best. Many divers link Hawaii synonymously with humpback whales, which congregate there every winter. But most will never see these behemoths below the surface. More common — and more exciting when they arrive en masse — are encounters with the resident spinner dolphins that cruise the coastline year-round, sometimes in pods hundreds of acrobatic animals deep. To be graced with this experience requires about 90 percent luck, because interaction is at the dolphins’ discretion. Make no mistake: These animals are clever, rarely approaching divers by accident. What’s the other 10 percent of the encounter? A mix of awareness and attitude. Divers must first recognize the pod’s approach in time to get into position, and second, avoid any action — swimming after or trying to touch the animals — that will scare the pod.

From my vantage point on the seafloor, I watch the pod, which is some 150 to 200 strong, perform the eponymous spins and loop-the-loops unique to this wild species. They disappear above the surface only to dip back in to perform another curling maneuver underwater. The mothers display less bravado as they swim down the middle of the pod, casting protective glances toward their calves in tow. After maybe seven minutes, even the stragglers pass. The chatter fades and the whole impressive display disappears just as quickly as it arrived.

Download full article

]]> http://www.travis-marshall.com/2009/09/28/bullet-train/feed/ 0 http://www.travis-marshall.com/2009/09/24/advanced-adventure-s-s-thistlegorm/ http://www.travis-marshall.com/2009/09/24/advanced-adventure-s-s-thistlegorm/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:12:30 +0000 Travis Marshall http://www.travis-marshall.com/?p=661 S.S. Thistlegorm.]]> Scuba Diving Magazine, Sept/Oct. 2009

It’s a little after daybreak. The quiet on board breaks without warning, replaced with loud commands delivered in terse Arabic as the agile crew swings into position to man the lines. We have arrived.

My dive boat has been motoring along the coast of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula for nearly four predaylight hours. I walk out of the main cabin, where I’ve slept most of the bumpy ride huddled on the thin cushions of the bench lining the wall, and see the divemaster disappear over the side, bounce-diving to tie a guide­line from our stern to the wreck. I pour a cup of thick Arabic coffee and groggily prep my gear in the early morning light. In a few minutes, I’ll hop off the stern myself and make my way to the seafloor to penetrate the deepest bowels of what is arguably the most famous and histori­cally rich shipwreck in the Red Sea.

A dive trip to the British supply ship SS Thistlegorm requires no small amount of effort, but it’s unquestionably worth it for an opportunity to slip inside this veritable World War II time capsule, bur­ied by a hailstorm of German bombs in 1941 while en route to deliver her cargo of supplies to Allied troops in Suez. After sinking, the Thistlegorm lay undisturbed for about 14 years, explains John Kean, an experienced Thistlegorm guide and author of the book “SS Thistlegorm: The True Story of the Red Sea’s Greatest Ship­wreck.” At which time a budding explorer named Jacques Cousteau — piloting another soon-to-be-legendary ship, the Calypso — moored up to her and made the first-ever scuba-fueled explorations of her decks. Today, the Thistlegorm draws tens of thousands each year.

I make one final check of the condi­tions. Out here at the mouth of the Gulf of Suez, current and surface chop are common, and today has both. So I giant-stride off the stern with an empty BC and make a beeline down the guide rope to the shelter of the Thistlegorm’s hull. Descending over the blast zone — where German bombs detonated munitions holds near the stern — I can see both sections of the 415-foot-long ship: The front half sits mostly intact, upright at the shallower end of the slop­ing seafloor, while the stern, twisted 90 degrees, rests on its port side in about 95 feet of water. As I approach the opening in the hull, I glide over the tracks of a pair of Mark II Bren Carrier tanks, upside­down in the pile of munitions.

Unlike a passenger ship, with an inte­rior full of winding passageways and cabins, the Thistlegorm features wide-open cargo holds and no shortage of vertical exit points. Slipping inside the wreck at Hold 3 feels a bit like walking into a war museum where shafts of sun­light illuminate the displays through skylights in the roof. I find myself sur­rounded by piles of  hand grenades and anti-tank mines scattered in a state of dis­array pretty much as they fell after the ship touched down on the seafloor. It’s an impressive collection, but I know the most striking is ahead of me in the for­ward compartments.

The Thistlegorm’s first and second holds overflow with a payload of large war material. My gaze extends across row after row of Bedford trucks, intact down to the tires and packed in the belly of the ship like sardines. And each truck bed is loaded to capacity with BSA motorcycles. Stacked along walls sit crates of medical supplies, Enfield rifles and endless boxes of ammuni­tion. The gravity of this cargo hits me like a wave. It’s a drop in the bucket of what was required to keep that massive Allied war machine moving, but peo­ple’s lives depended on this stuff — they never got it, and good people died try­ing to deliver it.

My time is running short, and I make my way shallower by traversing through the upper holds and spend a few brief moments exploring the rail cars, davits and a torpedo on the upper deck before finning to my guideline. My bottom time is maxed out, so I make a slow ascent and take an extra-long safety stop.

When I climb back on board, the boat has fallen quiet once again. It seems like we all need a moment to digest the experience. But before we can think too long, the cook swings up from the galley, cracking jokes through a smile as thick as his accent and ushering us inside for a hearty meal before we move on to drift the walls of Ras Mohammed.

Download Full Article

Gearing up on the platform for my last dive of the trip, I peer into the electric-blue water trying to visualize the winding path we plan to follow as Scott “Bear” Fritz, my fast-talking dive guide, fires off directions. “We’ll drop down this pillar here,” he gestures with his right hand. “At about 80 feet you’ll see a small opening. That’s the Secret Tunnel. It’s off the regular dive path, but it’ll get us to the Lake Room in a matter of minutes. From there we’ll follow the wall to the tar boat, go up a set of ladders through Clinton Shaft, follow the railroad ties into the Grand Canyon Bowl and loop back around into the Lake Room.” “Pheew,” I think, “OK, I’ve got it…maybe.” But then he starts talking again, “Then we’ll turn and swim through the Rope Room, pass through the Trail 3 slit into the 1095 Bowl and we’re back to the dock.” My mouth hangs open slightly. “Tell you what,” I say. “I’ll just stay right behind you.”

It’s a good choice. There’s no better guide to Missouri’s Bonne Terre Mine. Fritz has been diving the mine for more than 20 years, and he’s the training director who makes sure all the mine’s dive guides are fully prepared to take tourists or students into this underwater maze. There are more that 50 planned trails open to the public that the guides must know like the backs of their hands. Though, under special circumstances, exploratory dives are possible here as well. Dubbed “Bear” trails, these more advanced dives, lead by the eponymous guide himself, delve into the unlit and underexplored sections of the mine. But Bear Trails, like the one I’m about to dive, are only for divers who prove they’ve got the scuba skills and the air consumption to do them, and once we drop down the aforementioned pillar and enter the Secret Tunnel, I understand why.

We slide one-by-one into the narrow, square-cut shaft under a hundred feet of rock. Along the floor, a pair of metal ore-cart tracks stretches past the edges of our high beams. It’s easy to imagine men in this tunnel, urging stubborn mules hitched to ore carts, lugging load after endless load to the edge of this shaft, tipping the cart over the lip, sending a shower of ore into the bowels of the machine. But imagination time doesn’t last long. When we emerge on the other side, we’re in an unlit chamber, a cavernous void that swallows the beam of my light, and I focus on the bottom to maintain a point of reference until we reach the opposite end, and yet another square-shaped passage. This one is wider than the last, and we swim side-by-side until we arrive at Clinton Shaft, a system of round, tight tunnels, angling different directions as they traverse upward through multiple levels, with fragile wooden ladders leading from one hole to the next. Bear points his hand-mounted light into the narrow shaft and motions me forward. “Here we go,” I say to myself as I fin carefully up the length of the ladders, following, in the still silence, the footsteps of men who lived and died to create this labyrinth in the name of industry.

This is the lure of what the Bonne Terre crew has dubbed “deep earth diving,” a seemingly endless underground world, frozen in time. Fritz openly admits he has “the fever,” a driving desire to explore, to see what’s down the next tunnel, that has kept him coming back for more than two decades. Pillars, shafts, sheer walls and ceilings—hewn entirely by human hands—stretch for miles in all directions, leaving a sprawling, five-level catacomb beneath the town, and at every underwater turn all manner of artifacts—shovels, rock drills, ore carts and blasting caps—lay strewn across the landscape, as if the workers who left them simply went home at the blow of the foreman’s whistle and never returned to clean up after themselves. Of course, back in the day, the mine’s deepest reaches were not underwater. A massive pump system stemmed the flow of encroaching groundwater as the miners pushed ever deeper. But when this, the world’s largest lead mine, was all mined out, the men retreated, the pumps were turned off and the water trickled in to fill the void. These days, mine owners Doug and Cathy Georgens have turned the pumps back on, but it was never their intention to drain the mine completely, just enough to keep the water level constant and provide divers with access to their unique underwater vision.

And a big part of what makes that vision possible is light. The electric blue of the water is a product of the 500,000 watts of high-powered stadium lighting that the Georgens and their team have strung from pillar to pillar, through hundreds of feet of subterranean air space. The crystal-clear, rock-filtered water is clean enough to drink, and the long, blue waves of light that penetrate to the darkest depths of the motionless, billion-gallon lake lend an almost Caribbean illusion. But that illusion disperses as fast as your body heat when you make that first giant stride. Bonne Terre’s dive deck hovers on the water’s surface a full 150 feet into the earth, and though it’s a short walk down from the small shed that covers the mine’s only opening, the environmental change is complete. From the searing Missouri summer heat, it’s like entering the world’s largest walk-in refrigerator, where the air stays a constant 62 degrees, the water a brisk 58, year round.
Of course, those temps sound pretty good during the winter, which is Bonne Terre’s high season. Here in the Midwest, regional dive shops are short on spots to take Open-Water classes, especially when the quarry temperatures dip below freezing. So Bonne Terre Mine’s constant conditions provide year-round diving opportunities for students and divers who don’t have the time, money or desire to go coastal. But the mine has also attracted higher-profile attention. In 1983, Jacques Cousteau’s film team came to document the dramatic underwater scenery, in April 2000, “National Geographic Adventure” named the diving at Bonne Terre Mine one of the top 10 adventures in America, and over the years, a handful of documentaries have been filmed here and shown on the Discovery and History channels.

For everyday divers, the diving experience at Bonne Terre is very accessible. The town of Bonne Terre, Mo., is about an hour’s drive south of St. Louis. The dive operation is only open on weekends, and there are on-site accommodation options. The diving itself is totally safe because it is highly controlled—a necessary precaution in a place with innumerable overhead tunnels that can easily swallow even an experienced diver who doesn’t know his or her way around. Every group of divers has a guide and a safety diver, and every diver’s first visit to the mine starts with a checkout dive, no matter what their experience level. Visitors to the mine dive the 24 trails in sequence—they get a bit a harder as the numbers get larger—so if you make it through Trail 6 your first weekend, you’ll start at Trail 7 on your next visit. Dive lights are not allowed or necessary on the guided tours.

As for me, following Fritz around for a weekend proves a very tempting taste of what the mine has to offer. As we exit Clinton Shaft, I stay right on Fritz’s fin straps through the winding path back to the dock. Like an enthusiastic newbie, I turn my head in all directions—from rock walls and narrow passageways, to discarded drill bits and shovels—trying to take it all in, but at one point, we swim onto a ledge and Fritz stops me short. He puts his hand on my shoulder and points out into what looks like open water. Then he kicks his fins out in front of him, leans back and sits down on a rock like a man settling into his favorite easy chair. He looks over at me and spreads his arms wide. By this time, my eyes have focused, and I see pillar after pillar stretching out into the soft light like a massive forest marching into the distance; I settle down beside him to admire the scene. “That’s my favorite spot, where I go to relax” Fritz says when we climb out of the water. “We call it the Redwood Forest.” I nod my head in agreement, looking back over my shoulder at the water. Fritz laughs, “Looks like you’re getting the fever,” he says. “You’ll be back.”

Download Shortened Version Published in Scuba Diving magazine

From the Philippines to the Solomon Islands, the Coral Triangle is the world’s hottest region for on-the-fringe diving, underwater photography, big animal encounters and so much more. Get the who, what, when, where and why of diving the Amazon rainforest of the seven seas.

Download full article

]]> http://www.travis-marshall.com/2009/05/01/cracking-the-coral-triangle/feed/ 0 http://www.mensjournal.com/whale-sharks http://www.mensjournal.com/whale-sharks#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:08:49 +0000 Travis Marshall http://www.travis-marshall.com/?p=573 Men’s Journal Magazine, Apr. 2009

WHEN YOU SLIP INTO THE OCEAN AND SWIM NEXT TO A whale shark, it’s the underwater equivalent of going on safari, then getting out of the Land Rover and running with elephants. Shark spotters in search of this ultimate in-water encounter travel far and wide for a chance to dwarf themselves next to these massive creatures. In spite of their status as the world’s largest fish -they grow as long as 50 feet-the animals are shy and spend much of their lives hidden from view. But in spring and summer the big-mouthed behemoths arrive en masse to feed at a few choice locations in the western Caribbean and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, Texas

An oasis of life in the center of an oceanic desert, the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary lies about 110 miles off the coast of Freeport, Texas-so no passport needed. The area attracts a slew of creatures and boasts such unique animal life that in 1992 it became one of 14 federally protected marine areas.

WHEN TO GO: Whale shark sightings at the Flower Gardens aren’t as common as at locations farther south, but a good time to try is in August and September. WHO TO GO WITH: Because the site lies so far offshore, the best way to experience it is on a live-aboard boat. Fling Charters offers two-and three-day trips (four and five days during coral spawning) aboard its 100-foot dive boat, the MV Fling (from $805; flingcharters.com). Trips include two to five dives a day, meals, and snacks.

Isla Holbox, Mexico

Each summer hundreds of whale sharks congregate off this island to feed on plankton blooms. Isla Holbox sits just a few hours’ drive northwest of Cancun, yet the atmosphere in this fishing community is a world away from its developed neighbor. There are no cars on the island; the only motorized transportation is a golf cart.

WHEN TO GO: May to September WHO TO GO WITH: Holbox Tours and Travel offers money back guarantees on snorkeling encounters from June through August (from $95; holboxwhalesharktours.com), making this destination your surest bet. WHERE TO STAY: Casa Iguana is a private beachside retreat surrounded by palm groves (from $55; casa-iguana.net). WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK: Edelyn’s, a hopping pizzeria, is located in front of the main square. Fill up on Chef Miguel’s signature lobster pizza, and when you’re finished, walk to local hangout Habana Nights for a nightcap.

Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras

Along Utila Town’s dusty roads, guesthouses and dive shops tout the seasonal appearance of the island’s biggest attractions: whale sharks. These giants feed on plankton blooms by following schools of tuna. Watch for fish “boiling” at the water’s surface: There’s a good chance you’ll find a whale shark circling underneath.

WHEN TO GO: February to June; August to October, WHERE TO STAY: Get an all-inclusive room and dive package (a great deal) at Utila Lodge, and hop on the boat straight from your waterfront bungalow along the private dock (from $209 per night; utilalodge.com), WHERE TO DRINK: At the Tranquila Bar, an open-air tavern suspended over the water, island expats and backpackers come together to down Flor de Cana rum and deconstruct the day’s dives.

Gladden Spit Marine Reserve, Placencia, Belize

Belize’s Mesoamerican barrier reef, the largest in the Western Hemisphere, lies just off Placencia’s shore and offers stunning natural scenery: The Gladden Spit Marine Reserve, a vital section of the reef, hosts the annual spawning of more than 25 species of fish. During the full-moon spawning, whale sharks gorge themselves on clouds of eggs and sperm. Sign up early: Tours fill up months in advance.

WHEN TO GO: March to June WHERE TO STAY AND DIVE: The Inn at Robert’s Grove boasts a dive center with a fleet of fast boats that dock on 22 acres of beachfront property five miles from Placencia Village (from $240 per night; robertsgrove.com). TOPSIDE ADVENTURES: Placencia makes a perfect base for jungle trekking up the Monkey River, exploring the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary (the world’s first jaguar preserve), and hiking the Mayan ruins of Lubaantun.

Download full article

This island 210 miles south of San Diego is possibly the greatest place on Earth to view great white sharks in action — drop a cage in the water, add some chum, then jump in and watch the show thrash around you. But all of that is changing, and fast: The Mexican government last year banned chumming to protect the sharks. The irony is that no chum means fewer sharks, less tourist interest, and therefore more illegal fishing that the dive boats once held at bay. Outfitters are already alarmed by an increase in poaching and fear the great white population there is on the verge of collapse. “I’m cutting back on the number of trips,” says Patric Douglas, owner of outfitter Shark Diver. “But they’re filling up fast. People want to see these animals while they still have the chance” ($3,100 for five days; sharkdiver.com).

Download full article

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

On the one hand, there’s obviously something wrong with groups of tourists peering through the tinted windows of a bus as it makes its way through the grotty streets, but from what I can find, the growing “poorism” trend is not about passive voyerism. It seems that the demand itself is for the tangible experience of wading through the trash, interacting with the people and getting out of the comfort zone at least a little. One could argue that exploring a city on one’s own would prove the most rewarding leap out of the comfort zone. Nix the tour guide altogether. But anyone who has been abroad knows this is an insurmountable hurdle for the vast majority of travelers. So, maybe this is the next best thing.

Photo used under Creative Commons, taken from Flickr.

It takes mere seconds of web surfing to realize I’m far from the only one to take offense at the rebranding of “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher as some sort of war correspondent, currently making his way through the Holy Land with the sort of ignorance that would fit perfectly into the classic wit of The Innocents Abroad if it wasn’t so genuine.

In his made-for-the-web coverage at Pajamas TV, Wurzelbacher repeatedly insists that he is not a journalist, proclaiming that his superiority over predatory media folks stems from his simple mission: To hunt down the facts and present them to viewers so that they can make their own judgments. Last time I checked, that IS journalism. But his self-described hunger for truth doesn’t really jibe well with his statements in the video above, essentially that it is “asinine” to allow journalists access to operations and atrocities of war because “you report where our troops are at, you report what’s happening day-to-day, you make a big deal out of it.”

Excuse me?

Of all the things to make a big deal of in this world, war seems like one of the most vital. Wurzelbacher wishes we could go back to the way it was during the first and second world wars, but he seems ignorant of the parabolic downturn to the numbers of American deaths in major U.S. conflicts as they relate to the amount of access given to the media. The Vietnam War is when the horrors of war really became visually accessible to the public via television and photographers and print journalists reporting from the field. Is it any wonder that there was such a public outcry over the violence? Jump forward to today and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Public opinion has far less tolerance for American deaths, abuses of power and years of unnecessary bloodshed when it’s in our face, visible 24/7 via the media.

While I’m at it, I’d like to point out another nitpicky bit of hypocrisy in Wurzelbacher’s coverage. As I remember it, Joe the Plumber’s entrance onto the public stage centered on his wariness over Obama’s “socialist tendencies.” He was the “Average Joe” who didn’t want to risk sharing his potential wealth. But as part of his ass-hole’s tour of Israel, in which he blindly professes the strength and wonder of the “Israel people” without providing any evidence that he has even a basic understanding of the history and struggle that brought the country into existence and created the on-going conflict, Wurzelbacher heads north to the Golan Heights to hang out on a Kibbutz.

Kibbutz: A collective farm or settlement owned by its members in modern Israel; children are reared collectively
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

That’s right Wurzelbacher. A Kibbutz is an Israeli commune, chock full of socialists working collectively and sharing the wealth. But that didn’t stop him from lauding the Kibbutz model as exemplary in the region, a place where men and women; Muslims, Christians and Jews alike could come together for the common good and live together in peace. “That doesn’t happen in Iran,” he explains, but technically, his political leanings as spouted during the McCain campaign put him firmly in the unsharing, divisive (Iran?) camp on that one.

Now, I realize there’s not much unique about this “epiphany.” It stands to reason that someone–i.e. me–who had grown used to cranking out service content on cue, forced to quit cold-turkey, will feel not only relief from the day-by-day, hour-by-hour flow of words but also pangs of withdrawal at the loss of a dedicated audience. And these simultaneous reactions complement each other, coming together to inspire new creation, and the discovery of a new audience.

Of course, that new audience, at least when it comes to my online ramblings, is limited to the very few people who either look at this, or my other blog, or those who happen to stumble upon them. But rest assured, within my own mind, I am writing for millions who will never see, and if they did, never like, my writing. But whatever. Hidden from view means liberated from judgment. And that the words come this easily–much more easily than the ones I’m supposedly being paid to write at this very moment–is likely a testament to their unpreparedness for the public eye.