Note: The following article was written soon after finishing the Imax 3D feature "Into the Deep." For me, this was my first encounter with a brittlestar garden. Since then, this habitat seems to have spread throughout the Channel Island and in many places has replaced kelp forests.

Fish Feathers

Howard Hall

©Mark Conlin

   I was looking for squid eggs when I dropped off the stern of the Truth Aquatics vessel, Conception, and fell seventy feet to the bottom. Opalescent squid spawn predictably every winter in the California Channel Islands and we'd been told the squid were running on the east end of Santa Cruz. So Conception dropped the anchor in a likely spot and I went down for a look. Nothing is easier than finding opalescent squid in the Channel Islands unless, of course, you need to find them.   

   We were working on an IMAX 3D film. I thought I had just about exhausted every interesting story that took place during the filming of "Into the Deep," but then I remembered this dive on the east end of Santa Cruz Island. I remember the dive because it was peaceful and beautiful, and because I discovered a habitat that I never knew existed before. A habitat we decided to call the Star Garden.   

    The day didn't start out so peacefully. We devoted the morning to testing the dome port on our IMAX 3D camera housing. Normally, testing a new port on a camera housing would be a simple thing. But nothing is simple in IMAX. The dome port for the housing is thirty-two inches in diameter and weighs 300 pounds. This pushes the total weight of the camera housing up to about 1,500 pounds.

   After installing the port on the housing, we calculated the amount of weight needed to trim the system, and bolted on the appropriate lead weights. We would make any minor buoyancy adjustments after we had the camera in the water. Once underwater, we would use the system to photograph the kelp forests near Anacapa Island.    

    John Robirds lowered the camera over the side on the davit. Mark Conlin and Mark Thurlow were in the water and ready to launch the camera and bring it to Bob Cranston and me, waiting on the bottom at eighty feet.  

    Once the camera was in the water, Thurlow attempted to release the shackle that attached the housing to the cable. It wouldn't release. It looked like he was having trouble, so I started to swim up to see what was wrong. The shackle was jammed. Well, the shackle was jammed because the surface crew had miscalculated the amount of weight necessary to neutralize the buoyancy of the dome port. They had accidentally bolted on nearly one hundred pounds of additional lead weight. The shackle was jammed because the IMAX 3D camera system was actually 100 pounds negatively buoyant! If Conlin and Thurlow succeeded in releasing the shackle, the $2.5 million camera, would plummet to the bottom, crash into the jagged reef gouging spectacular holes in the magnificent dome port, and then would almost certainly roll down the drop-off where it would implode in deep water. If any of us had realized the potential for disaster hanging on that jammed shackle, we would have been absolutely terrified. But none of us were terrified because we didn't have a clue there was a problem beyond a jammed shackle. Thurlow and Conlin, being resourceful guys, were determined not to let so trivial at thing as a jammed shackle interfere with our busy schedule.    

   If Conlin and Thurlow had been less resourceful or realized that the shackle was jammed because there was 100 pounds of dead weight hanging on it, we would have retrieved the camera, recalculated the buoyancy, and the morning would have turned into a rather boring waste of time. But instead, the guys gave it a 110 percent effort and their performance turned the morning into a very exciting, adrenalin pumping, completely terrifying, and technically challenging waste of time. Conlin and Thurlow used the rocking of the boat to advantage and when the boat was rolling toward the housing and the cable was momentarily detensioned, Thurlow gave a mighty pull and released the camera.    

   What happened next is a bit of a blur. The camera quickly accelerated to terminal velocity with the hapless duo helplessly hanging on. At thirty feet or so, Conlin let go, being unable to clear his ears fast enough. Thurlow, however, valiantly and uselessly held fast. As he plummeted toward the jagged reef below, he had the presence of mind to add air to his dry suit in an effort to reduce the impact. This tactic failed entirely. The housing hit the reef so hard that sonar operators in nuclear submarines everywhere in the Pacific have now been discharged from active duty with permanent hearing disabilities.    

   The camera smashed into the reef like a comet smacking into Jupiter. Fortunately, it came to rest in a shallow crevasse where it wedged itself securely. From my vantage point, all I could see were two enormously inflated dry suit legs protruding from a crater in the reef. Thurlow had held on to the end. Now he couldn't let go without becoming the first human, submarine launched, ballistic missile.    

   At that moment I knew we had flooded and ruined a $2.5 million camera. I knew that the grand experiment of making the first underwater Imax 3D motion picture was over. And, what's much, much worse, I knew I wasn't going to get paid    

   But that was the first dive of the day and not what I had planned to write about here. This story is about the last dive of the day. I was looking for squid eggs. And, of course, with the way the day had been progressing, I had no chance of finding any. But I took my underwater still camera anyway. I only took one strobe because I hate being encumbered by bulky camera gear.   

   As the bottom began to materialize, I realized I was not in the right place for squid eggs. Opalescent squid lay their eggs on a sandy floor. From thirty feet above the bottom, the reef looked like it was covered in feathers! I had never seen anything like it. For a moment the sight was disorienting. Although I'd been diving in California all my life, this was something entirely new.   

I hit the bottom, landing gently on my knees, and looked around in amazement. The reef wasn't covered in feathers after all. It was covered in brittle starfish, and I mean covered. Every square inch was carpeted by a two-inch layer of brilliantly colored brittle stars. Millions of brittle star arms were extended up and into the current like down on a fledgling duck. I lifted off the bottom and began swimming. The carpet extended in all directions as far as I could see. I couldn't believe I'd been diving these waters for so long and had never seen this before. That's what I love about California diving. The variety is almost endless.   

   After a few minutes, I settled down and started photographing macro subjects. It didn't matter where I pointed the camera, the negative space was so beautiful that any subject made a spectacular photo.   

   A few minutes later my film was gone. As I looked around I realized that everything had changed. The day hadn't been a disaster after all. The IMAX 3D camera had not flooded on impact as I had feared. Mark Thurlow had managed to get the air out of his dry suit legs and had not become an instant embolism. And, although I hadn't found the squid eggs I was looking for, I had discovered a wonderful new habitat that would make a great sequence for "Into the Deep", our IMAX 3D film. Things were looking up. I was already looking forward to tomorrow.