Note: I wrote this story while in production of our PBS series Secrets of the Ocean Realm. I haven’t been back to British Columbia since. But our last expedition for our current IMAX 3D film will take us north once again. For almost four weeks our old Secrets crew will reunite with Neil McDaniel and Al Spilde in British Columbia to once again film and explore the cold waters.

The Frozen North
Howard Hall

Bull Kelp ©Howard Hall

The current carried me swiftly downstream through a forest of bull kelp. As the reef fell away I dropped into the lee of a rock called Seven Tree. Now, sheltered from the current, I began working my way back upstream until I reached a shelf that interrupted a dropoff plunging hundreds of feet below. I checked my instruments. My depth was seventy feet, my rebreather oxygen partial pressure was 1.3 atmospheres, bottom-time was approaching two hours, water temperature was 49 degrees. I pressed the valve on my chest flooding my DUI dry suit with argon gas. Amazingly, I wasn't the slightest bit cold. Beneath the dry suit, I wore DUI's heavy Thinsulate undergarment. The argon gas increased the efficiency of the insulation by about thirty percent. And the chemical reaction that removed carbon dioxide from the breathing gas circulating in my rebreather produced heat that warmed every breath. My body was so warm that even my hands were comfortable, only the tips of my fingers were growing numb. I checked my still camera. Only three frames left. I was determined to make them count.

This was my last dive in British Columbia for this expedition, and this was the last expedition culminating a two-year film production effort that would end in a TV series calles Secrets of the Ocean Realm. I was finished using my 16mm movie camera for the trip and when I fired off the last three frames on my still camera, my dive would be over, the diving expedition would be over, and two years of field work would be at an end. My film crew and I would be going home. I would be spending the next eight months behind an editing machine manipulating the images I had captured, images of good times past. I didn't want it to end. A natural history film project is more than a job. It defines your goals, characterizes your ambitions, becomes your way of life. At the end of this dive, my life would begin changing.

It usually takes two years for my wife, Michele, and me to make a natural history film. During those two years we typically may make a dozen expeditions and spend about 140 days diving. It's odd that so much time and effort is distilled into an hour or so of television time. Odder still that most people will use their remote controls to surf in and out of the program, flipping back and forth to Married With Children or some other intellectual parking lot. I think of myself as a filmmaker. But my friend, Dan Walsh, perhaps more accurately describes my profession (and his) as "network time killing." It usually takes Michele and me two years to kill an hour of network time. The big entertainment studios can kill the same hour on a competing channel in with a production that took less than a week to make. Obviously, making natural history films is not very efficient. But then, Michele and I have nothing better to do with our time; nothing better than to travel and dive and try to capture wonders on film.

Kneeling on the reef I had only to lean forward to find subjects to photograph. The beauty here overwhelmed me. The water was dark and cold, but I've never seen more beautiful reefs anywhere in the world. I wanted to photograph sculpins. They're beautiful little fish and somehow I had managed to ignore them until now. But right there in front of me was an Irish lord. He was about a foot long. His back was purple and pink with accents of yellow and the top of his head was caped in deep red. He was spectacular. I should have ignored him, but I couldn't. I had already shot dozens of photos of Irish lords. But each was a different color and each was more beautiful than the next. This one was nestled down in a carpet of pink and white plumed anemones. I couldn't resist. I took just one frame. Two left.

Irish Lord eats crab ©Howard Hall

Michele swam by and stopped for a moment to see what I was photographing. I pointed out the Irish lord and watched her reaction. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Photographing Irish lords had become something of a joke among the crew. With so many magnificent subjects here, a disciplined photographer should be capable of passing an Irish lord after shooting five or six rolls on the fish. But each member of our crew sheepishly admitted to a half a roll or more of Irish lord photos at the end of nearly every still photo dive.

I moved along the shelf a few feet and settled again. Leaning forward, I began seeing sculpins darting among the anemones. Each was about four inches long and like the Irish lords, each was a different color. I focused on one and fired just as he darted away. A clean miss. One frame left.

Michele continued past me and began her ascent toward the swim step of the M\V Sea Venture where the boat's crew waited with a delightful ritual. As soon as Michele removed her hood, the boat owner, Al Spilde, would pour a jug of hot water over her head. Then first mate, John Preshing, would offer a mug of piping hot chocolate.

Leaning forward again, I caught a familiar pattern out of the corner of my eye. I turned to find another Irish lord camouflaged in the carpet of anemones. This one was nearly all yellow mixed with patterns of green and pink. The seduction was complete. I fired my last frame immediately wishing I had composed it differently. But that was it. It was over.

I swam along the reef until I could see the Sea Venture silhouetted against the bull kelp fronds. I could see Neil McDaniel and Michele at the swim step. Michele was climbing the ladder. I couldn't believe that, at under 100 pounds, Michele had been able to stay warm enough to spend three hours a day in these cold waters.

Melibe Nudibranchs ©Howard Hall

I found Bob Cranston waiting on the bottom beneath the Sea Venture. Pointing to a specific region of my anatomy, I indicated a question we had asked each other on nearly every long rebreather dive we made in British Columbia. "Do you have to pee?" Bob immediately shook his head, "No." Of course, this was a transparent lie. And when he asked me the same question, I responded similarly. The truth was that, at the end of two-hour dives, we often experienced bladder discomfort that approached screaming agony. This was a problem that some dry suit divers had solved by wearing diapers. It was a solution which I was yet unwilling to resort.

I pointed to Bob's camera to ask how much film he had left. He signaled, "None," and with a shrug of his shoulders, began ascending to the swim step. I took a last look around and began my ascent as well. I watched the snowy fields of white plumed anemones recede as I ascended slowly toward the surface.

My breath condensed in the cool air as I climbed the ladder at the swim step. A light rain was falling but there was a rainbow arching over the sunlit forest on the other side of the pass. I pulled off my hood and Al poured a jug of hot water on my head. Then I began begging for someone to please unzip my dry suit.