08x08 - Jonathan Bird's Blue World

[bunniefuu]

- [Narrator] Coming up,
Jonathan and the team

dive a high flow cave where
a spring meets a river.

But first, spooky night
diving in the open ocean.

Meet Jonathan Bird,

one of the world's top underwater
nature cinematographers.

Traveling the world on assignment

for all the major networks,

he is an Emmy award-winning authority

on the underwater world.

In freshwater or salt,
reefs, wrecks or caves,

Jonathan documents the
world beneath the waves.

Welcome to the Blue World.

- [Jonathan] The big island of Hawaii,

it's an ocean lover's paradise
with clear, warm water,

lush tropical vegetation,

and plenty of seashore activities.

And of course, the underwater
environment is even better.

But not all the great
diving is on the reef

or during the day.

After the sun goes down,
divers go looking for creatures

of the abyss.

We've sent cameraman Zach
and Annalise to Hawaii

to check out this exciting activity.

- We're here in wonderful Kona, Hawaii.

Normally Jonathan would be here with us,

but he says something about
being chained to his desk,

but we're out here without
him and we're diving.

- And today we are gonna
go meet up with a friend

who's gonna show us some
blackwater critters.

- Chained to a desk, that's
just what we told him.

No, we're down in Florida
doing our own black water dive.

- Here we go.

- So while Zach and Annalise are exploring

the waters off Kona in
the middle of the Pacific,

we will be almost 5,000
miles away in the Atlantic,

just off the coast of West
Palm Beach in Florida.

We're diving with Bill Walker's
dive adventures on his boat,

The Wetter, The Better,

but we have a while
until the sun goes down.

- Meanwhile, back in Hawaii,

Zach and I are diving
with Kona Honu divers

on the Honu Lele.

But first we have to wait
for the sun to go down.

As night falls, the boat
makes its way into the harbor

and is ready for passengers.

We load all of our gear onto the boat

and begin setting up gear
before leaving the dock

and heading out into the darkness.

- In Florida, it started to rain,

but like the boat says,
the wetter, the better.

Soon we're ready to depart

and dive master Autumn
Sherman unties the boat.

Then Zach of all trades and I

get a dive briefing from John Phillips.

He explains that we're
going to be floating along

with the current in the open ocean.

The crew lowers a bright array of lights

that hangs from a buoy.

They don't hang it from the boat

because the wind blows the boat.

The buoy goes with the
current at the same speed

as the divers, but that's
not how they do it in Hawaii.

- Dive guide Jeff,

who actually wrote the
book on Blackwater Diving,

gives us our dive briefing.

We are doing our blackwater
dive a little differently.

We'll all be individually
tethered to the boat

and stick together as a group so that way,

nobody gets lost or floats away.

Jeff still places a
safety light in the water

so that we'll all still be able

to orient ourselves around it.

Now it's time to gear up.

- And separated by almost 5,000 miles,

we all hit the water in
search of the coolest critter.

- We all descend down our lines

and get accustomed to
the darkness at a depth

of about 65 feet.

The current is pretty strong down here,

and I'm trying not to think
about the almost 7,000 feet

of water below me.

I'm kind of glad that I'm
tethered into the boat.

- Floating in the open ocean,

our only reference is the
bright lights hanging down

from the buoy.

Up above, the boat
captain follows the buoy.

When we float away from the
buoy, it gets really dark.

- We start to see some really cool stuff.

A pteropoda swims by.

You can see its little fins working hard

to propel it through the water.

These are called sea butterflies

because as they swim,

their fins emulate the
flapping wings of a butterfly.

Looks like this guy has
caught himself a nice dinner

out in the ocean.

We find an animal called a comb jelly

that is actually not a jellyfish,

but something called a ctenophora.

Ctenophoras are similar to jellyfish

except that they don't sting.

A ribbon shaped ctenophora
called a Venus girdle

floats by in the current.

Comb jellies are everywhere.

There's even a comb jelly
who caught himself a salp.

Apparently everyone is out
looking for dinner tonight.

Speaking of salps, they
also seem to be abundant.

This one has a little
arthropod hitching a ride.

- Zach and I are also
seeing a lot of salps.

Salps are planktonic tunicates,

which are a kind of simple
animal with two siphons.

They pump water through their
body to move and to feed.

They remind me of a jet engine
with no airplane attached.

Some salps grow in colonies

that are linked together like a chain.

These chained salps
are harmless to people,

but they're deadly to the
small plankton they devour.

We also find lots of cool little jellies.

They might look adorable,

but some of them pack quite a sting.

- Hey, we also see one of those.

This jellyfish is in the Genus Mergus

and it has a larva
arthropod hiding inside it.

Dive guide Jeff points
out the coolest thing yet.

This is an apolemia,

also known as a net casting siphonophorae.

These are some of the
longest animals in the world,

sometimes reaching up to 30 meters long.

- Siphonophoraes might
look like chain salps,

but they are hydroids,
which are related to jellies

so they can sting.

Speaking of siphonophoraes,
we're finding lots of them.

Talk about a plankton hunting sea monster.

This siphonophorae has a defense mechanism

when it senses my camera.

Some of the animals
found in this environment

are in their larva phase.

Like this anemone larva.

When it matures, it will
settle down on a reef

and become a familiar looking anemone.

Animals that mature

to live on reefs use this
planktonic larva phase

in order to travel great
distances to populate new reefs.

- We've just found something super rare.

Pelagic seahorses almost never
appear on blackwater dives.

Here, this little fish
decides to hang out with Jeff.

Pelagic seahorses spend their entire lives

drifting in the currents of the ocean.

They spend their days
at depth for shelter,

but at night come nearer
to the surface to feed.

Ironically, this fish
that adapted attributes

for life on a reef will
never actually spend any time

camouflaged in the coral.

She seems to want to take a
break from the ocean current

and perch on Jeff's fingers.

- Back in Florida, we
find a swimming brain.

Well, it looks like a brain.

This animal is called a larvacean.

It's actually related to a
salp, a tiny pelagic tourniquet

that swims with a flapping
tail like a tadpole.

It generates an enormous
bubble-like net called a house

to catch prey.

This house made of protein

and cellulose gets discarded regularly

when it gets clogged up.

We also see juvenile fish.

This larval dragon fish looks to me

like Randall from Monsters
Inc, which is no surprise

because it's going to look
like this when it's mature.

- We are seeing a bunch
of juvenile fish as well.

Only fish with a very long
juvenile stage can reach Hawaii

from other islands.

Here's an indigo dart fish.

There's also a juvenile Moorish idol.

This is a fish that we
commonly see as adults

on the Hawaii reef.

We see a juvenile squirrel
fish as it floats by.

Jeff points out his favorite fish,

a juvenile long jaw flounder.

We are interrupted by
something unexpected.

An oceanic white tip shark
comes out of the darkness

and appears to be curious about us.

He investigates our safety light

and hangs around for a little bit.

Most people see their first
shark on a reef dive with bait,

but I'm really lucky

to see my first on a
blackwater dive like this.

- We didn't find any sharks,

but we did find what is
considered to be the Holy grail

of Florida black water diving,
the scalloped ribbon fish.

This is a pelagic deep water species

that lives its entire life
in the deep open ocean.

It's shiny like a mirror and
makes filming really difficult

because it reflects my lights
right back into the lens.

This is an adaptation for
camouflage in open water.

Biologists suggest that the
long thin filament shaped fins

are an adaptation for mimicry,

making this fish resemble a
jelly deterring predators.

This is considered such a great find

because they're so rarely seen.

We really got lucky

on our first blackwater
dive, beginner's luck.

Finally, it's time to
head back to the boat.

- The shark seems to have moved on

and we are getting ready
to head back to the boat,

but not before a surprise
visit from a mobula ray.

This is the first time dive
guide Jeff has ever seen

one of these on a blackwater dive.

Okay, that was the coolest dive ever.

I saw my first shark, guys,

and seahorses all over the place.

- Blackwater diving
can be a little spooky,

but it's such a unique diving experience

and a chance to see things
that we would never see

during the day or diving on a reef.

With only one dive in the Pacific

and one dive in the Atlantic,

we saw an amazing amount of stuff,

but we barely scratched the
surface of what's out there.

Who knows what we might find
on our next blackwater dive

in the Blue World.

- [Narrator] Don't go away.

Jonathan and the team fight the current

to explore a crystal
clear cave in Florida.

- The Santa Fe River meanders its way

through Northern Florida.

Along the way, it's fed by many springs,

including the Devil's Spring System,

which is famous with cave divers.

I've done a fair number of cave dives,

but I've never done a
really high flow cave.

So I'm here at the Devil's
Spring System in Florida.

Check it out, behind me,

one of the entrances to the
cave, it's marked by a buoy.

It's practically in the Santa Fe River.

The river's got this kind
of brown tannic water

and the water coming out of
the spring is crystal clear.

So when they mix, you
get kind of cool colors

and I can't wait to check that out.

The Devil's Spring System
consists of three springs.

Little Devil creates a short spring run

out to the Santa Fe River

where there are two more,

Devil's Eye and Devil's Ear.

Cameraman Todd, cameraman Zach and I

are not the only ones unloading gear

to dive at this amazing spot.

As we bring our gear to the steps,

we can see down the
spring run to the river.

I can't wait to get in the water.

- First, you go up.

- There's really nothing to change.

How you doing there, Todd?

Devil's Eye is a short
swim down the spring run.

And there it is.

It's a little deceiving.

From above, you can't
really see how much water

is coming out of this hole in the ground.

Dropping down, we can see
the entrance to the cave.

Today I got reel duty,

which means I have to run our safety line

from outside the cave
into the main guideline,

which is down by the warning sign.

Each team runs its own reel
for this part of the dive,

both to keep track of how
many teams are in the cave,

and so that we have a continuous
guideline out to the light.

After I tie into the main cave line,

we can continue into the cave.

The flow of water coming out

of this cave is stronger
than it looks on camera.

We have to kick hard to
make forward progress.

That exertion uses a lot
more air than we would use

in other caves.

Some sections of the cave are so large

that there's no danger
of kicking up sediment.

So it's okay to use a
more powerful flutter kick

rather than a frog kick.

In this section of
cave, we can clearly see

where water once flowed
back when this cave

was partially dry during the last ice age.

Now you might be wondering,
where are all the stalactites?

In our exploration of caves in Mexico,

in the Bahamas, we see
beautiful speleothems,

formations like
stalactites and stalagmites

formed by dripping water tens
of thousands of years ago

during the last ice age.

Back then, sea levels were lower

and the caves were not filled with water.

But here in Florida, the caves
have almost no speleothems.

According to geologists,

it's because the water flow
is so strong in these caves

that it dissolved all the speleothems,

leaving only these smooth passages behind.

The rules of cave diving,

say that when you've used
one third of your air,

you must turn around and start back.

In this much flow, it doesn't
take long for us to hit thirds

because of the exertion.

Soon we're drifting
back out with the flow.

We make it back to the
entrance in a fraction

of the time it took us to swim in.

The good news is that we
still have plenty of air,

so we can go check out Devil's Ear.

We swim through our own bubbles.

Exhaled air in the cave
collects on the ceiling,

and then slowly percolates
through the porous limestone.

It's like swimming in
a big can of seltzer.

Devil's Ear is located
almost out in the river

so the clear water coming
out of the spring mixes

with the brown water in the river,

making cool swirling
psychedelic patterns, wow, man.

Down inside, I can look one
way and the water's brown.

Then in the other direction, it's clear.

The Devil's Spring System

is a legendary cave diver's paradise,

stretching back thousands
of feet from the entrance.

We barely scratched the
surface of this immense cave.

So I guess that means
we'll have to come back

to this fascinating
realm of the Blue World.

[bright music]

[bright music]