Florida Shark Tournament pushed to Catch-and-Release The Real Deal Cetacean Rescue “It’s something we do for our Wreck Dive on the Antilla children and our planet, and it’s Queen Anne’s Revenge something I plan to keep doing as long as I am able.” Shearwater Pursuit -Tim Taylor CRR Trimix Simplified Pg 1 www.UnderwaterJournal.com Issue 12 - 2009 CONTENTS Pg 4 Shark Tournament Goes Pg 24 Queen Anne’s Revenge Catch-and-Release Dive in with one of history’s Learn how one group turned most notorious pirate ships, the Fort Myers Beach, FL, Are Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s DIRECTORY You Man Enough Shark Challenge Revenge, as both historian’s (AYMESC) into a 90% catch-and- and volunteers bring up artifacts Underwater Journal is published by release shark fishing event. outside the inlet near Beaufort, Aquafield Communications, LLC. North Carolina. www.UnderwaterJournal.com Pg 7 One Whale of a Tale A group of Canary Island Pg 31 Shearwater Pursuit Editor-in-Chief - Walt Stearns divers comes to the rescue of a Hands on review of the no [email protected] snared Bryde’s whale. nonsense, Shearwater Pursuit computer for technical, as Art Director - Cheri Craft well as highly avid divers. Webmaster - Margaret Chatham Pg 11 Dive Log: Antilla Assistant Editor - Karen Stearns Heard of the Antilla? Well, 1st Copy Editor - Brian Bienkowski if you haven’t been to Aruba, Pg 38 CCR Trimix Simplified 2nd Copy Editor - Gina Rhodes maybe not. Discover what you Trimix for Dummies? Dr. could be missing on fun wreck Mel Clark’s book is it for Advertising - Ralph Viscusi dives in the Southern Caribbean. diving with rebreathers. [email protected] Contributors Pg 17 Profile: Tim Taylor Heidi Coluzzi Learn how one individual has Carlos Suárez turned a boat and a dream into Pierce Hoover reality by becoming a self-made Michael Salvarezza ocean explorer who really “walks Christopher P. Weaver the walk.” All contents copyright © 2009 Aquafield Communications, LLC. No use may be made of material Cover - Tim Taylor takes aim at a large, female oceanic white tip shark in contained herein without the waters of the central Bahamas. written consent from Image: Walt Stearns copyright © 2009. Camera system - Nikon D300, Tokina Aquafield Communications, LLC. 10-17mm lens in a Subal housing, Sea & Sea YS-250 strobes. Inquiries, contact: [email protected] Pg 2 www.UnderwaterJournal.com Issue 12 - 2009 Profile: Tim Taylor n the last day of school, my fifth-grade son Odrop-kicked his backpack into the air, scattering books and homework all over the yard and street. Amid the scraps of paper drifting around, I spotted an intricate pencil drawing. The subject was a boat; its decks bristled with cranes and small blimp-like shapes that I guessed to be submarines. Carefully scripted across the bow in block letters was the name: Research Vessel Sharkfinder I. It seemed familiar because it brought back memories of my own grade school scribbling. TIM TAYLOR Instead of filling notebooks with math homework, I’d often devote the pages to detailed BEARING WITNESS TO BLUE MATTERS blueprints of the expedition ship I’d one day command. Like so many my age, a primary inspiration for my designs was Captain Cousteau’s Calypso. by Pierce Hoover photography Walt Stearns & Tim Taylor Pg 17 www.UnderwaterJournal.com Issue 12 - 2009 Four decades later, my son’s ration and research, but also daydreams are based on a a floating media and commu- different vessel, and a different nications center. To date, the crew. To compare any dive team Tiburon’s crew hasn’t produced to the now-legendary Cousteau the sort of epic programming organization might seem like that made Cousteau famous, sacrilege to some, but in reality, but that day may come. Tim Taylor and the team behind “I’ve always wanted to be the Research Vessel Tiburon an explorer of some sort,” Tim share many similarities with admits. “I grew up watching their French predecessors. the Apollo moon walks, and Cousteau never set out to of course, Jacques Cousteau.” be famous. He and his crew answered the call of adven- ture, operating on a shoestring and, in the early years, in near anonymity. And even after Holly- wood discovered the charismat- ic Frenchman, and made him a near household word, the funding never quite equaled the fame, and the crew never allowed stardom to overshadow the work. Spend even a few hours in the company of Tim Taylor and the parallels with Cousteau seem justified. Like the Calypso, his Tiburon is a vintage vessel that has been lovingly and painstakingly refurbished and maintained by her captain and crew. “If you touch something Divers use a lift bag to raise a on this boat, chances are good large coral head for examination during a 2005 survey of the that I have rebuilt or replaced Sherwood Forest Reef System in the it,” he says. Lower Florida Key’s. Like the Calypso, the Tiburon The R/V Tiburon has participated was purchased and maintained in a number of AGRAA studies in Dry with personal funds, and serves Tortugas with Dr. Robert Ginsburg of not only as a platform for explo- the University of Miami. Pg 18 www.UnderwaterJournal.com Issue 12 - 2009 Eventually, the call of the sea overcame the pull of the moon; Tim learned to dive in toe cold waters of Maine and New Hampshire, and eventu- ally moved south to find work aboard dive boats, first in West Palm Beach and Miami, then in Key West, working his way up from deck hand and divemaster to boat operator and shop owner. Now a SDI/TDI Five “It was an exciting time to be in Key West,” he recalls. “The Marine Star Facility Sanctuary was in the formative stage, and there was still a lot to discover out on its boundaries. Due to projects like the exploration of North America’s The whole tech diving movement deepest coral reef at Pulley Ridge (pictured below with Dr. was just getting started, and Billy Sylvia Earl), rebreathers have become the tools of choice for the Deans and his group were rewrit- Tiburon crew. Among the collection of CCR systems available, ing the rules on deep diving.” they favor KISS Rebreathers for their durability and simplicity to It was Billy Deans who intro- operate and maintain. duced Tim to the new techniques of extended range and mixed-gas diving. Armed with these new skills, Tim was able to venture deeper and farther a field. In the Dry Tortugas, he discovered the reef system known as Sherwood Forest, and the Araby Maid, a 19th-century sailing schooner that sunk in more than 200 feet of water. To support these longer, deeper missions, Tim needed a boat that could house a crew for days or weeks at a time, and also support the increased complex- ity and equipment demands of exploration diving. Pg 19 www.UnderwaterJournal.com Issue 12 - 2009 The M/V Tiburon Before the vessel Tiburon became the Tiburon, it was a live-aboard named after the Gulf Stream that had a short career in the Cayman Islands during the late 1980’s. Shortly after Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication the management closed shop the vessel went off the map. A few years later Tim was looking for a larger vessel to utilize as a live-aboard for the charter dive operation, Looker Diving in Key West. He found it in a marina up in Stuart, Florida. Undaunted by the vessel’s somewhat decrepit state, Tim purchased it in 1996 and set to Every inch of the M/V Tiburon, including the dive deck and and galley, work on a painstaking restora- have been rebuilt to support and house a large crew for days to weeks at a tion effort that transformed the time on long-range exploration projects. boat from a dockside liability to a seaworthy research platform. As it turned out, other than in need Dive Computers for of a serious mechanical overhaul Technical Divers and some attention to cosmetics, the vessel’s hull and frame was Shearwater Research quite sound. Besides, at the time, makes dive computers the price was right. and rebreather electronics Dubbed the Tiburon (Spanish for technical divers for shark), this boat has become worldwide. the cornerstone of Tim’s explora- tion efforts, and today it complies Powerful and exceeds the highest Coast • Guard and NOAA standards for a • Simple research vessel of its size. • Reliable I first met Tim in early 1997. The Tiburon had been in service for less than a year, but Tim was www.shearwaterresearch.com already moving past the type of email: [email protected] call: 604-669-9958 Pg 20 www.UnderwaterJournal.com Issue 12 - 2009 deep dive training missions that Deans and others were starting Fans of the movie The Matrix, the crew to offer - even though it meant affectionately refer to the bridge of the Tiburon passing up a potential source as the Nebuchadnezzar. The bridge is home to a of revenue. Instead of training bulk of marine navigational and depth-recording wealthy would-be tech divers, electronics, including a complete data server and Tim had procured an ROV, and full onboard video editing suite. was using it to search for sleep- Kidding aside, the vessel is equipped ing sharks on deep wrecks around to support a wide range of oceanographic Key West. research operations, and logistical support for Over the next few years, his documentary film projects. desire and ability to support serious research programs spread, and netted his crew a growing number of projects.