|
Diving with the Discovery Channel
by Alex Matthews |
| I had walked the same path to the dive shop all summer, but
this day was different. An intense anticipation hung in the air, as I shuffled
along the sun-baked employee road with mask and fins in hand. Marcos (my
dive buddy) and I were meeting a team of underwater photographers from the
Discovery Channel along with Philippe Cousteau, grandson of world famous
explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. They were interested in the laboratory research
in Punta Cana, in particular the marine biology research, and wanted to
document Marcos and I collecting sponges on the reef. We met at the dive shop where we made small talk and got our equipment in order. I was overwhelmed by some of the dive stories they shared such as diving with Jacques-Yves Cousteau on his expeditions or being attacked by sharks while filming shark week for the Discovery Channel. To say the least I felt a bit inexperienced. Fortunately, the atmosphere was comfortable and before I knew it we were on the boat heading out to sea. The ocean was quite rough that day so we decided to dive deeper to avoid powerful currents. We stopped near the dive site known as La Tortuga and made final preparations before entering the water. The photographers went over some general hand signs, which were different than the normal dive signs I was accustomed to. Signs like “eye-contact” or “another take” closely resembled movie directions. It was at this time that it really hit me. I was going to be scuba diving for the Discovery Channel! I had never been filmed before let alone filmed underwater. Suddenly diving, which had become so comfortable, seemed nerve wracking. I was scared that I would mess up, or worse yet, not find any sponges. When I rolled off the back of the boat the familiar rush of water around me washed away my fears. I swam over to Marcos who was happily bobbing in the water. As we waited for everything to be ready we joked about the chances that this kind of thing would happen to us. How often does one get to dive for potential marine drugs on the Discovery Channel with family of Jacques-Yves Cousteau? We turned our attention back to the camera crew and waited for the signal. For the first action shot they wanted a picture of Marcos, Philippe, and I swimming next to each other. We descended slowly to 25 feet and waited for the photographers to get ready. All around us were thousands of moon jellyfish about the size of a small Frisbee. The entire water column from 5 to 30 feet was jellyfish. It was absolutely amazing, and I am sure it made the picture much more dramatic. The three of us did a slow flyby over the cameras and proceeded to descend to 80 feet. When we reached the bottom, wouldn’t you know it, there were more sponges than we had seen on every past collection all summer. We were looking for two in particular, one purple sponge, which I studied, as well as another soft brown sponge that had shown to be very active. When we collected sponges we had the cameras right in our faces, getting close-ups of the sponges and our collection method. Often the photographers would want different angles and I had to perform several takes of the same thing. All of a sudden I was turning what had been a science all summer into Hollywood. It was a wild feeling, and a great opportunity. Marcos and I collected more valuable sponges, our real interest, and made a cameo on the Discovery Channel at the same time. |