The Ultimate Field Trip
Posted By Divers Alert Network on 5 February 2004
By Connie McDougall
Reprinted with permission of Connie McDougall and
Divers Alert Network
"The more people we can get to dive for science, the more we'll learn,
and we haven't even touched the surface of what we know about the oceans."
—Sam Sublett, University of Washington Dive Safety Officer, on Dr. Dan
Matlock's diving program.
The water is impenetrable, dark like chocolate and glacially, painfully cold. Three divers — two students and a professor — keep expecting and hoping for the bottom but it is not there, not appearing, as it should any moment now, and they continue a blind slide down the throat of the lake: darker, deeper, colder.
Forty feet. 50. 60. At 80 feet, the professor grows concerned, then seconds later, when the bottom does come, it's no comfort. Worse than the descent, the lake floor is surreal — a thick, ambiguous muck that threatens to consume them.
Dr. Dan Matlock, Ph.D., recalled the dive. "It was creepy," he said. "We could barely see beyond our masks. I didn't like it." He could only imagine what his young, green charges were feeling, suspended in the dark chill, waiting for instructions on what to do next.
The dive was part of a scientific diving program launched two years earlier by Matlock, an associate professor of biology as well as chairman of the biology department at Seattle University in Washington. Bringing together an eclectic but complementary blend of his life skills — 30 years of diving, a stint as an Army drill sergeant, mountain climbing and a long academic career — Matlock established this rigorous course of study for two reasons: safety and inspiration.
"I wanted undergraduate students to have the kind of quality training usually available only to university faculty and graduate students," he said. "And I hoped to inspire them to go on to graduate school and scientific research. I thought I could show them that you can have a full life and an element of adventure, in the pursuit of science."
He knew firsthand that this was possible. In 1978, after receiving his Ph.D. in zoology from Oregon State University, Matlock and his wife, Nancy, moved to Guam, where they lived for several years. There, as an assistant professor of biology at the University of Guam, he had his first experience with research diving, which involved seaweed studies.
He also discovered the joy of underwater exploration. Once, the Matlocks and a group of other divers traveled to Palau. "In those days, there were no dive boats, so we chartered a supply boat that delivered rice to Angaur, the southernmost part of Palau," Matlock said.
During one of the dives, he spotted a turtle circling 90 feet / 27 meters below. After signaling his friends that he was going down, Matlock descended into infinitely clear water, brushing the ancient turtle shell with his hand. "It looked at me, and I was absolutely thrilled," he said. People watching from above assumed he was "narked," or suffering from nitrogen narcosis, but, in fact, it was an epiphany. "It was the most exciting, enchanting experience I ever had," Matlock said.
- Bookmark with :
- what are these?
