The three photos give you an idea of
just how much stuff is clinging to the Matterhorn... "Life piled on life!"
You can make out purple, red, orange, and pink Corynactis anemones
--many the diameter of a silver dollar. Besides the clingy things on the
rocks, there are all kinds of big fish, including Wolf Eels, Yellowtail,
Mola Mola, Starry and Rosy rockfish.
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The following article was published in a
substantially different form as "Matterhorn" in the "Image" section of
aquaCORPS N.10 Imaging the Deep (Summer
1995).
The slopes of Southern California's western
mountains rise from abyssal rather than coastal plains. Along submarine
ridges, some peaks clear the sea's surface, forming the Channel Islands.
Others lie below surrounding waters as seamounts. These blue water oases
provide technical divers with some of the best reef diving off the West
Coast of North America. Towering as much as a mile above the sea floor, a
few sentinel peaks and ridges form pinnacles and banks that offer a
reverse mountaineering challenge. Two
submerged summits ride the same buttress as Santa Barbara Island. Osborne
Bank is a long ridge with miles of terrain between 200 and 120 feet deep.
The Matterhorn pinnacle is aptly named for its extremely sharp
profile--only a few square yards lie shallower than 200 feet. First dived
more than twenty years ago by an adventuresome few (including Cousteau),
Matterhorn was even the subject of an article in the bold Skin Diver
Magazine of the Seventies. In the ensuing years, the sharp pinnacle
eluded casual divers who searched in vain for the feature mischarted as
only 17 fathoms. With the peak actually lying nearly 130 feet deep, twenty
nautical miles offshore, Matterhorn long remained far from the sport
diving itinerary, with most of the boats plying the area loaded with
fishermen rather than divers.
Enticed by rumors of big diving, Jim Baden led the
first group of technical divers to the site in 1992. A strong current
often flows over the uppermost ridges of the mountain as water blown by
wind and drawn by tide funnels through nearby channels. The easiest diving
is near sheltering walls and bowls, well below the ridge lying
perpendicular to the one-to-two knot flow. Due to the difficult terrain,
currents, and opposing surface winds, it is prudent to count on diving in
the 200-foot range, at nearly twice the charted depth. Divers should
personally carry all decompression gas because anchors have slipped off
the mountain during hangs. While Osborne Bank's location behind Santa
Barbara Island isolates it from the heavy flow of the near-shore channel,
currents are still a factor there as well. The underwater mountains offer
divers challenges and beauty that are unmatched by any of California's
nearshore diving sites.
Though currents hazard divers, they bring nutrients
and animals to the banks. Taking advantage of the overdriven engine of
life, the most spectacular concentrations of invertebrates found in
Southern California cover the mountain walls. Creatures normally ranging
far to the north and south are stranded on the lonely outposts, while some
of the most common plants and animals of the nearby islands are absent.
The severe yet fragile environments of the seamounts are hospitable only
to those creatures with the ability to match a strong drive for survival.
It is incumbent on those who go down to the mountain tops to ensure
preservation of these underwater islands --along with their own
hides. |
