An amazing undersea world

Published 4:00 pm Saturday, April 30, 2005

A new DVD explores the exotic creatures off island shorelines.

Soft, white anemone carpet an underwater rock, interspersed with tufts of maroon veil that wave and dance with the anemone arms in a strong water current.

A live, black sand dollar leaves a swath of clean sand, gobbling up detritus and algae off sand particles.

Scenes of sea life at the Great Barrier Reef? Hawaii? No, it’s a world that exists just under Agate Passage Bridge and at the mouth of Eagle Harbor.

“Bainbridge Island is really special in the number of habitats it has,” said underwater videographer John Williams, who captured such scenes in a new DVD called “Return of the Plankton.”

Produced by islander Cameron Snow under the scientific guidance of Bainbridge High School teacher Bruce Claiborne, the DVD is an eye-opening revelation of the richness of marine life off the shores of Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound.

Snow wrote the narration, with frequent revisions after talking with Claiborne and reviewing footage.

“Part of the fun is I have learned so much,” she said. “I was like one of his (Claiborne’s) students, soaking it up,” Snow said.

The 27-minute video visits the dense populations in high current water under Agate Passage bridge, the nursery kelp beds off Wing Point and the offshore reef in Blakely Harbor, home to ling cod and rock fish.

The region has a rich variety of underwater terrain, with “sediment common around Puget Sound but also high current areas and rocky reef areas,” Williams said.

The images bring to life the importance of plankton over the four seasons: as a food source; growing up to become fish feeding on plankton or shrimp, sea slugs and other scavengers eating up detritus from decaying algae and sea grasses; and then laying eggs that hatch into more plankton – a cycle reminiscent of composting and plant growth on land.

“Most people have seen things brought out of the water; they’re getting a cheap imitation of the real thing,” said Claiborne, who also acted as dive master, showing Williams what to shoot. “With John’s camera and light, you see things as they really are.”

Although none of the creatures living off Bainbridge’s shores are rare or unusual, Claiborne said, the island does boast a variety of shoreline types.

“Especially the Blakely area and the Seattle geological fault has created rocky surfaces, cracks and crevices,” he said. “There’s a tremendous diversity of habitat and therefore a diversity of life here.”

Snow plans two more installments in the series, which will look at the island’s nearshore denizens and then the journey of water as it falls on Bainbridge Island and travels through the watersheds.

The series combines Snow’s undergraduate studies in biology with her main occupation as an artist creating compositions in pastels and hand-painted porcelain.

She came to video production via a class she took at Bainbridge Island Broadcasting. With the amount of work required, Snow decided she wanted to make something that had “shelf life.”

“I want to make the series particularly relevant to the island,” Snow said, “but the one we’ve done has import for the entire Puget Sound.”

This first video took four years to get the shots and complete it without outside money.

“It’s a bit of a scavenger hunt,” Claiborne said of the filming. “You’re trying to find (the creatures) in a way different than you usually see them” such as an octopus feeding or a scallop swimming up and bumping the camera.

Claiborne, who has been teaching and diving around the island since 1972, was delighted when Snow asked him if he would like to make the video.

“It was a question I’d been waiting to be asked,” he said. “I had felt frustrated that I couldn’t show things to students. Verbal descriptions are incomplete.”

Besides being useful as a teaching aid – still images and a quiz are included in a study aid section – the makers hope “Return of the Plankton” will inspire awareness and appreciation of what’s under the water’s surface.

“I would like to see people engaged in marine stewardship,” Williams said. “I hope the movie and others will motivate people to care for resources and take care of them.”

Although Claiborne’s students were perhaps less surprised by what they saw in the video than the average viewer, “some were also surprised at how much was there, at the diversity,” Claiborne said. “This (video) is incomplete– we’ve only sampled.

“You never know what will show up.”

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Sea it all

The DVD “The Return of the Plankton” is available at Exotic Aquatics in Winslow Green for $30.