UNDER THE SEA
One of ‘Canada’s greatest explorers,’ deep-sea diver Kathleen Conlan dishes on the things she can’t leave home without,
Dive Suit
“Viking makes good dry suits with very specialized zippers that don’t let any water in. It feels kind of like you’re wearing rubber boots but for your body. It’s important to have one that won’t pop a hole. That happened to me when I was diving in the Antarctic. The cold water started leaking in, and it was so miserably cold. Fortunately, it was a slow leak, so I was able to get to safety.”
Hiking Boots
“We had lots of downtime waiting for winds to change so that the sea ice could shift and allow us to dive. So, I bring my Vasque hiking boots to explore the rolling contours at Resolute Bay. I’d go at night when it was quiet and the light was still out, and pick flowers and press them into bookmarks for gifts.”
Coffee Tins
“This sounds weird, but I use tin coffee cans to collect samples of little critters. They’re just a convenient size, easy to carry around, and they come with tight lids. I just plunge the coffee can into the sediment, wiggle it sideways and get a lid on it. I might collect hundreds of animals in one scoop.”
Underwater Video Camera
“I like to record videos of the ocean floor, so I’ll attach the camera to a scooter that rides around underwater. When we were looking at footage at Resolute Bay, we discovered something called black pools of death, which were basically pockets of dead sea creatures that had decomposed due to the sulfide-rich waters caused by salt from melting ice. It was pretty cool.”
GPS
“When you’re trying to find ice scours, it’s like a needle in a haystack. And on top of that, you’re floating around in the ocean with no idea where you’re going. We use the GPS with a multibeam sonar, which beams sound down to the ocean floor, bounces off, and creates an image of what the sea floor looks like. Then the GPS tells us what position we’re in.”