 |
WHITE HEATBY PHIL TRUPP |
We have run nearly 30 miles off the coast of New Zealand's North Island before sighting the
volcano on the horizon. She is hidden in a shroud of mist rising over the surface of the Bay of
Plenty, and from the mist a shadow spreads a wide blue circle on the water.
I strain to see through the haze, and though I do not know it, this encounter off the coast of
North Island will bring me face-to-face with my own past.
Back at our port in Whakatane we bundled ourselves in good Kiwi woolens. It is April, a chilly
autumn day here below the equator. Strange to be cold in the presence of an angry volcano.
"There she is," says our guide John Baker, who's been telling us how life at sea has changed
him. "She's been awfully active. See where the vegetation has been burnt off?"
We penetrate the hazy shroud. It must have been like this when Captain James Cook sighted
the volcano nearly three centuries ago and named this place White Island. Cook noted in his
log: "As such it always appeared to us."
The primal mass of the volcano rises out of the sea like a hydra-dark and angry and seething.
The Maori natives named it Whakaari, "that which can be made visible, uplifted to view." For
them this was a Devil's Island where incorrigibles were banished, obviously to a nasty death.
We anchor offshore and secure our dive gear. Whakaari is a special gem in the country's
oceanic matrix. Fire and ice glaciers and volcanoes-are at the heart of New Zealand's South
Pacific frontier. To us, Whakaari is a window in time that allows us to see the earth as she was
when she was young and angry and violent.
"She's spitting rocks," John informs us. He is an elegant man, and when he speaks his accent
is perfectly British. "Are you doing the land tour before the dives?"
"Yes," I tell him. First things first.
"Good as gold," John says. "Remember, though, it's a long ride back."
We run to shore in the dinghy. Our plan is to take the pulse of the hydra; later, we'll dive. By
that time, hopefully,' we and Whakaari will be more or less on speaking terms
Three large cones make up this 800-acre no man's land. Its starfish-from-hell contours reach
upward from the 4,000-foot-deep White Island Trench, the child of an ancient collision of the
Pacific and Indo-Australian plates, a cataclysm that gave birth to the whole of New Zealand.
Everything about Whakaari is primal. The southwestern rim has been blasted away in a long
eruption. To the northeast, volcanoes rise along the Colville Ridge: Rumbles I to IV, Silents I
and II, Clark Island and Tongroa.
Scientists say Silents I and II are extinct or dormant, but this so-called Taupo Volcanic Zone is
unpredictable, another explosive link in the Pacific Ring of Fire. These guyots are millions of
years old, and no one can say for sure if any volcano is ever truly extinct.
Whakaari is highly unstable. We are absolutely no match. Two cases in point: In 1914, when
the White Island Sulphur Company operated here, a fireman vanished without a trace. A few
months later, an avalanche obliterated all evidence of human presence. The bodies of the
10-man crew were never recovered.
Its highest peak is 1,053 feet. Below, the crater floor is straight from the paintings of
Hieronymus Bosch: an anarchy of landslides and exploded rock, lava flows, screaming sulfur
rimmed fumaroles spewmg heat. One of these 800-degree fumaroles hisses at us, and there is
a stench of sulfur and corrosive air. We don gas masks and sip the nasty air instead of gulping
it.
Whakaari doesn't 'smile on living things. Vegetation on the seeward outer walls of the island is
sparse, and the floor of the crater feels as if it might heave underfoot. At one point I stumble
into a narrow patch of sand (fortunately, it isn't superheated). One leg is instantly sucked in up
to my knee. I am shaken by the treachery of it, the speed and voracity with which my leg is
seized
It's a relief to finally pull on our wet-suits and head out for some diving We're gritty with ash
and acidic dust. The cool, cleansing blue water is just what we need.
The subsurface scenery is far more peaceful. Our dive sites are the necklace of stone
pinnacles which accent the seascape around Whakaari. On a grand scale the area is a gigantic
submerged theater of volcanism, with Whakaari and its pinnacles made "visible."
The nearby Volkner Rocks break the surface out of very deep water. They are stark and
forbidding, but below the surface the Pacific has decorated them with Miro-like designs:
intense shapes of red and yellow, linked together by an invisible thread. The scars of
upthrusting are softened by golden kelp.
I swim away from the vertical rock and hang motionless in mid-water, studying the rock face. I
look down but can't see any bottom. The pinnacle disappears into the cobalt emptiness.
"Pretty good sights," John says after the first dive.
Better than pretty good. They are fascinating. The transformation of Whakaari below the
surface is nearly complete. Time and sea have remade a brutal landscape. And, of course, the
sea is much more amenable to life than the suffering pit of the crater.
We dive again. The vis is excellent (80 to 100 feet). Colors are spare but intense,. a near
opposite of the hard corals and lush gorgonia of Australia's Great Barrier Reef to the north.
Here, in the far South Pacific, the 60F water keeps coral growth to a minimum. The diver is
faced less by color and more by the raw essentials. You see what the earth is made of, and
what you are made of, too.
The fish in this remote part of the Pacific tend to be large and unfamiliar. Gliding past are
rough skate (Raja nasuta) with burnt umber wings and a half-dozen "wingless" on their tails;
hagfish (Eptatretus cirrhatus), a red tube-shaped creature that drifts up out of 1,000 feet of
water; the barracuda-like gem fish (Rexea solandri) moves with a swift, predatory power, and
yellow morays and conger eels are everywhere. It pays to be cautious and to do no
"fingerwalking" around the deep undercuts and grottoes that shelter the eels.
Orange garfish (Hyporhamphus ihi) and the pencil-thin long-nosed pipefish ( Stigmatopho ra
ma crop terygia), both of which look like sea snakes but aren't, cruise languidly, with a certain
indolence. But then, this is seldom seen territory, and the fish show no apprehension in the
presence of humans.
And there are sharks. Just beyond the line of visibility they move like shadows, circling the
pinnacles, darting into view, sizing up the opportunities. At one point a fair-sized mako appears
in mid-water, its jaws slack and unpleasant. And, like that!-the long gray and white body
disappears behind the curtain of invisibility, leaving behind a new chill in an already chilly sea.
"So now we dive the vents," John says. "I believe you'll find it awfully stimulating."
This will be our last dive before resuming our tour of topside Whakaari, so we hug the coast
and head for the heated openings in the shallows, at 20 to 40 feet.
Divers have reported fish "sitting" on the submerged vents enjoying a sort of underwater
jacuzzi. Still, the island is fickle and the temperature can change radically. Without warning the
vents can pump up amazing heat. Fishing boat skippers tell tales of "precooked fish" snagged
in their nets.
On this day the water temperature at the vents is in the 80Fs, a pleasant change after the cold
offshore ambience. Unlike the relatively colorful offshore environment, the thermally heated
shallows are a jumble of garage-size boulders and schooling fish. Thick curtains of bubbles rise
between the boulders, and it looks as if we're encountering an underwater ice storm. The
venting gas gives the water a brittle quality. It is clear and the temperature gets noticeably
warmer as we swim in closer to the flanks of Whakaari.
The boulders are covered with thick, white "mats" formed by heat-loving bacteria. It looks as
if the rocks are covered in snow. The mats are pure white, soft to the touch, and the fish
apparently think the stuff (whatever it is) is delicious.
Swimming through the sea of bubbling water, I am struck by the irony of modern man-fish
making his way through this submerged prehistoric landscape. Could it be that billions of years
ago the world's seas bubbled and fumed? Perhaps the continents didn't solidify until long after
the great cool-down of the planet's newborn seas.
I am thinking about this as we board a helicopter for a last tour of Whakaari. Below are the
ruins of an old sulfur mining operation, and to the left a long, high spine of land juts into the
Pacific from the southeast edge of the island. From this angle it looks like a thick knife edge;
dropping down lower, however, it resembles a Pharaonic sarcophagus.
I pinpoint the formation on my map, and there, in black and white, is my family name: The site
is called Troup Head.
Once I get over the shock I realize it all makes sense. The British side of my family has been
in metallurgy for generations, and sulfuric acid is used to extract various alloys. Apparently my
great-uncle, Frank Hough Troup, bought into this sulfur machine of an island with J.A. Wilson,
a judge of the New Zealand Native Land Court. Maybe I'm in line to claim my own personal
dive site, I tell John.
He is amused. "You'll be filing papers, I suppose. "
Alas, my dream of inheriting a piece of Whakaari glimmers when I later discover that Uncle
Frank sold his half-share in 1885. It didn't take him long to figure out Whakaari would never be
tamed and that any attempts to do so would meet with disaster. Still, my day of "owning" half
an island was a thrill.
It's dusk when we haul anchor. Whakaari's fumaroles glow red and blue against the lowering
sky, a final show of power before it slips back into the mist.
Isn't it odd: The closer you get to the past, the more vivid the present becomes.
"True enough," John says. "We're always discovering something, aren't we? That's how the
sea changes you."