Not a Mario Brothers tribute (though there a few folks here that could pass as Mario or Luigi in their Carhart bibs), this is the Observation Tube. It's a large sewer pipe that has been modified to include a small room at one end that gives an amazing 360 degree view under the sea ice. There's only room for one person at a time to go in and it's recommended that Big Red be left in the warming hut (the temperature was cool, but manageable in the tube). The dive shack is nearby and if you're lucky, divers will be coming in or out of the water when you're there, or even see seals moving around (I wasn't that lucky). Even if you don't see any seals, you usually hear them calling to each other.
Unfortunately, getting good pictures or video is very difficult and can't begin to convey the experience. Here are best pictures out of the batch I took. I do have a video where you can hear seals calling to each other, but I need to shorten the lenght to make online viewing more manageable.
From the bottom of the tube, looking up. The observation room is 10-15 feet down.
Looking out one of the windows up at the sea ice. If you look closely, you can see ice stalactites that have formed under the ice sheet.
The water was full of these little sea creatures.
Another shot with a wider angle. You can see an ice stalactite with a small minnow sized fish in front of it. The other light colored specks are more of the sea creatures shown in the picture above.
Everybody had to have a look-see.
Darth is really making the rounds!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Darth Maul is taking copious notes of all our vulnerabilities.
ReplyDeleteHey RE, take care down there and keep us updated on what you are doing.
ReplyDelete