It's like swimming in a blizzard. That's what local underwater cinematographer Nick Caloyianis said about his recent dive into the murky waters of the Patuxent River to capture HD video footage of the Scorpion and its excavation site.
Caloyianis usually dives in water with considerably more clarity, and his underwater photographic subjects most of the time are sharks of the large and hungry variety. Recently, he was photographing Great White sharks off the coast of New England for a television project.
But his interests in marine cinematography extend beyond sharks. As a Maryland native, Caloyianis is an expert on life in the Chesapeake Bay -- something he's been shooting with a camera for decades. He is a regular videographic contributor to Maryland Public Television nature documentary projects and produces segments for MPT's popular Outdoors Maryland series.
Last Friday, though, he donned his mask, flippers and airtank with one goal in mind: to record the excavation of the vessel that may be the USS Scorpion. With dredge pumps pounding away on the barge topside, Caloyianis felt his way along the river bottom until he found the wreck. With his state-of-the-art camera inside of a custom metal case, he spent about six hours in the water photographing the wreck.
As any of the divers on the Scorpion project will tell you, visibility at this site is all but impossible to predict. Caloyianis reports that his dive, though successful, was marred by the severe thunderstorms that blew through a few days before. Runoff from the downpour carried heavy sediment downriver to the excavation site. The effect was, as Caloyianis and other divers attested, like swimming in a snowstorm.
Though the conditions were unfavorable, Caloyianis says he did get some clean video and still photos of the wreck -- some of which MPT viewers will be able to see when this documentary airs in 2012.
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