Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 23, 1992 TAG: 9202230326
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE LEPOSKY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
U.S. NATIVE HELPS PROTECT MARINE LIFE OF SABA
Science teacher Susan Walker came to Saba on vacation and fell in love with this five-square-mile pile of volcanic rock in the Netherlands Antilles and its hardy, self-assured population of just over a thousand.When whe was hired to teach fifth-grade English, Walker quit her teaching jab in Detroit, packed her possessions and prepared to move to Saba with Amos, her mixed-breed collie-shepherd dog.
Two weeks before she was to leave, the School Board called to say they had changed their minds. She moved to Saba anyway, taking Amos, a bag of clothes and her diving gear.
For seven months she worked for Sea Saba, a local dive shop, while earning her divemaster certificate. Then Tom van't Hof, founder and director of the Saba Marine Park, left to work for the Dutch government. Walker was hired to manage the park.
Walker, 28, has a bachelor's degree in marine biology with a double major in earth science and oceanography from Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. The youngest of three children, she was born on the island of Okinawa while her father, an Air Force pilot, was stationed there. She grew up in Detroit.
Since March 1989, she has been godmother to all marine creatures between the highwater mark and a depth of 200 feet in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea waters surrounding Saba, which is 28 miles south of St. Maarten and 150 miles east of Puerto Rico.
Saba Marine Park, a private non-profit entity established in 1987, is part of the Saba Conservation Foundation, which has a seven-member board and more than 300 members. Saba Marine Park also is affiliated with the World Wildlife Fund, which accepts tax-deductible donations and memberships for the park from U.S. residents. Currently, Walker says, the park has 180 "friends" worldwide, with most in the United States.
The waters Walker protects lap against an eroding volcano from the late Pleistocene era. Though it has been dormant for 5,000 years, divers can feel warm water emanating from the island's substrata and can touch patches of yellow sand warmed by escaping sulphur.
The Dutch Navy hydrographers who charted Saba found that it stands on its own plateau, separated by seas 3,000 to 4,000 feet deep from the plateau which gives rise to the island of Anguilla, St. Barthelemy and St. Maarten.
Mount Scenery, the highest point on Saba, soars to 2,854 feet above sea level. One can ascend a 1,064-step staircase to the top through a mountain rain forest and an occasional cloud. The staircase begins about halfway up the mountain, beside a five-mile-long road that snakes across the island's precipitous slopes from the port at Fort Bay to the airport at Flat Point.
Divers visiting Saba can stay at one of the island's six hotels or rent an apartment, and dive with one of Saba's three dive shops.
Charter boats and private yachts also may visit the marine park, but if they come more than four times a year they must have a permit.
Twice a week, on Monday and Tuesday evenings, Walker shows a free hour-long slide show which provides information on Saba and the marine park. Her presentation covers fish identification and the park's rules and regulations (no collecting or feeding of fish) and mooring facilities. She concludes by selling T-shirts. "I'm working to make our whole building a visitor center with displays and an auditorium so we can teach people about the island as they arrive," she says.
"Diver fees and souvenir sales help make Saba Marine Park operationally self-sufficient," says Walker. "All dive boats collect a $2 fee per dive and snorkelers pay $1 a day. Divers staying on a live-aboard with unlimited diving may do five dives in a day, while divers using land-based dive boats may do three.
"Tom van't Hof determined the best dive sites, anchorages and recreation areas. Saba's choppiest seas come from the southwest, while the prevailing and calmest seas are from the southeast. The west side of the island - the leeward side - has the most impressive reef formations.
The park has 37 permanent moorings for dive boats in its protected area so the boats need not anchor.
"We're currently installing six new moorings with yellow buoys for visiting yachts under 60 feet, which should be in place by the end of September," Walker says. "All of our anchor zones are marked on nautical charts."
Walker worked with an eight-man construction crew to install eight triad moorings during her first week as park manager in March of 1989. "After a few days I was so sore that I couldn't bend my arms," she says. "I had to sleep with my arms outstretched."
"The actual drilling and mixing of cement on board wasn't hard work, but the repetitive dives to carry cement down in Tupperware containers were exhausting. We drilled using a core barrel drill and jackhammer for the volcanic rock, hauled cement and set the anchors in up to 99 feet of water. It took us seven days to drill 23 holes to install the triad moorings - three per mooring for seven of them, and two for another experimental design with a U-bolt.
"We tried to find a patch of the reef that was dead and then drilled directly into the coral. I felt uncomfortable standing on the live reef to drill the holes, but we had to sacrifice parts of the reef to save the whole reef from anchor damage."
Although Walker has had scant time to undertake marine research, she is monitoring diver impact in heavily dived zones. "Thus far we haven't noticed any damage resulting directly from divers," she says.
She also has noted that the dive zones harbor a larger and more diverse population of marine life than the fishing zones. "Most of the big fish have been removed from the Caribbean reefs," she says, "but we still have big grouper around the park's underwater pinnacles and even in the shallows."
The ban on fish-feeding in the park was imposed after Sweetlips, a large yellowfin gruper which had been fed frequently, ate a diver's lost knife and died. Saba Marine Park also prohibits spearfishing. "Our fish aren't afraid of divers and don't hide under rocks and in the corals," she says. "Anyone caught spearfishing will be warned and then fined 5,000 guilders (U.S. $2,777.77)."
Walker and her assistant, Saba native and former fisherman Percy ten Holt, are waiting for the Saba Executive Council to give them special law-enforcement capabilities. Meanwhile, they write reports that they file with the head of the Saba police and the Executive Council. Though they can call for assistance from the Netherlands Antilles Marine Patrol boat based in St. Maarten, Walker and ten Holt provide the only regular patrols in the park.
"We monitor radio channel 16," she says. "When Percy and I are off duty, local dive operators call me at home and approach visiting yachts and dive boats to tell them about our no-anchor zones. We practice interpretative law enforcement because our prmary goal is to dispense information so divers and boaters will learn our rules. The Saba police keep our written warnings on file. No one has been fined since the park was founded four years ago."
After diving almost every inch of Saba's waters, Walker says six dive sites within the park are her special favorites:
Third Encounter (100 feet). "It has an abundance of life. You descend through totally blue water to experience an underwater mountain covered with bright red, orange, yellow and purple tube spanges and soft corals."
Shark Shoal (120 feet) on the northwest coast. "It has undercuts, ledges and tunnels which are unusual for such a small reef. Divers regularly see blacktip sharks, green turtles, deepwater gargonians and many kinds of fish."
Diamond Rock (80 feet) on the northwest coast. "Diamond Rock is similar to the deeper dives and is a good dive for the less experienced diver."
Ladder Labyrinth (50 to 60 feet) near the Ladder Bay Pier. "This is a shallow dive with a spectacular labyrinth of sand channels and large mounds of star coral."
Tent Reef (50 feet). "This dive just west of the Ladder Bay Pier is a good shallow dive when the current is down. The reef has an overhang at about 30 to 40 feet with an alleyway underneath that is covered by thousand of invertebrates."
Green Island (50 to 80 feet) on Saba's north coast near the airport. "Green Island is a nesting ground for boobies, magnificent frigatebirds and royal terns, and the waters around it are a microcosm of Saba. An average diver can swim around Green Island in under an hour." Ampersand Communications
George and Rosalie Leposky are a husband-wife team of widely published travel writers and live in Miami. He teaches college writing classes; she has taught cooking.