A SEA GODDESS 



Christmas shoppers in Honolulu in 1966 were offered a 

 novelty available nowhere else in the United States — locally 

 produced jewelry fashioned from coral of a pale, luminous 

 pink that was called by the sellers "angelskin coral." It had 

 been harvested only a few weeks before from the uneven 

 floor of the sea between the islands of Oahu and Molokai. 

 As any visitor knows, Hawaii already possesses a thriving 

 industry in black coral, which is harvested from relatively 

 shallow waters by scuba divers. But the vastly more valu- 

 able red coral, taken by tangle gear from depths too great 

 for divers, is new on the Hawaiian market. 



Of about 2,500 known species of coral, only 1 or 2 are 

 considered of gem quality. As a youth, the great American 

 geologist James D. Dana served as a member of the scientific 

 party aboard the U. S. Exploring Expedition. His studies 

 there, indeed, laid the foundation for his later worldwide 

 reputation. In his classic book. Corals and Coral Islands, he 

 mentioned that when he visited the Hawaiian Islands in 

 1840 he obtained a sample of precious coral, and he pictured 

 it in his scientific report on the expedition, published in 1850. 

 Reports of later expeditions have scattered references to the 

 findings of precious coral. 



In the fall of 1965, Donald W. Strasburg from the BCF 

 Laboratory in Honolulu became the first man to see this rare 

 and valuable substance growing in Hawaiian seas. He was an 

 observer aboard the research submarine Ashciah. which was 

 operating on the leeward side of Oahu. Several weeks later 

 scientists from the University of Hawaii located beds of 

 precious coral in the channel between Oahu and Molokai, 

 and the first harvest has now been made. 



Asherah was the ocean goddess of history's first recorded 

 seafarers, the Phoenicians. The research submarine Asherah 

 (figs. 20 and 21) is a tadpole-shaped, 16-foot submersible 

 built by Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corpora- 



tion. Launched in 1964, she first saw use in archeological 

 studies in the Aegean Sea. 



For several years, the BCF Laboratory in Honolulu has 

 made theoretical investigations of the research potential 

 of submarines in fishery and oceanographic research. Only 

 the Russian fishery scientists have such a craft at their 

 command, and it is a refitted military submarine. What the 

 scientists in Honolulu have had in mind is a more sophisti- 

 cated ship, one designed for her specific purpose. These 

 investigations have reached the stage of the first designs. 

 The plans call for a nuclear-powered submarine 163.5 feet 

 long and carrying a scientific party of 7 and a crew of 24 — a 

 vessel swift and maneuverable enough to follow the move- 

 ments of fishes, so outfitted that a host of biological and 

 oceanographic studies could be made aboard her. This ideal 

 vehicle remains far in the future. Before it is built, scientists 

 will need to use smaller research submersibles to extend 

 their work farther and farther underwater. Therefore in the 

 fall of 1965, the Laboratory in Honolulu chartered Asherah 

 for a month's work off Oahu. 



Asherah carried a pilot and an observer, and made 50 

 dives oflf Barbers Point on the sheltered leeward side of 

 Oahu. Donald W. Strasburg supervised the work. 



The maximum operating depth of Asherah is 650 feet. The 

 Hawaiian Islands slope so sharply to the abyss that such 

 depths are found close to shore. Asherah thus operated with- 

 in a few hundred yards of the familiar beaches, cane fields, 

 and steep green slopes of Oahu. The underwater terrain 

 she covered constituted essentially a continuation of that 

 landscape. It consisted of a sloping sandy plain, interrupted 

 by rocky ledges 10 to 60 feet high and ending with an abrupt 

 cliff that swept nearly vertically downward far deeper than 

 the range of the little research craft. 



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