BY SmallTownPapers News Service

Team ECCO's day and night beneath the sea
The hatch led to a wet room where the teens removed and stored their dive equipment, Ramer says. The area also has a fresh water shower and bathroom. ...

Ten teenage scuba divers from Hendersonville experienced something most folks never even fathom: They made a 24-hour dive and spent a night in the world's only underwater hotel in the Florida Keys.

The divers, all members of Team ECCO's A-Team, took part in the adventure during an eight day trip in June and July to Key Largo, says BJ Ramer, director and founder of Team ECCO.

Team ECCO (Education, Conservation and Commitment to the Oceans), is a nonprofit marine education program that Ramer, a former teacher, started six years ago. The A-Team, all students at Hendersonville High School, is Ramer's most experienced group of divers.

"They descended into the water as young divers," Ramer says. "They surfaced 24 hours later as qualified aquanauts."

To prepare for their 24-hour dive, the group of divers trained at the Marine Research and Development Foundation (MRDF) in Key Largo. The students took classes on marine ecology, Keys' habitats, star navigation, mangroves, sea grass, plankton and marine invertebrates. They studied navigational charts and learned how reef formation is affected by land mass, plant growth, water sources and salinity levels.

The highlight of their trip, which cost $1,200 each, was their first saturation dive, Ramer and the students agree. (A portion of the trip was paid for by a grant from the PADI diving agency.) The saturation dive required the students, whom Ramer split into two groups of five, to spend 24 hours underwater in a submerged habitat, biology lab and diving.

Each of the teams descended 21 feet into the Emerald Lagoon, where the Jules Underwater Lodge is based, at noon one day and returned to the surface the following day at noon. Naturally, they had to travel light. They packed notebooks, dive logs and a few personal items into water tight cases, donned their dive gear, and, holding on to a lead line, took the plunge.

"Our experience in the underwater hotel and lab left us leaving Key Largo as teenagers with an experience no one will ever be able to match," says Rachel Simpson, an A-Team member.

Other members of her group included Jessica Allison, Matthew Carlock, Jono Eddy, Louis Sinclair and BJ Ramer. The night they spent in the underwater lodge, a thunderstorm was raging above the surface.

"We knew it because we could see the lightning through the water," Simpson says. "It was absolutely mesmerizing."

The divers checked in to their hotel through a hatch on the bottom side of the submerged inn, which used to be an underwater research station in Puerto Rico. The hatch led to a wet room where the teens removed and stored their dive equipment, Ramer says. The area also has a fresh water shower and bathroom.

From there, a circular hatch to the right led to two sleeping areas with bunks, a TV equipped with a DVD player, a small refrigerator, sink and round windows looking into the lagoon. A hatch to the left led into a common area with a kitchen, large TV, tables, benches and a window.

"This is like way cool," Louie Sinclair said as they looked around.

Underwater education

While they were underwater, Chris Olstead, from the marine research center, gave the young divers aquanaut training on the history of diving and their underwater hotel's past as a research station.

"Chris led them on a thought-provoking discussion about the importance of social, agricultural, medical, and military research and technology going on right now in the oceans," Ramer says. "He talked about how some things we see in movies such as The Abyss are real pieces of innovative marine studies."

When it was time to attend a biology lab, the students swam outside instead of walking to class.

"I learned more in three days at the marine science station than I did in my biology class all year," Simpson says. "It was a mind-blowing experience and I wish everyone could have the chance to do it!"

The other team of divers, which included Kelsey Cawthorn, Scott Davis, Michael Ramer, Grayson Romstadt and Morgan Walker, raved about their long dive, too.

"It was like becoming a fish and living in a fish bowl because you were in your own habitat that had been placed into someone else's habitat," says Cawthorn. "The only difference from living in the habitat and living in a fish bowl is that when you wake up in the morning, it's not a human you see but a barracuda, or some other fish, swimming by your window."

Scott Davis, an HHS junior, says spending the night at Jules Undersea Lodge was one of the most remarkable experiences of his life.

"It was so amazing to stay underwater for 24 hours and see how that was made possible and how underwater habitats provide many possibilities for exploring and working in the ocean," says Davis.

Night moves

Olstead, their underwater instructor, also took the students on a night dive with flashlights. When the divers waved their hands or moved the water, Ramer says, they could see bioluminescent plankton light up like flashes from a sparkler.

"It was like having magic dust to sprinkle around," says diver Morgan Walker, an HHS junior.

While one team made their saturation dive, the other team took a trip to Molasses Reef at John Pennekamp State Park off Key Largo to get a closer look at the different types of coral they had learned about at the marine center. The trip included three dives at Pennekamp, which is part of the National Marine Sanctuary.

"They would come up from diving and be full of wonder and excitement at what they had seen and experienced," Ramer says.

Her son Michael Ramer, an HHS junior, took part in the A-Team adventure. He offers these reflections on the experience:

"This is an enlightening, educating, riveting experience that should be loved, feared and contemplated," says Michael, BJ's son. "Twenty four hours may seem long and boring in a school or other function, but in this magical place one day is as infinitesimal as a second in a lifetime."

Team ECCO also offers marine-themed adventures to elementary and middle school students.

During a school break in September, Ramer took a group of third to fifth grade Hendersonville Elementary School students to Charleston Harbor to study pirates and marine life. That trip cost $205.

Just last week, she led a group of 26 kids, in fifth through eighth grades, to St. Augustine on a Dolphin Adventure. That trip cost $345.

Says Ramer: "I try to keep expenses to the bone."

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