/ 9 February 2001

Is the coelacanth cursed?

Several South Africans on expeditions to find the famed fossil fish have died in diving-related incidents, reports Niki Moore

It is the classic stuff of horror movies: intrepid adventurers open a tomb or explore uncharted territory and unleash a terrible curse. One by one, the expedition members die a horrible death.

Several South Africans have undertaken an expedition in the past few years to find the fabled fossil fish called the coelacanth. Three members of coelacanth expeditions have died while diving. Could this be the “Curse of the Coelacanth”?

The coelacanth was once one of the world’s great survivors. Assumed to have died out with the dinosaurs, in the end-Cretaceous extinction of 60-million years ago, it surfaced in 1938 in the net of a fishing trawler off East London, the marine equivalent of a living dinosaur.

The fish is in danger of extinction. Highly successful in its heyday there are 125 species of coelacanth in the fossil record only one species remains. Pale mauve-blue with iridescent white markings, growing to an average adult length of 1,6m, with its peculiar paired limb-like fins, the last of the coelacanths lives in the deep water off the South African coast.

Erna Smith died last Saturday during a training dive near Badplaas while building up strength for a coelacanth expedition off the Zululand coast in May. Team leader Pieter Venter helped Smith out of the water and shortly after coming up out of a routine social dive, she went into a coma and died.

“Erna’s death was inexplicable,” says Venter. “It was not a difficult or deep dive, but a social dive. We discovered afterwards that she died of an embolism because of a heart defect. It was a huge blow.”

The first tragedy was 46-year-old Rehan Bouwer, who was part of a team of about eight people diving to find coelacanths off the Sodwana coast in July 1998.

After Bouwer had done several dives he had an equipment malfunction and surfaced too quickly. He immediately went down again with a companion in order to come up again more slowly. Unfortunately the pair went too deep and lost consciousness. The companion floated to the surface and recovered, but Bouwer’s body sank. The expedition was abandoned and Bouwer’s body was never found.

In November 2000 another expedition was seeking the coelacanth off Sodwana Bay in Zululand. The great fish had been sighted and diver Dennis Harding was filming historic footage when he got into difficulties and made an uncontrolled ascent. He died a short while later of an embolism. Despite the worldwide excitement over the film footage, the expedition was immediately called off.

And while beginning the build-up to the next coelacanth search in May, the dangerous sport of diving claimed its next victim.

“Erna died in my arms,” says Venter. “And for a while afterwards I got very worried and I started to feel superstitious. I even thought of calling off the expedition. But then I realised that I was being spooked. It is hard to lose friends like this, but I cannot say it is because of the coelacanth. Each of these tragedies has a reasonable explanation.”

Expedition member Gilbert Gunn scoffs at ideas that coelacanth expeditions might be ill-fated.

“Yes, there have been tragedies. But everything else has run smoothly. There is no question that the dives have been cursed. What it does show, though, is that the deep dives that are necessary for finding coelacanths are very dangerous.”

The build-up to the May coelacanth expedition will take four months. The team of eight people will dive together regularly in order to build up a spirit, to get to know each other’s dive styles and to test equipment.

“We have gone out of our way to make this expedition as safe as possible,” says Venter.

“Apart from the four-month training and testing period, we will have a medical helicopter and personnel on permanent standby for the five-week dive period. There will also be a recompression chamber on site. And we are standardising everyone’s equipment.”

The coelacanth expedition will descend to a depth of about 115m. Each diver is responsible for assisting with logistics and everyone will have a chance to take a camera in case there is a sighting of a coelacanth.

“It’s the adventure and experience,” says Gunn. “Very few people have seen a live coelacanth. It’s a bit like climbing Everest there is risk and danger but the rewards are worth it.”