When Susan Sobtzick was born behind the Berlin Wall in 1980, the
idea of her becoming an experienced diver and researcher in Australian
waters would have seemed almost impossible. But the fall of the wall
combined with her parents' ingenuity and Susan's hard work, have opened
a doorway of opportunity to the Great Barrier Reef and beyond.
Susan Sobtzick, 24, turns in the water as the small whale approaches.
After three hours of underwater filming along the outer edges of the
Great Barrier Reef, her swollen hands can barely feel the video camera
as she zooms in for a close-up. Jackpot! The whale has a calf traveling
beside her. Suddenly re-energised, Susan tracks their movements through
the viewfinder, capturing rare footage of a mother and child's
interaction - dwarf minke style.
But as amazing as the stories are that Susan brings back from the deep,
the story behind how she became a diver and a marine biology student
working in Australian waters, is just as amazing as any seafaring tale,
and it begins in the depths of another region - behind the Berlin Wall
in a small East German village.
"Dad's passion was diving," says Susan who was among the last generation
of German children to grow up under Soviet rule. "But in East Germany,
while you could buy a snorkel and flippers, you couldn't get scuba gear.
"The authorities were worried that people would use scuba equipment to
escape. We had the Baltic Sea but you weren't even allowed to take your
blow up air mattress out on the water - it seems funny now - Denmark was
the closest country and that's a long way to go on an air mattress.
"I remember stories about people trying to escape using other ways
though and getting caught. It wasn't funny then. You could be locked
away for years or even shot.
"But Dad loved the water so he made his own regulator by adapting a
firefighters' four litre breathing tank - it was very small by scuba
standards and he used a bicycle pump because no compressors were
available. He could get four breaths from the tank underwater before it
ran out."
The many weekends spent with her Dad at the lakeside and around the
Baltic, made Susan an experienced snorkeler and by the time the Berlin
Wall fell in 1989, she had developed her father's passion for diving: "I
felt as a free as an astronaut moving in space," she says.
|
"Dad's biggest dream had always been to dive the Great Barrier Reef even
though that was impossible. But after the wall came down, Mum started a
new job and began saving. My sister and I translated the travel
brochures and I chose Undersea Explorer because they did diving and
marine research.
"Without telling Dad, Mum booked the trip. She gave it to him on
Christmas Eve, 1999. Everyone else had presents to open but Dad just had
an envelope and he opened it last. He couldn't say anything - he just
started hugging Mum and crying, and then we all started crying."
The trip turned out to be more than a family holiday. Susan returned to
the Reef several times, eventually becoming a volunteer student working
on Undersea's dwarf minke project. Today, her studies form the basis of
a working relationship between James Cook University and Germany's
University of Rostock. Susan's final year research is now being
supervised by a representative from both institutions.
Meanwhile, back home Susan's Dad still goes diving most weekends on the
nearby fresh water lakes -"I think he knows the lake better than our
backyard," says Susan who not long ago sent her parents some film of a
close-up encounter she had with a large shark: "Mum wasn't too pleased
but Dad thought it was fantastic."
Susan Sobtzick, a marine biology student from Germany, at work on the
Great Barrier Reef where she is completing her final year thesis on the
dwarf minke whale project. For more information see www.reef.crc.org.au
|
