Project Quick Find

by Michael P. Wood

  The original home for the Quick Find sea lions was a floating pen. It consisted of three separate cages with tubs for water, a common deck, and a community pool, surrounded by a chain-link fence, floating on fifty-five-gallon drums tied alongside Pier 13. A Z-bird is seen here tied up to the pen.

  The other “very fun” housecleaning task was to clean the marine growth or fouling off the floating pen pool netting in the San Diego Bay water. Anyone who cleans boat bottoms knows the extensive marine growth and fouling that can grow during the summer months in the bay water. Here is what a report on marine fouling in San Diego Bay by John Conway and Loren Locke in 1994 says: “Fouling refers to the growth of various marine organisms on submerged surfaces. Fouling organisms commonly found in San Diego Bay include the tube-building polychaete worms or tubeworms, encrusting bryozoans or moss animals, algae, small sponges, tunicates, barnacles, and other sessile organisms (Johnston, 1990). Fouling can be seen on any surface that has been submerged in the bay for ten days or more, and can grow to a substantial build if left undisturbed for a prolonged period of time.”

  This type of marine growth, or fouling, would grow on the floating barrels supportingthe pen and the sea lions’ pool netting. The marine organisms would consist of tube-building polychaerte worms, tube worms, encrusting bryozoans, moss animals, algae, small sponges,and barnacles. We just collectively called them “nookie nows.”

  We just called them “nookie nows.” They could get very large and hang deep, looking like a mixture of upside-down weeds, grass, and kelp pods without the leaf blades. Inside each of the look-alike kelp pods, which were translucent, you could see little wiggling creatures that looked like miniature models from the alien movies. We would scuba dive or snorkel wearing wetsuits in the water to clean the fouling off the nets. Once we disturbed the “nookie nows,” it seemed like we were massively attacked by a swarm of miniature hook-armed body snatchers. Once the nets were clean, we would get out of the water and try to clean our wetsuits of the hundreds of little hook-armed monsters caught in the tiny mesh of our wetsuit material.

  As nasty as some of the housecleaning duties sound, we loved every minute of it. Among our many duties, we also designed and built another floating pen for the animals that was larger, had more tubs and pens, and had its foundation on a large multi-pontoon hull that was stable, secure, and water transportable and a vast improvement on the flooding and rusty fifty-gallon barrels the old pen was built on. We also installed new and clean netting for the animal community pool. No more “nookie nows” for a while.

  Finally, we also had to haul the thirty-six-foot work barge out of the water to overhaul and refurbish the entire barge. This included sanding off the old red lead hull paint. We were not aware of lead paint dangers in those days. We scraped and sanded down the barge hull without wearing any respiratory or face masks. We soon learned how caustic the red lead paint was when all of us got burning eyes and serious chest congestion, but we finished the barge hull repainting. Add that hazardous duty to the breathing in of the paint fumes from painting the entire barge top to bottom and I guess you could say we earned our extra fifty dollars a month of hazardous duty pay, which was really for parachuting and demolition duty hazards.

  The newly built floating pen and home for the sea lions, built by Quick Find personnel. This pen was built on a much more stable pontoon boat with more individual animal cages and tubs, a larger common deck space, and a community netted pool. Unlike the old pen’s fifty-five-gallon drums, the pontoons would not flood and could be towed to new locations if required.

  Fatman trainer and Quick Find leading petty officer Tom McHugh drives the Z-bird at sea.

  It was during this work period that the idea of “payback” occurred to me. I did blame Tom McHugh for the Fatman biting incident because he was one of Fatman’s trainers. He knew Fatman’s behaviors, plus he made the training assignments. While refurbishing the barge, we needed more haze grey paint for the barge cabin and trim, and we asked Tom to grab a gallon of the grey from the paint locker.

  Some industrious young petty officer with a long memory had planted a pile of human feces in one of the empty haze grey gallon cans and placed it strategically in the paint locker about two weeks earlier. That gallon can sat in a small paint locker exposed to the summer sun for about two weeks. I am not a physicist, but I can imagine the sun and heat effect on the contents of the closed-up gallon can. Tom went to the paint locker and grabbed the first gallon can of haze grey that he saw. He did not notice the slightly bulging walls of the can. Luckily, he brought the can out of the paint locker before he tried to open it to check the paint contents. He was quite visible to all of us, as we were painting the barge several feet away. All it took was the slightest pressure from the head of the flathead screwdriver he used to pry open the lid and POW! The lid went flying, the buildup of methane gas rapidly escaped directly upward, and the can’s ingredients exploded in tiny chocolate-colored bits all over Tom’s face and body. The laughter that immediately followed was much more raucous than the laughter during my Fatman biting incident. Our painting work on the barge continued without skipping a beat but at a much faster pace. Tom never did figure out who was the paint can perpetrator. He might after this book comes out, though.

  The haze gray paint provided an opportunity for some much-deserved prank payback—as well as being a good color for the barge.

  Gordy, John Busch, and Tom McHugh remained the prime trainers, especially for QAST missions, but Peterson and Hetzell were beginning to work occasionally with Fatman and Akahi and training Snitch preparing him for QAST shots. Gump was always a good standby sea lion for a trainer to learn all the animal handling steps. I filled in on all the various positions as required and would later find a specialized duty with naïve animal training. I think the larger sea lions were prejudiced against us vertically challenged people.

  All joking aside, my smaller stature next to the larger sea lions when in the bouncing Z-bird boat did seem to concern Gordy, so I was not selected as a primary trainer. One must be able to handle and control the 80- to 120-pound aggressive sea lions in a small, sixteen-foot rubber boat bouncing around while transiting in up-to-sea-state-three conditions. Not being a primary trainer ended up being a blessing in disguise. It actually freed me up to be the photographer for the group, which fit in nicely with my previous Photographer’s Mate “A” School training that I received right before leaving SEAL Team One. This also later had a significant benefit to my future application for the Military Photojournalism Program at Syracuse University. It was my Project Quick Find portfolio that helped with the navy selecting me for that program. I learned that all things work together for good.

  Although I was not a primary trainer, I was a primary QAST team member and participated in all of our ASROC recovery missions. Gordy managed to put together a fully trained and functional team of trainers and sea lions in a short six-month period, and we were ready for the soon-to-come QAST missions.

  Quick Find Plank Owners! Left to right: Tom McHugh, Gordon Sybrant, Michael Wood, Rick Hetzell, and Dan Peterson. John Busch is absent from the photo.

  5

  QAST SHOTS

  QAST is an acronym for Quality Assurance Service Test, and during my tenure we seemed to participate in a QAST about every six months on the East or West Coast. This is how Project Quick Find earned its keep.

  The sponsoring military activity was the Naval Ordnance Systems Command in Washington, D.C. Initially, the plan for the sea lions was to be an effective alternative to the use of divers and submersibles for underwater recovery of various objects lost at sea, including exercise mines, torpedoes, or aircraft and not just ASROC missiles. Once the Naval Undersea Research and Development Center submitted the final assessment and report of Project Quick Find in June 1972, the sponsoring military activity began planning the QAST schedule.

  Participating in a QAST shot was like qualifying for the Olympics. We trained and trained and trained, and when a QAST wou
ld be announced, it was so exciting to be able to put all that training to the real test and obtain the ultimate goal of recovering an ASROC missile. There was definitely a feeling of accomplishment after a successful recovery. We had other brethren back at the base in what was then called Project Short Time who were training dolphins to locate and mark swimmers. It seemed at the time that their project would train forever without ever being able to put it to a real time test, so we felt lucky to be able to demonstrate the sea lions’ capabilities. There was some competition between the dolphin and sea lion trainers in the marine mammal program at the time.

  Tom McHugh drives the Z-bird, Rick Hetzell handles the reel of a grabber line, and John Busch places a D5 training grabber on Akahi’s nose while training at sea.

  During the next two-year period, Project Quick Find conducted at least four QAST missions and I believe more but I can’t document them. This was a time when the three working sea lions and the six trainers were a well-oiled team and, for the next two years, would prove the success of the project.

  The QAST missions that I can document occurred in June and September 1974 and then in June and July 1975 at San Nicholas Island, California; Little Creek and Norfolk, Virginia; and Mayport, Florida.

  On one of the Florida QAST missions, there was one interesting experience that happened while training out at sea in the Gulf of Mexico.

  We were putting Akahi through his pre-QAST training, and John Busch hand signaled for him to enter the water. Akahi enthusiastically did so and quickly took the D5 training grabber from John to start his dive. Suddenly, and much sooner than expected, Akahi returned and launched out of the water at least a full body length above the boat, dropping with a thud onto the boat deck, not the main tube. His eyes were uncharacteristically wide open. I was the Z-bird driver at the time, and just as Akahi dove in the water, I did notice two very large and dark-looking manta rays gliding under us about twenty feet down. I did not think much about the harmless filter feeders going by, but Akahi apparently did not like those large dark shapes moving right under where he was diving. Dominant male sea lions are not usually that intimidated, but apparently large dark shapes in the water can cause that reactive response.

  Akahi wasted no time jumping out of the water when spooked by manta rays swimming by.

  Florida QAST shots also stand out in my memory because the first time we took the animals to Florida in June 1974, unknown to us, the sea lions were exposed to and bitten by Florida mosquitoes. The results of those mosquito bites manifested several months later, with one of our sea lions, Snitch, dying. The autopsy showed that his heart was loaded with heartworms. I was there for that autopsy, and I can say that his heart was completely filled with worms. I am not sure how his heart was able to pump any blood at all. This led to an effort by veterinarians at the Naval Undersea Center (NUC) to put the rest of our sea lions (Fatman and Akahi) that went to Florida through a heartworm treatment program. That was to be a very ugly period for the animals.

  The treatment required the introduction of arsenic into the animals’ blood system. That really had us all very worried because the treatment was almost worse than the disease itself. The arsenic would either kill the sea lions or kill the worms. I will say that the autopsy showed these were not little inchworms that were in Snitch’s heart. The worms were anywhere from three to six inches long, so I can see how that drastic treatment was required. Snitch was the smallest of the male sea lions, so we believe that contributed to his death. Both Fatman and Akahi were a good twenty pounds heavier than Snitch. We knew the medical treatment was going to be rough so we transferred them to the NUC facility on Point Loma so they would be continually observed and under the constant care of the veterinarians. Due to Fatman and Akahi’s size, we also needed the NUC squeeze cage to hold the animals so we could draw blood and administer the medication. A trainer can hold a moderate-sized sea lion down by kneeling over his back and tucking his pectoral flippers in under his body, essentially pinning him down. This technique would never work with the larger and dominant sea lions such as Fatman and Akahi. There were no humans big enough to hold Fatman or Akahi down like that, so we used the squeeze cage, which is about five feet tall and four feet wide with two-inch tubular bars spaced alternately on each side and curving upward to a point. As the top of the cage was lowered, the alternating bars essentially pinned the sea lion to the deck of the cage without risking injury to any human or to the animal. I do not remember how long the treatment took, but I remember it happened at least for a couple of weeks where the sea lions were getting arsenic shots on a daily basis. The treatment seemed to make the sea lions lethargic and sensitive to surrounding noises. Thankfully, both sea lions survived the treatment and, after a few weeks of downtime, were ready to get back into training and going to sea. Our lesson learned from that experience was to put the sea lions through a heartworm treatment procedure prior to conducting a QAST shot on the East Coast and especially Florida.

  NUC veterinarians draw a blood sample from a sea lion. The treatment for heartworms was a very ugly period for Fatman and Akahi.

  Now that the animals were healthy again and up to speed on their training, we were ready for the next QAST, which was scheduled for September 1974 at San Nicholas Island (SNI) in California. The next QAST was close to home so the animals did not have to travel far. In fact, we transited by boat at sea from San Diego to San Nicholas Island.

  The squeeze cage was used to hold down larger sea lions that a human could not safely control for blood work and treatment.

  The USS William V. Pratt, DDG 44, a Farragut-class destroyer, was scheduled to fire the ASROC in the missile range off San Nicholas Island. This location was good because it was our home turf. We were there for six days and conducted some training prior to the shot to get the animals acclimated to the San Nicholas waters.

  Once the firing ship was on station, we placed the target radar reflector at the designated coordinates, and all boat traffic was cleared from the area. We did have some VIPs attend this QAST to observe the process.

  The USS William V. Pratt fired the ASROC missile for the QAST mission off San Nicholas Island.

  Tom McHugh inspects the ASROC radar reflector target and float prior to emplacement.

  An ASROC radar reflector target is placed a couple of miles off the coast of San Clemente Island.

  The USS William V. Pratt (DDG-44), a Farragut-class destroyer, fires the ASROC missile.

  Green dye and smoke show how close the ASROC landed to the radar reflector target. Quick Find will use the smoke and dye to conduct the initial pinger receiver search for the missile.

  Akahi jumps out of the water and onto the gunwale of the Z-bird next to trainer John Busch to get his fish reward after successfully attaching the grabber to the ASROC.

  A sea lion correctly places the D9 grabber onto the mock-ASROC tail cone.

  The ship fired the ASROC on schedule, and we watched the fire from about two miles away and were able to visually track it through the air and splashdown in the water near SNI. This time, we did see the splashdown and the resulting green mist rising in the air. We then transited to the splashdown site and used the green dye trail to reach the Z-bird launch site.

  Once on site, we launched the rubber boat with a line, anchor, and floats, as well as a handler and a pinger receiver operator to narrow down the ASROC bottoming-out point. Detection and location did not take long, and before we knew it, the Z-bird was back to the support boat to pick up the sea lion, trainer, and necessary gear.

  The trainer and sea lion loaded into the Z-bird. The green dye was beginning to fade in the current flow, but we now had the two orange buoys to indicate the ASROC location.

  SNI shoreline and water depth drops down quickly, so this particular ASROC firing ended up in a little deeper water, nearing at least three hundred feet deep. The Z-bird driver lined the boat up, and the trainer sent the sea lion into the water. There was great anticipation with every sea lion dive because locati
ng the missile was never a sure thing. This was where lining up the boat correctly can play a big role in a successful contact for the sea lion. On the first dive, the line handler recovered the line, and the D8 grabber had not fired. No fish reward for the sea lion. The trainer had the boat driver go a little farther up current and sent the sea lion back into the water. Again, the grabber came back to the surface. You never really know what currents the sea lion has to deal with at the different depths. The trainer decided to check the location with the pinger receiver, and the boat location seemed to be correct. He launched the sea lion again. This time, once the line stopped reeling out, the line handler took a strain, and the line pulled taut, indicating the grabber had grasped the ASROC. This time when the sea lion surfaced, he got his full fish reward.