As he swam through the murky depths off the southeastern coast of the island of Hawaii, his underwater camera trained on molten lava entering the sea, Craig Musburger weighed his desire to shoot the best footage against the possibility of being boiled alive.
The water around him was probably about 110 degrees, but Musburger was so focused on the lava from Kilauea that he never checked. He could see the hotter water, which scientists have measured at 150 degrees, because it didn’t mix well with the cooler water.
It shimmered, and a part of Musburger shivered. Weather conditions that day in early January had to be perfect, or currents could push him and fellow diver Brett Schumacher into a dangerous hot pocket.
"I’ve dived all over the world and seen a lot of amazing things underwater and never had fear before jumping in like I had that day," Musburger said. "It is so volatile and unpredictable. The forces we are dealing with are so much bigger than a human being. This is Mother Nature at her most raw and powerful."
Musburger, an Emmy Award-winning underwater cameraman, chose the scene as a curtain-raiser for his new online series with PBS Digital Studios. The 12-part series, "UnderH2O," premiered in April and offers a new episode every other Monday. Monday, Musburger will debut the third episode. (You can find it on YouTube by searching UnderH20 show.)
The series, which is being distributed through YouTube, will give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at his profession, Musburger said.
His second episode took viewers to the Kona Coast and a night dive with graceful, eerie manta rays as they fed on plankton. But beyond that, he doesn’t want to be too specific about what’s coming up.
"We have a neat episode on tide pools," Musburger said. "We are doing a wreck-diving episode. There is some shark action. There are turtles. We have a lot of very cool topics and some surprising ones. The tide pool one is not an area where cameramen spend a lot of time, but we spent a lot of time in water that is 3 inches deep."
The 38-year-old Hawaii Kai resident has been a diver since he was a boy and has logged more than 5,000 hours underwater. His production company, HD Under H20, helped him through graduate school at the University of Hawaii, which recently awarded him a doctorate in marine zoology.
As the PBS/YouTube series progresses, he’ll dip more into his science background as he explains the technical side of shooting underwater, Musburger said.
"This is a venue I have been aspiring to for a long time," he said. "The PBS format is educational and honest. It is not hyper-reality TV like some of the commercial nature channels. There is no overdramatic nonsense."
But his series isn’t short on drama, as the opening episode proved. In fact, it was even more dramatic than what the cameras captured.
"We heard this building of pressure, this pressure of sound, and we looked at each other and said we’re out of here," Musburger said.
From the dive boat, the crew watched a 65-yard cliff collapse into the steaming water.
"That’s where we were for pretty much the whole dive," Musburger said. "We would have been buried alive."
AND that’s a wrap …
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
