Shapes in the Shadows

Sometimes I think I see things moving in the water. I think I see shapes churning in the shadows behind the boat and wings unfurling just beneath the bow. Other times, I think I see forms reaching out of the waves on the horizon.

The glances I have of these forms are always short-lived—just fleeting motions like swallows darting across the sky. The forms initially appear to me as birds or whales, and I try hard to define them, but when these initial forms fade, I’m left staring out over the open ocean again, wondering if I’d seen anything at all—wondering if it was just a trick of the light.

It’s been challenging, during these last few weeks, to adapt to the constant transitions of life at sea. I’ve felt a steady wind of emotions that have, at times, left me feeling unsettled. My body’s responses to the sea have not always been kind. Periods of work and rest happen at odd intervals, and consistency has evaded me completely. Every moment is a moment of transition. Moments are never quite aligned—never quite full or regular or part of something that falls into place.

As we reach the end of our passage, I find it difficult to define myself in this period of constant transition. But, in the uncertainty of being undefined, I’ve grown to feel some freedom. It’s a form of relief to be unbounded and intimately at the whim of something greater. Here, I am separate from my habits and the comforts of my life on land—I am separate from myself, in a way, and the constraints I impose on myself.

As I’ve grown more comfortable here, I’ve started to see the moments that blossom in the transitory light. I feel the warm hands on my back comforting me, the pride in my growing callouses, and the power of being at the helm of the ship. I’m embraced by that soft and rich orange color of the early morning light. I’m entranced by the waves at night that live in a black and white haze of motion. And I’m captivated by the visitors we receive, which, while few, are of immense beauty—the passing clouds, the quick but forceful squalls, and the sea birds that swirl around our boat.

I’d like very much to define this time for myself—to abstract it away into some line that I can relay to my friends or some blurb for my resume. I’d like, too, to be able to capture the moments of light I feel so deeply that live in this boundless space. I’d like to hold the songs sung under a blaze of stars, the sleep deprived smiles, and the little moments of peace for as long as I can. But I have as little luck in capturing the moments of light as I do in trying to make out shapes in the ocean—or in trying to hear my name in the movement of the wind. It all eludes me.

So, I’ve settled, for now, on savoring the light as it passes.

Diego Rafael Perez

A Great Oceanic Eye

Sometime after midnight, bioluminescence comes into full bloom. Flecks of dinoflagellate-produced light flicker on the inky waves, disappearing as quickly as they appear, like a magic trick, a wink, a blink of a great oceanic eye. During my last dawn watch, I paused for a moment as force 4 winds blew in from the southeast, sending whispers of stratocumulus clouds across the sky. A set of steep stairs took me down into the red-lit charthouse, and I braced my legs against the rolling ship, the handrails I helped re-tighten with the engineers two weeks ago still solid under my grip.

It’s strange how accustomed we’ve all become to this ship, to this place that is both voyage and home, how quickly we’re getting used to six-hour watches separated by twelve hours of sleeping, eating, and whatever else we can fit in. Nothing stays still on this ship. Things spill, tip, and fall over all the time. Bodies collide, sometimes with metal or wood, oftentimes with each other.

Our days are marked by the time we wake and the time we go to sleep. Sometimes we close our eyes and sink into our bunks when the sun is just rising and wake up at a different latitude, rain pouring down on the quarterdeck. Another ITCZ squall. We eat our meals on gimbaled tables and seem to know—most of the time—where to put our elbows, a plate, a bowl of sloshing soup. There are days when we forget where we are and it’s okay. We learn to patch up our wounds, let our bruises heal, clean up our messes with multicolored microfiber towels from the closet.

And yet what I find strangest of all is how everything at sea is at once a contradiction: beautiful and hard, time suspended and time flowing, everything moving as water does, inconstantly and infinitely.

Crossing the Pacific, the ocean becomes a sound, a smell, a swell, a memory, a curse, a tease, a song, a burning blue. It calls upon a system of inhuman time, cycles of unknowable depths and immeasurable wonders, a pelagic mystery, an alien universe. Over these past three weeks, the ocean has constituted, at least for me, both journey and destination, beginning and closing, new and old patterns of who I thought I was and am, all coursing over the pour of liquid distances.

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote that “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Whether or not Kierkegaard ever spent much time on a tall ship like the Robert C Seamans, I’ve been coming back to this quote as I realize how hard—and perhaps impossible—it is to reflect on an experience as it’s happening. Instead, what we end up understanding about a time or experience becomes understood afterwards, when connections coalesce from scattered dots of observation and patterns of perception become a line, a circle, a spiral, a shape. Certain moments, interactions, and encounters take a form and color as intense and inconstant as the shifting sea.

So what can one say?

I suppose I could talk about the first time I dove into the coral reefs at Palmyra Atoll with my lovely friend and research partner Jessie.

Beneath the teal tropical waters, we swam through a world composed of streaks of motion—triggerfish, tangs, blennies, sharks, mantas, and parrotfish chomping on the corals. Jessie and I deployed three hydrophones across the coral reefs at Palmyra for our bioacoustics project, recording over one-hundred and fifty-six hours of sounds. Camille, our TA and project mentor, nearly wept as we huddled around her laptop the next evening and passed the headphones around, listening to a chorus of crepuscular fish calling into the coral midnight.

I suppose I could also talk about how I’ve come to love the glow of a sunrise over open ocean. Or how, during the few hours before twilight, breaking waves sound like soft breaths punctuating the quiet night. Of course, among these moments of beauty are the more difficult ones, too, like finding a way to make peace with stubborn layers of sea and sweat on the skin, a persistent queasiness in the stomach, a dull longing for loved ones on land. We take so much for granted that only when some things are stripped away do we see how much they mean to us.

A year ago, I was working as a wooden boatbuilding apprentice in midcoast Maine. I wore brown Carhartt overalls which became stained with varnish and emerald marine paint. Despite hundreds of hours of working with boards of pine and cedar, chiseling and restoring various sailboats, canoes, and dinghies, I never got to see what ultimately became of them, where they ended up going, what they saw, whose lives they intercepted.

I certainly never imagined that I would be where I am today, writing to you from a tall ship in the central Pacific Ocean. Did the makers of the RCS think about all the students it would carry, all the places it would go? What kinds of understanding it would bring forth?

The first time I climbed aloft onto the mainmast, I found myself high above the birds circling around the ship. I paused as I made my way to the top, looking down on everyone below me moving between watches, between tasks, between moments. Everyone on this ship, from the captain to steward to engineers to mates to scientists to students, contributes in their own way to this voyage and experience. We are each and all part of something greater than ourselves, moving forward, moving with the rhythm of the sea.

In his night orders to the evening and dawn watches, captain Greg writes a message with instructions for the night, reminding us always to remain vigilant and alert. Being vigilant and alert are critical to maintaining the safety of the ship, and to these, I would also add remaining patient, brave, and above all, kind.

Our voyage is mostly behind us, but there are still a few more precious, difficult days ahead of us as we sail back to Honolulu. If life can only be understood backwards, then it must be lived forwards, just as our ship propels itself forwards in accordance with the winds and weather, invoking forces much more powerful than our individual selves.

-Regina Kong

Bottle Overboard!

Maitri

It was a quiet morning aboard the Robert C. Seamans. Following a night of squalls, we were drifting near Kingman Reef, awaiting Captain’s orders on where to go next. After finishing up morning chores, I was tasked with being on bow watch, which entails keeping a sharp look out for any signs of traffic or foul weather. The sun had just risen, casting a fiery glow on the steely gray waters around us. I clipped into the bow and took in my beautiful surroundings. As I began humming a song, I leaned over ever so slightly to look at the sun’s reflection on the water. Suddenly I felt something snap. To my utter dismay, I realized that my water bottle, which was clipped into my harness, had broken loose of its string and fallen past the bowsprit straight into the ocean. I watched the hunk of red metal bob up and down and then begin to lazily drift along the port side of our boat. I quickly informed my watch officer Vuk of the situation and soon a group of my shipmates had gathered with a fish net valiantly attempting to scoop my bottle out of the water. But alas, the net fell a mere inch short and soon the bottle was completely out of our reach. As people began to give up and leave, Vuk said with a grave tone, “You have to let it go, Maitri,” and as if to rub (sea) salt into my wounds, added “Don’t do that again.”

Water bottle-less and defeated, I returned to the bow to resume my lookout. Since we weren’t sailing or motoring, I spent the next hour hopelessly watching my water bottle drift further and further away with the current. I reflected on my history with the bottle. Years ago, my mother gave it to me back home in India. The bottle travelled with me halfway across the world and together we experienced grueling college classes, hikes, beach days, tumbles into waterfalls with friends, camping trips, and most recently, a seafaring voyage across the Pacific Ocean. And now, it seemed my water bottle was ready to embark on a solo adventure. With my shipmates’ support, I began to imagine what its future would look like. Maybe it would sink to the bottom of the ocean and become the new shell of a gigantic hermit crab. Maybe it would wash ashore some remote island and be discovered hundreds of years from now by archaeologists who would use cutting-edge technology to decipher the tattered sparkly stickers on the bottle, reading “Of Course I’m a Feminist!” and “Go with the Flow.” Maybe it would be found by someone who had been stranded on an island for days and the freshwater in it would hold them over until their rescue helicopter arrived. At the end of the hour, I had somewhat come to terms with my loss. My role for the next hour was as helmsperson and I quickly swung into action as the Captain gave us new course orders. As I began to turn right, a glinting light in the ocean caught my eye. Was it just a wave crest? A trick of the light? I stared at the glint again and, could it be?

“It’s my water bottle!” I exclaimed.

Tanvi

After a long dawn watch shift, I had stayed to watch the sun spread over the sky while my beloved crewmates from A Watch took the helm. For the last hour, I had seen the grief in Maitri’s eyes as she mourned the loss of her water bottle. More than a container for fresh water, the distinctive red water bottle had come to symbolize so much more in its association with Maitri – a symbol of progressive ideology, a reminder of her love for the ocean, a key support for physical health. I had admired, too, how bravely Maitri had moved on from the bottle’s tragic demise, taking helm even through her pain. Maitri, who had given so much to us all in the last three weeks, had lost something important today.

When I heard her cry, I knew this was my chance to finally give back to Maitri, the boat’s font of generosity. Springing into action with my instincts honed from all our man overboard drills, I scanned the horizon for the water bottle till I saw the red spark that had drawn Maitri’s eye. I raised my hand and pointed at it. In the background, I heard Maitri beg Vuk to return for her water bottle. Finally, the stern Serbian relented and gave the fated order: “Ten degrees right rudder.” I kept pointing as the boat began to turn – back towards the water bottle, back towards hope once more. Even though my arm began to ache, even though my eyes burned with the sun, even though the three feet swells threatened to hide the bottle from view forever, I kept my whole body trained on the bottle. Steadfast crewmate Jessie kept my company even as our muscles burned. I called on all my training as a designated spotter in an emergency situation to keep me going.

I saw the bottle shift towards our port side and keeping a visual fix on where I’d seen it last, I sprang into action towards the science deck, the only place in the boat low enough to fish the bottle from the water with a net. There, I joined the esteemed JP and Nate Bears, engineers extraordinaire, already prepared with nets for retrieval. With bated breath, we watched the bottle bob towards us. It glinted in the sun. With the chaotic, turbulent waters of the ITCZ, every swell threatened to take it further away from us, not closer. But I kept hope because I knew everything the bottle meant. Finally, it came just close enough and with a mighty swoop, Nate scooped it from the water in one deft motion with a Zen-like calmness honed through his 5 am breathing exercises. He triumphantly held the water bottle aloft, plucked from Davy Jones’ blue clutches, and from the quarter deck I heard Maitri utter a shriek of victory. I could feel the joy in her heart and I was honored to have been a small part of it.

Quotes

“You know, ‘I said in jest, oh Maitri, you should go on helm and steer us to your water bottle, haha’ and then, she did” – Dakota

“Clearly if a man goes overboard, they can be saved”

“Maitri should not be trusted with a small child that is water bottle sized at bow watch” – Camille

“This is the best steering I’ve seen from Maitri the entire trip. A fine display of bottle, ship, shipmate, self.” – Shaili

“It’s symbolic of something.” – Regina

“Don’t make this a big deal.” – Captain Greg

How Big Is the Ocean?

On a boat headed nowhere, we begin to talk about teleportation. It’s dawn watch, the six hour shift from 1 am to 7 am where the largest event is watching the first lights come to the horizon and the stars wheel out of sight, and we’re two days’ sailing away from Palmyra Atoll and hovering a few miles away from Kingman Reef. There’s more science to do here, more things to uncover in the water, and our only task tonight is to remain within a set box on the map. The Intertropical Convergence Zone has dipped down to our latitudes and the seas have flattened out. An hour ago we gave up on steering and left the helm to itself so our watch can gather on the quarterdeck and drink tea (or, in my case, my latest attempt at improvised hot chocolate – hot water, nondairy creamer, and a spoonful of Nutella). The engine’s off and the sails are down and we talk in low voices while the boat drifts through the equatorial Pacific.

We talk about what super power we’d choose, given the choice, and someone suggests teleportation. Wouldn’t it be cool to Apparate (“Wait, guys, what’s Apparation? I don’t get it,” Lilah says) from place to place with just a thought? I’m surprised at how viscerally I reject the idea. Two weeks away from Honolulu, the two flights I’ll have to take to get home are becoming more real before me, and the many journeys beyond that to get where I’ll need to go. Everything would be easier if I could disappear somewhere, reappear somewhere else. But embedded in the question of teleportation is also the question of why we’re here, now, on a boat with no direction. A flight to Palmyra is two hours and we spent two weeks travelling the same distance. In every nautical mile we cover, the aphorism echoes: the value is in the journey, not the destination.

But what has it meant to go somewhere out here? I expected to spend every second on the boat overawed by the size of the ocean and its vast unknowability. Instead I’m surprised at now, three weeks in, how familiar it all feels. Rather than a foreign expanse, the waves until the horizon feel almost intimate in their companionable repetition. Each swell is framed within the same metal poles of the awning, the netted triangle of the bowsprit, the curved hull of Gene, the curved shape of Wayne’s World, the fishing poles on the quarterdeck, the contours of the tubas, the large cream wings of the sails in their various configurations –the stays’ls, double-reefed main, the jib, the jib tops’l, or all doused, the sails rising and falling with the wind around us – the ocean is drawn out for us, always, in the outlines of the boat we’ve circled hundreds of times in the last three weeks and have sweated on and cried on and laughed on and sung on and grown to live and love in so many ways. When I come up on deck every morning and go to the rail and look out (morning being a relative term, defined at any time between the hours of 1 to 11 am), it’s not awe I feel but a rush of quiet recognition. Oh, it’s you again. The horizon-line is a belt cinched at our waist, as much a part of our vessel as the wood of the helm.

How do we know we’re going somewhere at all? If not for the numbers we collect every hour in our boat and science checks, with the evidence of our minds and bodies there’s only the subtlest of signals: our shadows switch directions as we pass from one side of the sun’s ecliptical to the other. The Southern Cross fixes itself just beyond the bowsprit. Night by night the moon stays up for longer in the sky, and then shrinks once more. Each sign is easier to miss than the last, when I don’t pay attention, and it’s the simplest thing to forget to, as I move from helm to lookout, coiling my lines and palming my turns, watching the chlorophyll samples drain with the hum of the vacuum pump in the background. When Palmyra emerged on the horizon, it was a shock to have a new shape there, and as we motored into the lagoon, pressed against the sides of the boat, part of my gaping incredulity at the fabulous green islands and beaches and sharks and rays came from the realization that there could be something else around us. That we had, in fact, changed our place in the world. A few days out, I’m still not convinced that the days basking in the sun-warmed shallows there weren’t all just a pleasant shared dream.

Part of what I’m learning out here is how to pay attention to the signs of place in the ocean, in the calming of the waves as we enter the lee of a reef, in the appearance and disappearance of boobies wheeling around us (and occasionally getting too close for some people’s comfort), in the changing directions of the winds we track every hour, in the declination of the sun and stars. It’s a new vocabulary I am only just familiarizing myself with and it will take lifetimes to learn fully, to be able to read the world around me and place myself precisely within it.

But part of what I’m learning, also, is that going somewhere here is not the same as what I’m used to on land. The ocean’s expanse is not the same as walking across an expanse of mountains of land, as standing atop a peak and looking out and feeling in your limbs the size of it all compared to your own body and everything it would take from you to cross it. It’s another dawn watch discussion from some weeks ago: is the ocean big or small? In lab at 1 am, we were divided on the matter.  I maintained the ocean is small, or at least smaller than I expected. More people agreed with me than I expected. When you look out into the ocean’s distance here you know anything there will be in reach within a half hour, if not less; it’s the basis of our strict lookouts, that any vessel in the vicinity presents a possibility for collision in a much shorter time than you expect. And when you add up half an hour on half an hour on half an hour and entire degrees of latitude are disappearing behind you in a few days, how big could this all be, really?

The true answer, which I see every time I plot our position on the chart, is mind-bogglingly, dizzyingly, frighteningly vast, so large we haven’t seen another boat once, that meters-long fish become toys among the waves, anything we drop off the boat vanishes from sight in minutes, so truly, spectacularly enormous we probably won’t see another boat till we’re within a few nautical miles of Honolulu once more. The biggest difference between seeing scale here and seeing scale on land is responsibility. When you’re going somewhere on land, most often it’s a solitary or small group effort. You can feel how big it is because you’re the person covering the distance; you’re comparing the size of it to your own body. Here, one among a crew of forty, the ocean’s size is compared against everything the forty of us build to together. The scales may feel small because most of the time it feels like I’m not doing much of anything to go anywhere. But out of sight it’s adding up, mile by mile and boat check by boat check. With ten of us to hoist the mains’l each person only puts a few seconds of effort in. But by the end of it a ton of sail has been lifted against gravity. That it will all assemble into a concrete whole is an act of trust. But it’s trust that’s paid off until now.  

Yesterday, we reached the southernmost point of our voyage and prepared to turn around. During our daily gathering, we held hands in a circle as the waves broke over Kingman Reef in the distance, an echo of the first day of class when we stood in a much smaller group by the shores of Monterey and tried to imagine this moment. It’s 1500 nautical miles since then. I’m trying to look at my line-calloused hands and the Teva tan on my feet and remind myself: we’ve gone somewhere since then. I’m looking up at the horizon and remembering: we have more to go. 

Tanvi Dutta Gupta

P.S. Neel, I know I’m a few days early, but happy graduation! I hope it goes well and I can’t wait to hear all about it and celebrate with you and Mama and Dada and Luchi and Kala Didi.

Hello from Kingman Reef!

After spending yesterday afternoon capturing stunning videos of some curious sharks on the reef using the ROV and an evening enduring some wet & windy (40 knots) squalls, it’s cleared up to be a blue-sky day here on the RCS. In fact, today’s been full of excitement – we’re talking a water bottle overboard rescue (“this is not a drill!” – blog to come on that tomorrow), tagging three tunas, and celebrating the birthday of our very own steward, Ashley!

You may be wondering how we’re getting by out here on the sea – what’s filling our bellies? How many meals are we eating a day? How are we surviving without our Starbucks and other comfort foods? Are we catching fish for dinner? While we did catch our first, second and third tunas of the trip within the last 24 hours (all yellowfin tuna!!), we caught them for research and released them back into the ocean after tagging them for science.

But don’t worry, our bellies are full, the galley (kitchen) is most people’s favorite space on the ship and we couldn’t be luckier to be graced with the warm & humorous presence, radiant smile and unparalleled focaccia making & wooden spoon whittling skills of our steward (chef), Ashley. Ashley does much more than fill our bellies with food. Being assigned a day in the galley working as Ashley’s assistant steward as part of our watch rotation schedule is the most highly coveted job on the ship. In fact, it’s one of the most highly bartered things on this vessel (aside from midrats). When you’re assistant steward, you get to dream up delicious meals with all the flavors you’ve been craving, take occasional trips to the reefer to grab some veggies (and linger a little longer to cool your body temperature down a couple degrees), and of course, sit on the galley stools and chat about life (or boat gossip) with Ashley. Long story short: Happy birthday, Ashley! We love you!!! Simply put, you’re such a delight.

An Ode to Ashley, Our Galley Queen:

What a Day!

In the wee hours of the morning, our queen rises from her bunk, slips her apron over her head, and gravitates towards the coffee station.

Dawn Watch has completed their mission – brew a fresh pot of coffee before Ashely wakes up: Check!

As the sun’s rays begin to peek above the horizon and glisten through the galley portholes, our queen is already perched in front of the griddle.

As she turns up the heat, she chuckles to herself remembering the dance move that A Watch and Duncan taught her last night – the griddy. She scrambles the eggs and flips the bacon as she rehearses the steps in her head, preparing for her next Swizzle performance.

She eyes the hutch, where last night’s “midrat” (midnight snacks) containers lay picked bare. The cookie bars, of course, were a hit once again.

Moments later, Dawn Watch is graced by the presence of our queen on the quarterdeck. Everyone pauses for a minute to feel the warm light of the sunrise break through the layer of cumulus stratus on the horizon, to listen to the faint flap of the sail as it luffs with the gentle gusting winds, and to breath in the blend of salty sea spray and bacon wafting up from the galley.

Someone turns to our queen Ashley, points their finger towards the sky and exclaims, “Delight!” – a gratitude practice she has spread amongst the ship’s co.

After the brief sunrise appreciation is over, Queen Ashley returns to the galley to ensure that no one has been snack jacking.

Just as she steps into the galley, the ship surges forwards & backwards, left & right, up & down all at once, causing a raucous crash of pots and pans and all other loose miscellaneous items.

An unattended cup of hot chocolate unfortunately left on an un-gimbled table goes tumbling to the floor.

“Sole towel sole towel sole towel!” The nearest idle hands rush to the cleaning locker to retrieve a towel to clean the mess from the floor before it spreads with the rolling of the ship.

Our queen, observing from her galley throne, looks on to the commotion in the salon.

She taps into her sixth sense and knows that it’s going to be a day of rough seas (confirmed also by the radar in the doghouse).

The assistant steward enters the galley, proudly dawns the lime green rooster apron, and locks eyes with the queen. They give each other a nod to acknowledge the high likelihood of hip bruises from bracing themselves against countertops, pruney fingers from washing dishes and inevitable pit stains.

On a day like today, Queen Ashley considers choosing a recipe that is simple and time efficient, such as ramen.

Sigh   She remembers that the social snackers have blown through the ramen stockpile weeks ago

Plan B: maybe a quick and easy PB&J sandwich bar? Nope, the peanut butter ration is running low too… She thinks to herself, “Dang, either these Stanford students need to work on their self-control, or I really need to put a padlock on the snack cabinet.”

Luckily, our Queen can step up to any challenge, and within a couple of hours, she has prepped one of the hardiest, most nourishing meals of all our lives.

We leave the gimbled tables feeling rejuvenated, connected to one another after some meal-time laughter, and full of delight.

It’s safe to say that our queen Ashley, as well as the entire ship’s co, can go to bed tonight (or this morning or this afternoon), letting out an accomplished sigh, saying “what a day!”

-Jessie Kaull

Editor's note: we had some technical difficulties with this post, so it is a bit out of sequence here, having been written on 5/26 when the ship was still at Kingman Reef. Sorry for any confusion this causes!

Falling in Love

Today concludes our stay at Palmyra. In this moment, preparing to leave the comfort of the lagoon, I feel as if I am leaving something very special behind.

I think it's fair to say that many aboard the RC Seamans have fallen in love with Palmyra. The gorgeous tropical reefs and sparkling beaches tickle the hearts of even the saltiest of our sailors. I, however, am in a more unique predicament. I have fallen in love on Palmyra.

I first saw her on the beach. She was there when our group stepped ashore, gazing out over the ocean like Poseidon's daughter, one with the sea. Struck by her beauty, my eyes briefly met hers. I looked away in embarrassment, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw she too turned red.

After some internal deliberation, I finally gathered the courage to approach her. I walked up to her, still sitting on the beach, and introduced myself.

To my horror, she looked at me with fear and started to back away. What had I done wrong? Was it something in the tone of my voice? Was I being too forward? In a moment of sudden clarity, I realized my mistake. Crouching, I leaned back onto my hands, and side by side we began to stroll down the glistening reef flats.

I'll admit, my lover was rather shy. Despite my efforts to lead conversation, we always deferred back to content silence. As I see it, our special bond transcended words - we spoke only the language of love. As we walked, we drew closer and closer, our steps falling into a harmonious rhythm. Perhaps it was the equatorial heat, but I could feel my chest fill with warmth. She too, became livelier, increasingly opening up and coming out of her shell. Before long we were dancing together in the sand, frolicking with unbridled joy. Minutes turned to hours as we basked among the coconuts and coral. Cupid's arrow had struck me firmly in the heart.

As the sun began to draw closer to the horizon, I realized my time with my newfound love was setting too. Soon, the boats would arrive at the dock, tearing us apart. Dark clouds formed overhead, and we were quickly overtaken by a violent squall. I fell to my knees in the muddy sand and cursed the sky, pleading with whatever cruel force of nature had brought us together, only to separate us with such haste. The sky's sole response was more thunder, a mocking laugh to my misery.

Struggling to hold back tears, I tenderly lifted my soulmate and placed her in the palm of my hand. Peering into her eyestalks, I could see that she was similarly devastated. Holding her pincer between my fingers, I whispered consoling words, knowing full well that my promises were empty. As the life boat whisked me away, I watched the elegant outline of her shell disappear into the rain.

I suppose it was doomed to fail from the beginning. I, a boy from a small town in West Michigan, and she, a stunning Palmyran Strawberry Hermit Crab.

Star-crossed, in every sense, yet connected by some deeper force. Even now, as our ship undertakes its journey northward, I scan the horizon for signs of her. My eyes are met with nothing but empty blue ocean. Such is the tragedy of the boy and the crab.

With great sorrow,

Dakota Riemersma

Palmyra Review

5/18: As we motored through the narrow channel into Palmyra’s west lagoon, we were greeted by a group of 6 Mantas performing barrel rolls along the port side of the RCS. A single grey reef shark swam a few meters alongside us just as we cruised out of the channel. Later that day, a few of us rode the defender to the the Nature Conservancy’s research station, where we took our first steps on land in 3 weeks. After hiking through sand flats filled with brilliant yellow butterfly fish, banded snake eels, and more hermit crabs than any of us had ever seen, we emerged out of the forest onto a pristine swimming hole. Maitri, Mark, and I snorkeled around the clearing, as Drive and Dakota took turns taking off a rope swing into the crystal-clear water. At one point, I climbed a slanted palm tree about 12 feet above the swimming area, and watched my first blacktip reef shark of the trip cruise directly beneath me, just a few feet from the swimmers. Our time on Palmyra would be very different from that spent on the high seas.

5/19: My second day in Palmyra was my first chance to snorkel the iconic reef. The first thing I noticed about the habitat was the incredible 3-dimensionality of the corals. In addition to being vibrantly colorful, the reef, which ranged from 0 to about 15 feet in depth, was characterized by unique and intricate geometries. My snorkel buddy Dakota and I first circled the boat, taking in the sensory overload of fishes, invertebrates, and coral that we had been waiting so long to see. However, as soon as we stared down our first subadult blacktip, we had a new goal - finding as many sharks as we could. In total, we counted around 9 sharks that day. My favorite encounter was a whitetip reef shark that I intersected as we each rounded the same patch of coral. I suddenly found myself just a few feet directly above the shark, and it allowed me to follow it from above for what felt like 2-3 minutes as it cruised through coral around our site.

After returning to the boat in the afternoon, Dakota, Mark, and I climbed onto the bowsprit, where we watched two mantas cruise directly beneath us. We watched the mantas circle around the boat and under us for thirty minutes, before heading below deck for dinner. Later that night, Sydney taught me how to extract DNA from a potential anglerfish sample that we had each placed bets on.

5/20: Hiking through the sand flats and forest of Strawn Island are what I will remember most about my time in the atoll. I spent my entire third day in Palmyra traversing the uninhabited island, and finding just about every terrestrial vertebrate Palmyra had to offer. As we motored toward the island, JP pointed out a turtle 15 feet off our boat, and I knew the day would be good. Hiking alongside the water, we were greeted by juvenile blacktips on our left, and dozens boobies on our right. At one point, hundreds of mullet began jumping out of the water. It looked as if one huge mass was galloping through reef, surely being chased by a hungry blacktip.

Diego helped identify nesting brown and masked boobies, and I took some of my favorite bird photos ever on the hike. He also spotted a small gecko just off the water, and I had the chance to get a photo I’ve been imagining for a while - a small lizard on a tropical coast, with palm trees in the foreground and untouched beaches in the background. Once we had spotted many more geckos and boobies, we emerged onto a larger sand flat from which we could see the RCS in the distance. Audrey met us for lunch, bringing apples, hard-boiled eggs, peanut butter, and honey. As we all wolfed down what felt like one of the best meals of our lives, Karthik (who had brought a plastic ziplock instead of a water bottle), Mark, and I tried our hardest to open coconuts on some rocks.

Soon, Chinmay, Matt, Mia, and Jenny arrived after a successful morning Manta mission. A few of us took temperature measurements throughout the sand flat for a fun project idea we had thought about while at Hopkins. Next, the group hiked through the forest and explored a series of World War II era bunkers. Inside one of them, we found the only mature coconut crab encountered on the trip. We were all really excited for Matt, who had been excited about seeing coconut crabs for many weeks, and happily shared all the facts he knew about their life cycle.

5/21: I finally got the chance to join Chinmay and Matt on a manta mission, and we set out with high hopes to deploy a net-tow, perform CTD-casts throughout the channel, and possibly see some mantas. Although no mantas made an appearance, we all had a great time. Barb cracked jokes as the net deployment turned out to be a failure. Chinmay, Anna, Matt, and I marveled at the groups of sharks that would circle our boat every time we stopped, dipping our heads into the water to spot blacktips, red snappers, and titan triggerfish from both up close and afar. I returned to the boat excited, but wanting more than ever to see new marine animals.

5/22: Before settling on studying white shark migration to Hawaii, Mia and I had planned to study how the thermal structure of sand flats influenced blacktip shark movement. Although we didn’t get to make it a full project, we were able to spend time on our second day at Strawn setting up some cameras and taking temperature measurements across the nearest sand flat. All the other Palmyra projects had made me jealous to do science around the reef, and sampling along our transect along the flat reminded me how much I love conducting field work, and how it helps me better appreciate interesting habitats. After the transect, we spent the rest of the morning further exploring Strawn. Camille collected coconuts to bring back to the boat, and JP ventured off to photograph boobies. 

5/23: My final day in Palmyra was spent appreciating the coral reef the atoll is so well known for. I departed for Penguin Spit (our most common snorkeling destination) with Matt, Chinmay, and Karthik, and we all formed a big snorkel group as soon as we got there. On my first snorkel trip, I felt overwhelmed with all the unfamiliar animals surrounding me. However, this time I was able to focus, and take everything in. We didn’t spot as many sharks this time, but we were able to marvel at a group of massive barracuda cruising through the reef, and schools of hundreds of fishes traversing corals.

Extra: Although we have left Palmyra - the pinnacle of our voyage, our days have been anything but devoid of action. A few days ago, Mark helped reel in a 100 + lb yellowfin yuna, and we tagged three yellowfin in total. It was my favorite day of the trip. To celebrate Ashely’s birthday, we had a meal of yuna prepared in three different ways, all of which were delicious. We recently found out that eDNA samples (tirelessly collected by Tanvi, Sydney, and Shaili) from along our cruise track included ghost shark, megamouth shark, thresher shark, mako shark, blue whale and other DNA. Today was Mia’s birthday, and we celebrated with cookies and ice cream. I also reeled in our first skipjack of the voyage, which later turned into a delicious poke.

Jaden Clark

25 Way(ves) to Describe the Ocean:

.               Liquid land

.               Sea blanket

.               "Puka" (dimple of sorts) in/on a Perfect Plane

.               Mother Nature's Gatorade

.               Flooded/Fully-Filled Trench

 

.               Big Blue - Captain Greg

.               Planet Earth's Breath - Jan Whitting

.               Place of Peace, Turbulence & Turmoil

.               Molecule & Mineral

.               City of Stars

 

.               Moving Mountaintops

.               Peeking Meerkats

.               Marching Windswept Waves

.               The Biggest, Saltiest Raindroplet Ever

.               Heaven's Tear

 

.               Pinhole from the Clouds

.               Hissing Splash & Sputter

.               Fizz & Foam

.               Whirring Whisps

.               Liferipple & Mist

 

.               Seavalley Hike

.               Ceiling of the Deep

.               Chest of the Sea

.               Mother (of All)          

-Matthew Mettias                                            

From Safe Harbor in Palmyra

After 1400 nm of sailing south from Hawaii at an average speed of approximately 6.5 knots- in seas that ranged between Beaufort 4 and 7 for most of the trip we are finally here at the Marine Protected Area known as Palmyra Atoll. Our Transect oceanography work is now complete with 6 project teams collecting oceanographic data daily that ranged from measuring pH, Chlorophyll, collecting and sequencing eDNA samples, to measuring the relationship of the depth of the oxygen minimum and deep scattering layer- to measuring the biomass captured in our meter net tows.

The squalls of the inter-tropical convergence parted ways today and full sunshine greeted us as the ship entered the Palmyra channel with emerald colored waters that have a gorgeous blue color when the sun hits the shallows- ocean is contrasted by the deep greens of the vegetation  of this tropical paradise.   Hundreds of Masked Boobys flew in to greet  us and alighted on our rigging as we motored through the narrow channel with mantas swimming beneath us. Students looked in awe as we entered the west Lagoon and with a local escort we set our anchor for the first portion of our stay.

Once secured, a briefing by our TNC and FWS hosts took place, and then  two sets of Stanford teams set off in the ship's zodiacs to explore the reef to conduct the first set of coral reef fish transects on the terrace near Penguin spit. The objective today was to begin re-examining the status of the reef as discerned by our Stanford@SEA 2003 class, a project led  by former student Charlotte Stevenson. This year a team with Courtney and Lilah McKormick along with additional students Anna, Regina and Jess are surveying the same areas to see how they have changed.

In addition Postdoctoral associate Camille Pagniello and her acoustic team are "listening to the reef the next few days" to measure the fish sounds- a distinct way to assess the reef health. Finally our Manta Team has begun their oceanographic survey late this afternoon -  sampling the Manta habitats using the 2.1 million acoustic detections and satellite tagging data we have collected with our Colleagues previously as a guide on where to go. 

Remaining students are enjoying some well needed R & R at the Palmyra Swimming hole, and having guided tours of the bird habitats and landscape that makes this unique refuge a delightful place to visit.

From Palmyra,

Barbara Block

Prothro Professor of Marine Science

Infinity at Palmyra Atoll

I have dreamed of going to Palmyra since I was sixteen. Over the past half decade I have envisioned ten thousand versions of the moment I'd one day see it. None of the those imagined futures, not even the sum of all them, could approach the magic of real thing.

The ship was predicted to spot land sometime early this morning. I awoke at sunrise, slammed contact lenses into my eyeballs, and blitzed above deck.

The sky was wispy-grey, with rippling sheets of high-altitude clouds giving way to clear morning sky. On the far horizon, underlit cumulous clouds radiated pale yellow like the floor of Olympus. A thin gold line pierced through just above the horizon-the sun was edging upwards. Minute by minute, light rays grew and spilled over the horizon and refracted on the bottom of the clouds, which glowed orange, pink, and red. The full moon stood watch above the multicolor drama. 

There was Palmyra. Sixteen islets of silhouetted palms rising straight up from the ocean. Some parts of the forest appeared from this distance to be dense masses of jagged treetops, while others were thinner, and the outlines of individual trees emerged.

A Watch (we work in A, B, and C Watch group teams; I am in C Watch) was laughing happily as more folks came above deck and gazed baffled at the land. We all smiled silently as we leaned over the railing, each letting the realness of this moment filter through our own many imagined fantasies of it. Of all the different emotions we were each feeling individually, a core part of this experience carried the same inexplicable gravity for all of us.

*Aside: They had first spotted land that morning around 5:30 am (Erika shouted the definitive "Land Ho!"). About half an hour before that, A Watch had seen something in the sky. Erika saw it from the bow, and within seconds Vuk had rushed over and reported seeing the same thing: a pencil-thin line of brilliant white light, the length of the moon's diameter, streaking across the sky. And it didn't fade out-it soared on and on and remained in the sky for full seconds. A Watch religiously maintains that that they saw a UFO.* 

The water was purple. Then the sun peaked up and splashed it orange. Within a minute, the sky gave way to brilliant day.

*20 minutes later*

I'm sitting on the doghouse now. There is no wind so we've revved up the engine to motor towards Palmyra, aiming to anchor at 0900 in the lagoon. 

Now we're close enough to see color and depth on the island. What were once solid grey outlines now reveal themselves as three dimensional: there are forwardmost trees and trees receding into the distance forming a cove around a lagoon. Waves are breaking on the reef and throwing spray into the air.

We're under a mostly blue sky with a couple cloud puffs but a cluster of heavy grey clouds are gathered over Palmyra. A grey cube of opaque rain sheets down over the rightmost corner of the atoll. 

All morning, I had thought that the island seemed indifferent, stalwart-neither inviting nor shunning our approach. But now, as the dark rain mass crawls across the whole island and masks the emergent greens, blues, and whites back in grey, I sense the first note of foreboding. The ominous dread consistently documented in the sailing logs and journal entries of Palmyra-visiting mariners going two-and-a-half centuries back. (I and everyone else journaling about today aboard the RCS joins that anthology).

*5 minutes later*

Suddenly we're close. Students are asked to stay on the forward deck as the crew commandeers this tight, difficult channel entry. A couple crew with walkie-talkies have climbed up forty feet to the top of the rigging, another is standing on the bow, and Captain Greg stands with commanding confidence on the quarterdeck near the helm, and Duncan steers. As we enter the reef channel, crew members mandate that we all be quiet so commands can be received and updates given between the RCS and the small dingy manned by Palmyra staff, guiding us in.

No one would be speaking anyway. Language has melted away at the feet of the temple we were entering. Towering jungle trees of shimmering lime and deep dark green and every tone in between shoot up from the thinnest band of visible soil, ringed by a couple meters of powder-white sand, lapped by kissing baby waves. Above a single treetop circle five dozen boobies, moving like a feeding cyclone over an abundant feast. In another single branched tree, forty birds sit like porcelain Christmas lights. And that is every tree on this dozen-acre-long-patch of outcropping paradise. And the then the next islet is upon us: some different but equally spectacular wrangle of knotted up, squawking forest-vibrantly, aggressively, defiantly alive.

We scan all around us. All of a sudden we are inside it, in the lagoon. We are surrounded on all visible sides by these islets that formed millions of years ago when a colossal ocean volcano subsided on a moving tectonic plate down below the ocean surface and the coral reef growing around its rim crept upwards a couple centimeters per year, just faster than the volcano sank or the Pacific rose, and on the reef accumulated soil and sand, and trees grew and shark swarmed and birds nested and Polynesian voyagers stopped by during long voyages to catch fish and rest and then pass on, and still not a single human soul stayed and lived in this mystical place until just the last century.

Some of the islets are just a single, isolated, tall, 100-meter-across mottled mass of overgrown trees. Others are just five lone trees on a little spit of sand in the middle of the lagoon. We float past each in near silence. A deep, powerful rumble resonates from the edge of the reef, where the Pacific crashes on the coral. The main ambient soundtrack is, of course, the bird cries. Above that is the occasional click of some metal pulley in the rigging, tapping the mast. Above that are the sporadic directions Captain Greg is receiving through his radio and the updates he voices back.

Then, at a hushed murmur amidst that all, are our awed whispers. Regina just described the silence as "reverent." I am thinking of a quote from an essay I once read: "Language itself seems to fall to pieces when it touches certain topics."

The water below us is blindingly blue and pierced with sun rays. Farther on, surrounding the islets, the water is a pristinely mint-green, iridescent snow-blue, and can't be deeper than a couple feet. The magic of the moment is coupled by the gravity of the danger. Leaning over the railing, we can see clear-blue down to the reef floor below. Our slow, tactical entry over depths as shallow as twenty-five feet has incredibly high stakes.

"Mantas on the port side!" We all scramble to the railing. Two meters from the side of the boat, four manta rays swim at the surface. Each is about a meter across. They twirl and spin over for us. Their wings playfully flap the water before they retreat below. Then the water is calm for a minute, and then a blacktip reef shark passes by.

***

Within minutes, we had just seen all this. And we had merely just glided in without yet even trying to explore the layers of wonders alive and dead and undead in this place. Just then it collectively dawned on us-like a radiantly sun-lit cumulous cloud drifting overhead during sunrise-that we had entered an infinity. Unexplored and unexplorable depths of beauty and diversity thrive here.

That realization was augmented by another: we had never really "entered" an infinity because we had never left infinity. All the world is endlessly magnificent in ways that every living, conscious, and curious creature can spend their lives trying to understand. No matter if we try to master some portion of the night sky, a transect of the sea, a single islet, or a small patch of soil, we will never explore to the ends of all its dimensions. The world in its infinite complexity spans out farther and macroscopically bigger-but also more inward and microscopically smaller!-than any of its inhabitants can ever hope to comprehend.

Then, a third realization came: the endless beauty drifting past us before our eyes, and the endless beauty of the whole planet that hosts it, is the same infinity that we carry in each of ourselves.

Staring at the sun's glistening reflection in the water, picking up and letting go and picking up and letting go each of these infinities, I accepted that I could hold them all at once. And I was blissfully content with that.

- Charlie Hoffs

 

1,000 miles

Yesterday morning just before 0600 local time, our trip log reached 1000 nautical miles. While I peeled carrots in the galley later that day, this number kept sloshing around in my thoughts. I began to consider the personal ground I've covered in these 1000 nautical miles.

At mile zero, tethered to the dock in Honolulu, I had no idea what happened when you hauled on a braille or a clewline. At mile 1000, I know that if you do a heave to maneuver and you're still making two knots of forward progress, you have to double gybe again and sheet in hard after the first one to reduce the lift generated by the jib and stays'ls, and make sure the cow of the jib is resting against the forestay.

At mile zero, I was ravenous for knowledge. I wanted to know the name and function of every line and be able to convert between degrees and cardinal directions without looking at the chart. At mile 1000, I am much more invested in learning about and supporting my shipmates. As it turns out, the parts of a sail rarely make you laugh until your ribs feel like they might snap.

At mile zero, I was so concerned about getting enough sleep, anxious that without enough of it, I'd have no energy to learn and socialize and be a competent sailor. But I know now that energy on the Seamans doesn't just come from a proper night's sleep and a full stomach - it's granted in spurts that rain down on you just when you need it most. It surges when I stand lookout at the bow in the dead of a moonless night, and the gentle exhales of giants surfacing all around me sends tingles through my fingers. It bubbles up when a rainbow kisses the sea just a few dozen meters ahead of me while I take a deck shower. It rushes through me when I step on the deck to find the sky looking up at me, the sunset's golds printed onto the dimpled waves. It spikes when, on a quiet, sleepy dawn watch, a flying fish launches out of the water, ricochets off Diego's stomach, and flops onto the deck.

At mile zero, home was far away, present only in the pictures and letters of my loved ones taped to the ceiling of my bunk (that I do in fact smack my head on every time I sit up). At mile 1000, those pictures still represent home, and I look at them for a few minutes every night before turning off my light. But at mile 1000, home is beginning to seep into the floorboards of the Seamans too. I catch whiffs of it in group workouts at the bow, when a big roll sends us flying into one another in a knot of limbs and laughter. I sense it in the moments where I speak without thinking beforehand. I feel it in my ability to joke with my shipmates, watch officers, and even professors. I hear it in the guitar and ukulele plucking at all hours of the day, and in the temporary tattoo parlor that pops up in the salon after dinner.

We're only 1000 nautical miles in, with more than that to go. And so while in less than a month, I'll be flying home, I know that by that time, I'll be leaving home behind here too.

Lilah McCormick

 

Land Ho!

The many days we've spent on the open ocean are coming to a temporary halt. We are nearing land (!) as indicated by the change of currents, birds, and smells we've encountered today. Who knew you could smell land before you can see it? I definitely didn't, and have yet to confirm if I've been gifted with this special sailor sense. If I am, this will certainly not be the first time I've experienced something entirely new in our time at sea. While at first unfamiliar, I'm now calmed by the unrelenting motion in our groundings, hum of fans, and whisper of wind that make the ship feel like a home. I've been looking forward to reaching Palmyra since the day we left the harbor, but as we approach our first land destination I've felt nostalgically reflective of our days spent surrounded by nothing but the boundless sea.

The ocean has been a moody host. Some days, she greets us with a gentle current that lulls us into a hazy sleep down below deck. These nights leave the Seamans without a trace, disappearing in the wind we've learned to harness. Other times, the comfort we find in the ocean's soothing rhythms is abruptly disrupted by her seething hisses and the wind's bottomless howls. These nights tend to linger, found in a sleepy smile shared by my watch mates in the lab or an all-too-frequent missing number in our role call. 

The sea's omnipresence has dictated all we've done, observed, and felt in the past two weeks. As I bob twenty feet in the air on the bow under the moonlight, the extent of our powerlessness begins to set in. The thought scares me: are we as in control as our meticulous boat checks, regimented schedules, and precise sail handlings have made me feel? I distract myself by picking my favorite stars from the sky, mindlessly latching on to a handful of speckles from above. Approaching land brings some eagerly awaited comfortability - our microcosm has known nothing but the unfamiliar since the day we departed.

Soon, we will be greeted by the welcoming sight of trees, dirt, bugs, and everything else I've vowed to no longer take for granted. I anticipate my relationship with this ship will change when we reach land - the leathery charthouse maps, sticky handrails (it turns out no amount of Envirox will ever be enough), and resilient sails will no longer be our lifelines. But for now, this is our world. And until the smell of land reaches my eager nose, I will relish in what surprises the ocean decides to bring us next.

-Mia Bennett

Marina

Dear,
Home is nearer than you may know:
                Because your spirit is here
                And I will always stay -

Eyes sailing the coastline sided by familiar faces (of) New sisters and brethren both
                And the peeking sun
                                                And the windswept wave.

This boat, however heavy-ladened
Will carry us safely to shorelines-
So surely peace, you have not yet deserted me.

Joy, you can still be found.
Hope, please hold on here once more.

For not all nights are starstreaked
(And) Not always will the gentle wind whistle lullabies: 

(See) Sometimes she laments,

(Sea) Sometimes these sails scream.

And marching waves bellow in agony for their sunken losses.

--

And still yet, their arrival-

Aboard this liquid land ceiling of violence and vibrancy alike- Serves as a constant; A reminder that we are not alone.

Though not always together

Marina, my love, home still nears.

-Matt Mathias

A Quick Note From the Editor...

Hi there!

My name is Randy Kochevar and I'm in daily communication with the ship, posting blogs and sharing news, etc.

I just received a trove of photos that were supposed to accompany the blogs the students have written. I've just added them (hopefully in the right places!), so you might want to take a second look if you were hoping to see a photo or two of your smiling child/boyfriend/girlfriend/student/whatever.

Best wishes!

Randy

The People With Me Everyday

When we each had the brief chance to add a Mother's Day note to the blog a couple days ago, I was in the middle of dish duty and helping wrap up a short-handed galley clean-up, then was immediately pulled above deck to help set the jib. I missed the opportunity to wish you a Happy Mothers Day on the exact day, but your omnipresence in my life transcends time, distance, and holidays. Mom, Ooma, Tete, Gigi: I feel you here with me everyday. 

Mom, I feel you here with me in every moment when I am challenged to push beyond my fears. On the second day of sailing, when a momentary reprieve from seasickness allowed me to jump back in on watch duties, I was put at the helm. Steering through 16 foot swells in the Molokai Channel, the boat keeling over so much that the starboard side almost sloshed underwater and waves sprayed over port deck, I was terrified. Then I thought about you thinking about me, relying on me being brave. You have always given me the confidence to steer my boat through rough seas. And I managed to stay on at the helm all the way through. After a few days, it is now my favorite watch duty.

Ooma, I feel you here with me at every opportunity I have to enjoy spending time with my shipmates. You have taught me so much about friendship, in the ways you center your life around people. Whenever I tell you about my anxieties with school/work/the future and seek advice, you always coolly remind me that everything is about people. Thinking about you thinking about me here on the boat, I want to make you proud by putting friendships first:

laughing, singing, cooking, eating, playing all together.

Tete, I feel you here during every moment in which I take an extra pause, and intentionally relish it. It brings me immeasurable joy to witness the joy you find in every day, from spectacular cross-country adventures to America's most beautiful places, to the everyday but still wonder-filled Trader Joes runs and home-cooked meals (you're the only one I know who loves grocery shopping as much as I do), to each treasured moment with friends and family. Here, I try to remind myself that each moment is a priceless gift. 

Gigi, I feel you here with me at every moment in which I feel the thrill of adventure. Traversing the fjords to Antarctica, the Great Wall to the Inca Trail, you are the explorer I dream of becoming, and I try to walk in your footsteps each day. As I gaze out at the Southern Cross emerging at midnight just above the horizon, you are here.

Happy Mother's Day to the most important people in my life. I love you!

-Charlie Hoff

Oceanography

The sun is finally shining on our voyage and the Trade winds are blowing at18-20 knots making our sailing under the four lowers and occasional Jib Topsail spectacular and colors vibrant. Oceanographic science has taken off quickly aboard the Stanford@SEA voyage with 6 stations (am and pm) already processed and in the bank.  9 teams of student projects are occurring on this cruise and the first 3 teams- focusing on spectacular eddies created by the island mass effect around the Hawaiian Islands, a second team investigating why white sharks linger in offshore waters south of the archipelago have gone into full gear.  A third team is analyzing the water collected for eDNA- forensically identifying who and what swims in the waters from the tiny bits of cells they shed. Each night we run a "hydrocast" and collect samples  from the Nisken bottles that automatically sample 2L of water and our instrumentation attached to the hydrocast frame collects conductivity, pressure and temperature data- the physical oceanographic data that helps us read the waters beneath or ship.

This is followed by  a meter net tow  that is sent down to the deep scattering layer- a thick layer we can acoustically see as our ADCP profiler sends sound down that bounces off the air bladders of the critters swimming in these layers. We can scoop a little bit of the ocean up with our Meter Net which we carefully put out two times a day down to depth as deep as
400m-   for later analyses to complement the abiotic data we are taking.

Once the samples are on deck from the depths we measure pH, oxygen, nitrate, phosphate and complement this with eDNA sampling.  We have taken almost 8 hydrocasts and 6 net tows- we've run 6 eDNA stations trying to find clues as to what backboned fish and mammals utilize these waters- by isolating their dna as they swim by.  Sequencing has commenced and shortly here aboard the RCS we'll know who is below us to complement the visual IDs in the net.

Students are quickly learning their lines and doing all the sail handling with their mates leading the way- it's an exciting time aboard the ship as full operations have commenced and the sailing is easy!

Dr. Barbara Block

Stanford Professor &

Chief Scientist S303

Leaning Into Uncertainty

As I write this in the library, I watch the porthole windows fill every few seconds with a rush of coiling white water. The gimballed tables behind me, which remain still regardless of the tilt of the boat, move at 45-degree angles to the benches every few seconds. After dawn watch two days ago, I came up on deck into the post-sunrise silvery seas and saw Vuk, my watch officer, standing next to the helm beaming. "This is typical for the Pacific," he said, as a three-meter wave rolled the boat at a pitch that sent me stumbling for the rail. "We're offshore for real now!"

Finally-heading south to Palmyra.

The ocean these days looks like blue hill ranges stretching to the horizon, ridges upon shifting ridges of them mottling beneath the wind. I'm still getting used to it after we spent five or so days sailing around the Hawai'ian islands. Not that I got used to that: with the clouds coiled around the volcanoes, every time I looked out my window it still felt like I'd cut out a picture from a textbook on magma hotspots and the Pacific Ocean.

Just before we set off from the shores of Hawai'i, I called my mother for the last time, waking her up at some time past midnight in Singapore.

(Sorry, Mama. Happy late Mother's Day! The interrupted sleep was my gift.) I videoed her the sunrise. As she squinted at the screen, the outline of the bedroom where I spent ten years of my life became just visible behind her and it hit me that as weird as all of this is, the rest of the world doesn't feel real, either. As the texts and updates came in the last wave of notifications while our boat pulled away from cell service, the names and people felt like (dearly beloved and deeply missed) characters in a story I heard once upon a time.

It's difficult to imagine that in another world, I'd be helping with dinner clean in Kairos or having lunch with my friends in Branner Hall or biking down Alpine Road. Or back in Singapore, hugging my dog or sitting on the balcony drinking a coffee in the morning. I miss the deep familiarity of it all and the places and people I could find my way towards blindfolded. But I am trying, as well, to lean into this place and these people where I have-literally-no ground to fall back on except what we can see and hold right in front of us. In learning it I realize how long it's been since I've been in a place where I've had to start from scratch with everything.

Audrey, our TA, told us as we got on the boat that she likes to compare sailing to launching off into outer space. JP, the assistant engineer, reminded us a few days ago that even on the International Space Station, it would only take you an hour to return to civilization. Now, more than 400 nautical miles into our voyage, it will take us days.

Going through the pin rail, where all the ropes that control the sails attach, and memorizing where each coil went and what it did, as I try to decipher what a jig does or where an outhaul leads, repeating the names over and over, hoping against hope they'd stick and knowing they probably wouldn't, I feel so out of my depth. But it's the kind of deep dizziness that comes with when, in lab, I turn to the computer and see there's four kilometres of straight ocean below us. I have to keep shaking myself into the truth of it every few hours: I'm here, in the Pacific, sailing south on a tall ship with nothing but the wind. This is going to be my life for the next month.

I need to get used to the fact that there isn't really any finding your ground here. There's only leaning into the uncertainty of it. Anyone who knows me knows I hate uncertainty, but that's all there is: you don't know how large the next wave is going to be, you don't know what's going to set you stumbling, you don't know what's going to be on the horizon. You don't know what the meter net will pull up, you don't know what's going to be in the Niskin bottles when you twist them open and the cold water comes rushing out, from 400 meters down.

So instead I memorize the pin rails and I know where to go when someone tells me I need to haul on the halyard. Instead I learn to tense my knees and broaden my stance so a big swell won't knock me off. Instead I scan the horizon, I hope for a whale spout and in its place I get the black line of a shearwater tracing the tip of a wave. Instead we filter water and pipette DNA and make backup plans on backup plans and let them go and claim them again, one by one by one. And I find one kind of knowing always leaves room for another. Every question only points to a second just ahead. I stay for the sunset. I try to remember how it looks. I try to remember there'll never be another like it.

In The Overstory, the book I'm reading right now, there's a quote I wrote down in my notebook: "The only true things are humility and looking." These days that's all there is: I'm at the bow, I'm looking out. With every horizon I scan I'm reminded the whole world comes before my body. I am still growing into the shape of it.

The Solace of a Handrail

It has been about two days since we lost sight of land. On deck, we are greeted by undulating, prussian blue waves as far as the eye can see.

Sometimes the waves are frothy, threatening to break on top of us with every swell, pushing us around with reckless abandon. At other times, they gleam in the sunlight, playfully jostling our boat and waving hello through the galley portholes. Surprisingly, being removed from all signs of terrestrial life has been a lot less scary than I had imagined it would be. It is astonishing how quickly I have become accustomed to my new life on the Robert C. Seamans. I have become accustomed to my tiny bunk, packed close together with familiar faces and new ones, to being woken up at odd hours of the night to stand watch for the boat, to hunching over in the stuffy engine room, making sure all the machines are functioning as they should be. I am even getting accustomed, albeit slowly, to the constant motion that defines the life of a sailor.

In the past few days, I have stubbed my toes no less than ten times. I have learned that if you don't have one hand available at any given time, you have no chance of steadying yourself when the boat encounters a strong wave.

It has been amusing to discover how many things have been strategically placed around the boat to help people balance themselves. In the galley, we have poles and handrails and benches to grab onto (but if you ever make the grave mistake of grabbing onto the gimballed tables, yours or a fellow shipmate's lunch will be promptly launched into the air). In the bunk space, there are handrails on the ceiling that you can swing onto from an upper bunk to steadily descend onto the ground. In the engine room, amidst the hot metallic pipes and whirring machines, the solace offered by a wooden handrail in a moment of unstable despair is unparalleled.

Sleeping on a moving ship has also been an interesting experience. On days when the conditions are calm, I love being lulled to sleep by the gentle waves. But on some nights, it is impossible to avoid hitting every solid surface in my bunk, making restful sleep a little harder to come by.

Despite the turbulence of this rocky new world, I already know that when I'm back on land, I will miss it. For the first time in my life, I am surrounded by my favorite part of the earth, gravity is unreliable and relenting, the only people I can talk to are the ones I live with, and the work I do is not for my own benefit, but for the benefit of my ship and my wonderful shipmates.

To my family and friends, I miss you so much! I hope you all are doing so well. I already have many, many stories to share with all of you.

(Love you and miss you Baba, Amma, Sohi and Mowgli)

By Maitri Rangarajan Paul