Karen's Daily Blog

On the bow of Atlantis at night, I lie on top of the hold hatch cover and look at the stars. Out here, far from land, they’ve stopped looking like holes punched in a sheet of black paper.  I get a sense that some of them aren’t so far away, that some of them are pretty far, and that some of them are so far away you’d never know they were there.  In fact I’ve known that most of these stars were there, even though they were all right up there over my head. I get a sense of the enormity of the universe.

If I cup my hands tightly around the submersible’s port and shut all light away from my face,  the creatures outside stop looking like glitter scattered on black paper. I get a sense that some of them are just getting out of Alvin’s way, that some of them are merely observing, like people watching a parade go by, and that some of them are so far away that I can’t see them.  I get a sense that I’m traveling through a world of distance, depth, and mystery, but it’s a world that’s been under my nose – literally! – for the last three weeks.

Alvin’s sail with Bruce Strickrott’s shoes waiting for him.  Yes, it’s a manned submersible.

Just when I had accepted the sad fact that there wouldn’t be room in this mission’s dives for me to be an observer, I got invited to join the very last dive.

Last night I hardly slept, but when I did my dreams were weird. Every morning the A-frame operator drops a clipboard from the doghouse on a string, to the launch coordinator below.  I dreamed that the person up there sent down the outfit I was supposed to wear to dive in:  it was a pair of lederhosen – those embroidered leather shorts with suspenders – that old-time German, Swiss, and Austrian boys wore. I woke up laughing so hard I thought I’d wake Bekki.  Yes, I was slightly nervous.

This morning I pulled on my jeans, long-sleeved shirt, warm sweater, and a sweatshirt borrowed from Craig Cary.  No lederhosen for me on my dive to the hydrothermal vents of Guaymas Basin!  After an hour’s delay because the wind was so brisk we thought we might get ourselves another “snow day,” the weather settled down and we got the go ahead to dive.

Mark Spear was the pilot, and Fanny Reisman Moussan was the starboard observer. I was the port observer, the holder of the dive plan – the list of jobs we had to perform. And we were busy:  we worked together to use the Sipper to gather water samples and take temperatures. Mark placed the Sipper’s wand in the sampling area, and supervised Fanny, who manned the power and pump, and me, firing the Sipper. ( It sounds like I pressed a button or pulled a trigger, but the fact is I hit the enter key on a laptop computer. )  Mark used the manipulators to take heat probe measurements (the record temperature for our dive was 299º C on the underside of an outcropping or flange of an enormous, mushroom-shaped vent structure. He used corers to bring up samples of mat and sediment. Fanny and I  helped Mark sight towers, chimneys, hills, and bacterial mats out the ports, basically giving him extra eyes on the sides of Alvin’s head to see where we were going.

It is murky down there, full of marine snow (floating live or dead organisms) and clouds of kicked-up sediment. But there ought to be some postcards made up that Alvin travelers – and everyone in the Guaymas area – can send to their friends. See the giant riftia of Rebecca’s Roost!   Visit the multicolored towers of Pagoda.  Swim with the galatheid crabs at Oil Town! I got to go to that postcard place in person. I saw the large purple lobster that lives there, and the delicately spotted swift orange squid. I laughed when I saw what looked  like two big dark jellies, when I realized that it was one with a big shadow – a shadow made by Alvin’s light, probably the first light (and first shadow) this jelly had ever experienced.  I saw thick, large white starfish, and loads of little white crabs.  Fringed orange sea anemones.  Pulsing, clear jellies with silver strands and a red center.  Blue fish with long rat tails. 

Today I was lucky.  Tonight, I am grateful. And tomorrow ends Extreme 2008. What a way to say goodbye!

P.S. Thanks to Katrina Twing, we still have a photo journal today.  She took the pictures while I took a dive!

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