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By: Dania Frazier
Hey fellow sea-nerds, I’m also Dani (yeah there are two of us, I’m the other one). I had to double-check my calendar before writing this, because it doesn’t feel like we’re at the halfway point in our voyage, but we are. Today (Wednesday, May 29th) marks the midpoint of our time on the Nautilus. I guess it makes sense, we’ve done so much already, but that was a bittersweet realization nonetheless. My time so far has been like the very best of educational vacations; I was the luckiest seafarer on our first day and experienced zero seasickness, so I got plenty of reading time in, mostly good vibes with a 24-hour front-row view of the waves.
Photo Credit: Dania Frazier
From day one, I parked up on the cozy benches overlooking the starboard flank of the ship, watching the water glimmer and change colors under open skies. It’s almost magical watching the hues of the water shift from vibrant blues under sunny Hawaiian skies to muted, cool greys that blend in with the darkening clouds overhead, blending until you have to squint to find the horizon. As I’m writing this, I’m watching the sun’s reflection skip towards us on the crests of the glassy waves, never quite reaching the port flank of our temporary home but offering a glimpse of warm golden starlight hiding behind translucent clouds on its path to the horizon’s edge. A few silhouetted seabirds skim the surface of the Pacific, the only visible beings apart from the inhabitants of the vessel for miles around. We’re seemingly alone on this endless plane of water… but of course, there are tons of life fathoms deep below.
Photo Credit: Dania Frazier
On this leg of the trip, the boat is only mapping and we aren’t deploying any ROVs. However, the crew of the Nautilus often explores murky oceanic depths to survey the diverse fauna and take images of otherwise invisible landforms. From towering underwater mountains to vibrant colonies of organisms that inhabit sulfurous hydrothermal vents, they have a state-of-the-art system that takes highly detailed video and images of the seafloor. To even make it possible to see in otherwise impassible environments, they launch the dynamic duo of Atalantis and Hercules (lovingly nicknamed Big Herc), two ROVS that work together to record and broadcast footage of the ocean’s bed. Hercules is a 6,000+ lb feat of engineering specially crafted to bring as much of what we couldn’t otherwise reach to the surface for scientific analysis. One of its specialized arms, the Predator, is capable of grabbing onto a variety of tools that can take samples, from a vacuum hose that slurps up starfish and seawater to a suction tube it jams into substrates for samples. The video and engineering crews are working together to add more cameras and record footage that will translate into VR experiences so you can feel like you’re there, in the depths of the ocean, instead of watching secondhand through a lens (though, it’s a VERY nice lens and both ways of viewing showcase the beauty down below).
Photo Credit: Dania Frazier
If you’re here you probably already know, but in case you don’t, you should check out NautilusLive on their website or YouTube to know what I’m talking about. And hey, on Friday (May 31st) the STEMSeas students will be live on the website to answer your questions and talk more about our experience! Come check us out 🙂 (and if you can’t, look up the Googly-Eyed Stubby Squid on their YouTube page- I promise, it’s worth it!).
