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The digital clock on the wall in the lab says 158:21:40:00, which probably doesn’t mean a lot to most people. The first number, 158, means that today is the 158th day of 2026, while the rest tells me it is 9pm (2100 military time), 40 minutes, and zero seconds. I’ve never counted days in the year when I’ve looked at a clock but today is a good day to change one’s perspective. If I keep counting, I’m 38 days from my 55th birthday, which means I’m 20,051 days old. In that mindset, 158 days is a short time, a blip in our lives and approaching halfway through 2026. Today, day 158 of the year 2026 and day 20,051 of my life, for the first time, I’m literally going out to sea and will soon be leaving the land behind.
Today in an unknown but short time, I’ll be going beyond the visual reach of land for the first time in my life. It feels a bit ironic since as a marine scientist who has taught marine biology and oceanography for decades, I’ve never even touched beyond the edge of the land. I also spent a lot of my childhood fishing off the coast of Alaska in my hometown. I’ve been quite a way out to sea but have always been able to see land. If you think about it, most of us, except perhaps by airplane, have never left the sight of land at any time in our lives. A normal boat and even the giant cruise ships that were in the port of Seward Alaska where we just left, generally stay within sight of land.
Many people are aware that 30% of the earth is land and 70% is water, but if you dig into that perspective a bit the Pacific Ocean is about 50% of our planet and at its widest is over 12,000 miles across. Literally half of our planet is the Pacific Ocean and over the next 10 or so days I’m going to sail with STEM SEAS on the RV Sally Ride from Seward, Alaska to Newport, Oregon. Sitting here typing this blog, I’m looking back at where we came from which is literally looking back in time to where we just were and I’m watching these huge mountains growing smaller and smaller. When are they going to disappear from view? I don’t actually know but I expect it in the next few hours. Want to work the problem, we are travelling about 11 miles per hour. We’ve already travelled about 20 miles and the highest mountains are about 5,000 feet in height. Now there is a way to math that and get an answer, but to be honest I’m enjoying the unknown and just watching them grow smaller.
In front of the boat is, at least from my perspective, the future and endless water that goes on forever and appears nearly bottomless. We’ll be travelling over a subduction zone at some point in the near future and at that point the ocean will literally be about 20,000 ft deep which sounds crazy deep. If you convert that to miles, one of the deepest spot in this vast ocean is around 4-5 miles deep, but in the time I’ve typed this the Sally Ride has literally travelled that distance albeit horizontally. So, remember that change in perspective? I’m going out to sea and will shortly be hundreds of miles beyond the coast and near the edge of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of both the US and Canada. For those not familiar with the concept of the EEZ, countries can claim the 200 miles directly off the coast as their jurisdiction. So, although we’ll be outside the sight of land, I’m still going to be on the edge of half of our planet.
There’s a couple of things that made me nervous before getting on the Sally Ride. I’m terrified that I’m going to be seasick. Yes, I’ve taken the pills, but I don’t know how it will still affect me. Right now, the waves are hitting the front of the boat straight on and are only a couple of feet tall. Although the forecast for the next several days looks good, the ship was literally just up by the Aleutian Islands, and a crewmember described the 250 ft Sally Ride going and “hiding” behind the islands due to the waves. Yeesh. I hope we don’t see anything like that. I’m also weirdly nervous of leaving the sight of land. It is just completely in my head but still has an impact. As I type this, I keep looking up to see if the mountains are still there…yup but getting smaller. Now this blog isn’t going to post for another 36 hours, so by then I expect these fears will be mostly gone and I’ll look back. Fear of the unknown is one of those things that can keep us from doing amazing things, but we can also use it as motivation. Which will guide you?
Update on Day 160: The mountains did disappear from view but due to clouds and not the curve of the earth. Waves got a lot rougher the first night at sea and made sleep a bit hard but had no issues and in fact am currently not taking any of the seasickness medications. I still look out the window at the endless ocean world in awe and it’s a remember that most of our fears are just our minds playing games with us.
