Life. At Sea.

My fingers were wrapped around the warmth of the mug in an attempt to battle off the cool ocean breeze. It was the little glass blue one, I always chose that color when I made my pre-watch tea. I think it had something to do with the way the light glinted through, once I filled it with water. The beauty of that sheen filled me with a satisfaction which, assisted by no small amount of caffeine, kept me awake during even the most dull watch shifts.

Those would be the dreaded cable lays. At least for surveys there were some chunks of basalt to look at.

But today I had stumbled down from the galley after breakfast to a surprise: for the second time during our three week venture, the ROPOS cable had kinked and needed to be respliced. That meant no watch shift until it was fixed.

I used my free time to stand on the deck of the Research Vessel Thomas G. Thompson. My hiking boots, which had been recommissioned as sea faring shoes, anchored my feet firmly down though that was not necessary as I had long since acquired my sea legs. A small gust of wind reached out to me from across the waves, wrapping me in its embrace then attempting to sneak through each of my warm layers.

I took a sip of my tea to let the chill know it was fighting a losing battle.

I rested my free hand down on the railing as my gaze lingered out across the water. It had been repainted recently, probably just before the first leg of this expedition. White, of course, to match the rest of the ship. I could still feel the rust however, hidden beneath the fresh coat and pushing itself against my palm. That was to be expected I suppose, out here everything fell victim to the charm of the sea.

It is possible that I preferred the blue mugs over the others because it reminded me of what we were surrounded by. Not that we really needed any reminding. Though on second thought, I couldn’t actually think of any waters that matched the hue. I recalled the warm and vibrant tropical turquoise off the shores of Thailand. The dark and mysterious shades of navy beyond the reefs of Hawaii and Micronesia. The murky browns beneath the surface of Puget Sound. And the cold steel grey of the Northern Pacific where we were currently sitting.

It’s funny that when you’re on shore they say that you’re in the Pacific Northwest. Three hundred miles offshore, one mile above an underwater volcano, and we may have gone further west, but we were now in the Eastern Pacific. Living on a sphere could be consequential like that.

The clouds broke, just so slightly, and the faintest beam of sunlight struggled through, attempting to force itself against the ocean’s surface. But the water remained unmoved, with the exception of some ruffled agitation at the wind which constantly whistled by. So the clouds reclaimed their previous position and the beam dissipated, rejected and resigning the sea to its grey and lifeless state.

But I knew better.

I knew the boundless multitudes of life that spiraled through those vast depths, for I had seen it all through the eyes of ROPOS. I had seen the trillions of microscopic organisms swirling past during the decent, interrupted by the occasional startled inked squid or long strands of gelatinous plankton, clinging together in the darkness. Barracuda flashed their threats from a distance, while at greater depths the indifferent rattail fish swam by without a glance, but the real party was down at the bottom.

An underwater volcano is a magical place. Miles of craggy basalt, long since spewed up from within the Earth’s crust, set the stage for magnitudes of brittle stars performing their slow and subtle dance across the floor as the long legged spider crabs pick their way through the throngs in search of a feast in the form of a fallen cnidarian. A skate may meander on by, its journey slow and arduous as a result of the crushing pressure from the water above, and pass a dumbo octopus which is so agrivated by our sudden appearance that it curls its tentacles and takes on an amusing shade of red, yet refuses to depart from the perch it has claimed. Everywhere, water percolates down through the cracks of the floor, where it meets with an unexpected surprise. The magma chamber, the life blood of this site hidden deep down in the depths below, heats water and stone alike resulting in a chemical turbulence that succumbs to the laws of density and forces its way back to the overlying ocean. The mixture explodes upwards in shimmering plumes of both black and white. Embraced by the cooler waters, this violence is only encouraged as reactions are enacted once more and sulfide deposits form towering chimneys reaching up into the darkness above and the superheated waters appear as fires on the seafloor.

But these sites also become the breeding grounds for new organisms. Bacteria thrive in the warmth and chemicals to the point of blanketing the area in a swath of snowy whiteness speckled with growths of violet protists. Forests of bone pale tube worms sprout from the chimney walls, their blood red and feather light tentacles reaching out to grab a snack before becoming one for a passing crab. Sea cucumber sit scattered among the action as shrimp and nudibranch pass them by. Life goes on.

Back at the surface my eyes scan out into the distance, lingering on any suspicious white caps and hoping for a sign of something interesting. Anything besides the uniform grey of water and sky. And then, there. Far off along the horizon, the clouds had taken another chance and parted to illuminate the faint spray of water that rushed up towards them. The spout held for two moments before dissipating just as another shot up beside it. A pod of pilot whales. And at that moment I was the only person in the world to bear witness to their confirmation of life beneath the surface.

Behind me a group of engineers reach a conclusion. Thirty minutes until ROPOS is back in the water. I’ll still be on watch then, so I’d best stay awake. With effort, I disentangle my gaze from the watery expanses then in one movement I raise the blue mug to my lips and drain the last of its contents before turning and heading back inside once more.