Sylvia Dives
July 7-8, 2000

	Sea Cucumber Photograph by Sylvia Earle

Submersible ops are suspended July 7 for scheduled maintenance of the DeepWorkers. We anchor offshore from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Steve Webster and the aquarium’s aquatic residents dazzle the McArthur crew during a rare behind-the-scenes tour. Acknowledged by directors of other aquariums to be the “best in the world, ever,” the recently assembled exhibits on deep sea life are especially appealing. Heretofore, only a few people in deep diving submersibles have had the joy of personal face-to-face encounters with the deep ocean’s living jewels. Now, children, teachers, moms and dads, anyone, everyone can peer into the face of a spectacular spidery-legged crab or watch luminous rainbows pulse along the sides of a deep-dwelling comb jelly.

	Post-Dive Interview Video by Kip Evans (Requires RealPlayer.)

The next day, I became one of those lucky few to take myself into their realm, 1,013 feet [308 meters] down into the canyon. Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute dive here frequently with a sophisticated remotely operated vehicle equipped with an array of cameras, instruments, sensors and tools to gather selected specimens, and sometimes I have gone to sea with them to look over the shoulder of the ROV pilot as he maneuvers the vehicle while looking into a television monitor that displays images relayed from the depths.

	A tin can at 800 feet [244 meters] Photograph by Sylvia Earle

But here I am on my own, not operating a cabled vehicle from the comfort of a warm, dry cabin on a ship; rather, I am inside a warm, dry vehicle that protects me from the pressure and cold and delivers an atmosphere scrubbed of carbon dioxide, rich in oxygen. I am alone, but hardly lonely. Thousands of creatures are just outside DeepWorker’s clear dome; descending into the canyon is like diving into jelly and crustacean soup. At 400 feet [122 meters], I am immersed in a cloud of krill and they continue to be companions to 900 feet [274 meters], and are there replaced by red-splashed sergestid shrimp that appear to be skiiing on their improbably-long antennae. And there, among exotic-looking basketstars and crinoids, glistening anemones and craggy-browed rockfish I find what I find on every dive I’ve made in the past 20 years—trash. First a beer can. Then a tangled wad of monofilament line. A bright orange rainjacket, plastered with anemones and sheltering several large prawns. Another can. And then, looming like a superhighway across the sea floor, the unmistakable track of a fishing trawl.

—Sylvia A. Earle
Project Director
Sustainable Seas Expeditions

[Note: nationalgeographic.com does not research or copyedit dispatches.]