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Chris Allen, Student Interview
July 26, 2000
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Throughout the course of the Sustainable Seas Expeditions, we’re giving students and teachers the opportunity to participate in our research.
Chris Allen, a 15-year-old from the Washington, D.C., area, recently spent a week aboard the McArthur. Here he offers impressions of life on board.Listen to Chris Allen’s interview (requires RealPlayer)
Straight to Work | Seasickness
High-Tech Gear | Siphonophores
Unique Creatures | Before the Squid Boats
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Straight to Work: “I came aboard and I looked around and I could see two highly technological subs. They were quite cool one-man subs.... I looked around the boat. It was in pretty good shape...pretty tidy. Crew members introduced themselves quickly, and I got to know them pretty well. Everybody was nice, everybody wanted to help. I got my bunk set up, and right as I got on deck somebody was launching off the back of the boat, so I had to help out there. Kip Evans, the photographer, put me right to work, and I had to bring the tapes right back up to the control room and start dubbing them....”
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Seasickness: “A lot of people, even the crew members, used patches and pills so they wouldn’t get seasick, but I didn’t have any experiences and I didn’t see anybody [getting seasick].”
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High-Tech Gear: “I hadn’t seen some of the tools they had used—ever! I didn’t know they could have used that stuff. Some equipment for the video cameras was just amazing, I mean they were so highly technological.”
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Siphonophores: “Well, some were as long as a football field but as thin as a pencil. Those were called siphonophores. Those were green creatures, and they had heads the size of a golf ball, and that would let them move however they wanted. Usually they just drift with the water.”
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Unique Creatures: “Well, I saw an awesome octacoral the size of a soccer ball. It looked like a soccer ball, [but] it had all sorts of tentacles. It was really, really cool ... pure snow-white—very, very beautiful. I saw a basket starfish [sea star], and that was one of the most amazing creatures I’ve ever seen. It was so unique. I’ve never seen a starfish like that. It looked like an upside-down basket, and at first I didn’t know it was alive. I thought it was just part of the reef.”
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Before the Squid Boats: “I have no idea how many squid there were before the squid boats [arrived in the bay]. I mean, I saw thousands of squid just in the water while we were fishing. I can’t imagine, you know, how many there were before these squid boats. It must have been [as if] there was no water, just squid. ”
—Chris Allen
Student
[Note: nationalgeographic.com does not research or copyedit dispatches.]