The Dance of Discovery. August 14, 1999 @Sea correspondent/ photographer, Mark Carroll Phil Santos (right) radios the bridge as Dan Boggess enters the water to attach a tow line to the JOHNSON-SEA-LINK (JSL) submersible. August 14, 11:45pm, Gulf of Mexico, 120 miles west of Naples, Florida -- Outside was hazy today, almost foggy, and it is terribly muggy. Working outdoors in air this thick and hot is like working in a bowl of soup. Today, most of the crew sports sweat-stained shirts and soaked hair. It's always a lucky break to get to dive in the sub, but especially lucky for the people diving today. They will enjoy a cool, three-hour respite beneath the sea, unconcerned with such terrestrial matters as this outrageous weather. From a vantage point high above the deck of the Research Vessel EDWIN LINK (RVEL), I watched as the sub surfaced and its crew was re-introduced to the sweltering heat of the day. A timelapse condenses ten minutes of sub retreival to a few seconds. After the sub is secure on deck, scientists rush in (bottom right) to collect their new sponge samples. There is nothing commonplace about the sight of the submersible surfacing, not even after so many dives. Perhaps it is the enticement of the unknown that surrounds each dive. Perhaps it is the honor of being a witness, in some ways a participant, to the process of discovery -- a process that unfolds everyday beneath the waves, and in the labs, and on the ship's deck where the action of the crew is like a ballet set to the mechanical rhythms of the sub recoveries. As the JOHNSON-SEA-LINK (JSL) submersible rounded the starboard side of the ship, a lifejacket-clad swimmer, towline in hand, dived in to meet the sub. With speed and agility born of repetition, he left the deck and hooked the submersible in one continuous movement. Fluid.

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Sub pilot Don Liberatore hands a collection bucket from the JSL's benthic work platform to principal investigator Dr. Shirley Pomponi. The tube sponge Axinellida. Reseachers Tara Pitts and Julie Olson document each newly collected organism almost immediately after the sub surfaces. Ironically, after each sample is processed, they wipe the table with a sponge. The sub recoveries are beautifully coreographed. Each person has a role of equal weight, the swimmer no less important than the the line tender or the crane operator who slowly hoists the sub from today's calm seas. The sorting of sponge samples is an equally impressive study in movement. Once the sub is secure on deck, scientists swarm around the collection buckets with a coordinated burst of activity, driven by both curiosity (as is the way with science) and the urgency of time. These sponges, only an hour or two removed from their benthic homes, have a pressing appointment with science. I was surprised to see how far a single sponge goes in the lab (literally): a piece for identification, some for microbial isolation, a snippet for chemical extraction and cell culture, the rest bagged, tagged, and frozen to be tested later in the drier, more stable laboratories at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution. All of the efforts to gather samples from the depths of the continental shelf--all of the activity on deck--all of the slicing and dicing in the labs represents just a small fraction of the coordinated effort required to bring new cures to the world. Wilderness photographer Mark Carroll, the correspondent from our Shark Mission to Brazil, returns to bring you the action from the Keys. Click below to learn a bit more about Mark...

© 1999, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution