12:47pm March 9th, Nashville, TN -- Brazil awaits...and waits. Repercussions from nasty weather in the Midwest have radiated south in the form of delay and commotion, trapping my plane on the runway only 15 miles into a 4000 mile trip. The word "ironic" comes to mind -- along with a few others not fit to print. I wonder if the rest of the expedition crew will meet the same fate?

11:23pm March 9th, over the Atlantic Ocean -- Done obsessing about essential gear checked to the luggage monkeys, I turn my attention to the in-flight tracking monitor. As the plane's icon inches south, past Cuba and into the Caribbean, Brazil still seems like an abstract dream -- just a slow-moving video game. For that matter, the fact that the expedition itself will be underway in a few more days is even more difficult to comprehend.

6:12am March 10th, approaching Sao Paulo, Brazil -- On the redeye from Miami, sleep is futile. At least the sun rises faster flying east. The early rays of light afford a first glimpse of the southern hemisphere. Colored clouds melt into an undefined horizon. Over the land, a uniform haze takes subtle cues from the clouds, a strange mirror of the sky. The rainforest of the Amazon breaks through and seems like one massive tree with branches of shimmering rivers and trees as leaves.

The view of the Amazon, that vast ecological cradle, is comforting. Visions of the Amazon always bring my mind to its terminus, flowing into the ocean. Perhaps the comfort comes from this seamless flow of water, river to ocean and ocean to ocean, providing the continuity that travel otherwise steals from our daily lives.

As glorious as this first glimpse of the southern hemisphere is, I am equally excited to get to the airport restroom. I remember reading that the Coriolis effect (the force of the earth's rotation on water) causes southern toilets flush in a counter-clockwise swirl, unlike their northern counterparts. I wanted to see. Unfortunately, my experiment was cut short by a Portuguese voice crackling over the loudspeaker. " Voô 959 a Rio de Janeiro."

8:56pm March 11th, Natal, Brazil -- Rio was not the last of a 37-hour series of delays and twisted re-routings, but the details have disappeared into a spinning, sleepless fog. By chance, I woke up on the ship, docked at the local port.

The rest of the scientific crew arrived by late afternoon, one member short -- lost to a positive pregnancy test. Cutting it close is intrinsic of all shark expeditions.

The remaining crew found that the stream of visas and paperwork designed to get to Brazil did not end in Brazil. Instead, some unseen authority rolled out the red tape in anticipation of our offshore adventure. So, in the early evening, a parade of foreigners made its way from the port to Natal's public notary, drawing a curious audience en route.

With these final forms complete, the R/V SEWARD JOHNSON leaves port tomorrow morning and navigates to its first destination: the remote atoll, Fernando de Noronha.