Visitors from the Deep. August 9-10, 1999 @Sea correspondent/ photographer, Mark Carroll August 9, 8:54pm, Gulf of Mexico, 80 miles west of Sanibel Island, Florida -- The R/V EDWIN LINK cut through the calm Gulf waters en route to today's dive site. The immaculate white ship contrasted beautifully against the sea. For a while, a pod of dolphins surfed our bow wake, darting in front of the ship with agile turns, occasionally breaching the surface during their amazing demonstration of control and speed. Late night on the deck, the JSL sits ready for an early morning launch. As we approached our dive site, Second Mate Matt Skelly cut the main engines. The ship slowed and gradually came to rest, and the dolphins dispersed to find their fun elsewhere. Surfing dolphins ride the ship's bow wake. On the way to today's dive site, ten of the agile animals surfed for a quarter of an hour, occasionally leaping from the water. Within minutes of our arrival, the sub disappeared underwater on a new search for sponges. The JOHNSON-SEA-LINK (JSL) sumersible looks so high-tech...so COOL...it's easy to loose sight of the fact that every facet of its design was guided by basic, practical concerns. It is a tool--one that is constantly being rebuilt and refined to do its job better and more safely. Among the JSL's most important functions is to give scientists an ecologically low-impact way of collecting deep water samples. Before tools like the JSL were available, collection of deep water samples traditionally involved trawling -- a bottom scraping technique borrowed from the commercial fishing industry. Trawling is a rough technique, which can bring up many untargeted samples and can easily damage fragile specimens before they are brought to the surface. With the JSL, scientists can selectively and delicately grab samples with the sub's arm -- like picking single flowers out of a blooming meadow. Three hours after sinking into the inky depths, the submersible made contact with the ship. She was ready to surface. As the RVEL turned into the sea preparing to recover the sub, communication intensified on the bridge.

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The R/V EDWIN LINK measures 168 feet from bow to stern. Her highest point is 58 feet. She is wired in everyway, with manned-submersible sonar communications, NOAA weather fax, single sideband radio, radar, and satellite communication capabilites. Submersible pilot Phil Santos climbs into the JSL for a three-and-a-half hour dive. Listen in on ship-to-sub communications as the JSL submersible pilot brings his craft to the surface. Getting the JSL safely back on board the Research Vessel EDWIN LINK requires an intricately coordinated effort between the bridge crew, the ship's crew on deck, and the sub pilot. Each phase of the retreival is a carefully rehearsed ballet of humanity, machinery, waves, and weather. August 10, 7:40am, Gulf of Mexico, 80 miles west of Sanibel Island, Florida -- There is a bolt missing from the porthole in my cabin. Every morning, the bright rising sun projects an image of the ocean through the hole and onto the dark wall just beyond my bunk. So, I start my days in the mental fog of morning staring at this surreal pinhole image. In twenty minutes, I will be treated to another unusual perspective on the ocean as I climb aboard the JSL to hitch a ride into the depths! CLICK HERE to learn more about our correspondent, Mark Carroll.

© 1999, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution