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FATHOMING THE GULF STREAM - Nature's Pharmacy and Eyes In The Sea MISSION DISPATCH 11 • 08/29/02 Today's Weather - images courtesy of NOAA & RSMAS Dispatch by Dr. Peter Herring - Southampton Oceanographic Center - Dr. Herring of the Southampton Oceanographic Center in the United Kingdom is on the Ocean Exploration cruise as a member of Dr. Widder's bioluminescence team. He is a leading authority on the subject of bioluminescence, and the author of "The Biology of the Deep Ocean", published by the Oxford University Press. The oceanic habitat invites superlatives: "largest", "deepest", "darkest", "most inaccessible" and "most fascinating" immediately spring to mind. Awakening this morning to the erratic motion of our small floating home and the thrum of its hydraulics and propulsion I am struck by the colossal bravado (and sheer impertinence) of our efforts to understand it better. Taking a shower, slippery and unsighted, as the vessel rolls me about, is the first reminder that routine activities are no longer routine. 
Confidence in our human superiority has rapidly to be abandoned in favor of respect
for the dynamics of the medium on which we bob so precariously. We are but a speck on its surface yet we are confident
that our endeavors will yield new information about its inhabitants and generate new methods for their study. The trick
is to work with it rather than against it.
My first research cruise in 1962 was to a location in the
Sargasso Sea, not
far from where I am now, and in the continuous swells and seas my early appearance probably matched the greenness of my
experience. Recovery was quick after the first two days but on return I was surprised to find myself land sick in the
unusual stability of my first shower ashore! Happily the enthusiasm of those early days has never abated and I see
the same excitement and optimism in my companions on the
Seward Johnson. It is a privilege for us all to be part of this cruise and its objectives.
Exploration of the deep ocean and its inhabitants has advanced by conceptual and technological leaps and bounds from the solid achievements of the early pioneers who set the foundations of our present knowledge. Most of my career has been spent getting to know better the inhabitants of the deep ocean and interpreting their remarkable adaptations. Until the 1970s nets, dredges and corers provided the only realistic means of sampling the midwater and bottom-living animals. I thought (with some reservations) that the thousands of samples I had taken, from all depths, gave me a good feel for 
the variety and activities of the oceans inhabitants. With the opportunity to go and see for myself in the
Johnson-Sea-Link II submersible that comfort zone was rapidly dispersed. The dead and dying animals in the tail of a net
are damaged (and sometimes completely destroyed) by the abrasion of the net and by "cooking" as they are dragged through
the relatively hot surface waters, on the way up from the coolness of their normal surroundings. Their appearance and
behavior when viewed from the submersible is quite different. A stuffed owl tells us little about its daily life; a
preserved comb jelly or anglerfish is equally mute. Spend some time in the woods at night and the owl comes alive;
spend some time down in the ocean and so does its inhabitants. For example, not only can we recognize and admire the
intricacy and delicacy of design of the ocean's jellies (instead of painful reconstructions from the gelatinous
debris in the net), but we can also appreciate their importance in the economy of the ocean. The submersible allows
us to capture single animals and bring them back to the ship's laboratory undamaged, still immersed in their own
cold water. They reward us with stunning displays of bioluminescence
and other responses that we could never have imagined from the mush in the net.
Each small piece of information fits into one or more of the jigsaw puzzles that make up the life stories of each organism in the sea. We shall never complete the puzzles, but the pictures are gradually becoming clearer. Our terms are scientific but that does not prevent us from appreciating the delicacy and beauty of the fauna. My view from the submersible of the ocean floor 1,700 feet below the surface includes white glass sponges, indignant pink crabs, orange anemones, wandering rattail fishes, waving fronds of finger-like gorgonians in red, yellow and cream, and white coral. Careful collection brings up these animals for study on board and reveals further wonders of their life. The glass sponges, for example, are constructed of an intricate tracery of long silica spicules that provide great strength and rigidity for their wineglass or cylindrical shapes. Cutting one open to test its tissues for bactericidal 
properties reveals a pair of small equally glass-clear shrimps trapped permanently within the sponge. They were once
small enough to enter through one of the pores in the sponge's skeleton, but have outgrown the entrance and have
become incarcerated zoo-like within a safe but limited cage. The developing eggs carried by the female show the success
of this lifestyle, despite the limits to the pair's horizons.
We can trawl for live animals by using a special insulated capture bucket on the tail of the net. We want to know why so many bottom-living, deep-sea animals have large eyes, so we need to establish what those eyes can see by recording their electrical responses to lights of known brightness and color. Trawls and traps can give us the intact animals to work with, but take time to haul back to the surface. As we wait impatiently for the midnight trawl's return, the conversation is far from academic. Fuelled by popcorn and Snickers we discuss the complexities of a common language in which some of us talk of boots when we mean trunks, and bonnets when we mean hoods. Other more vulgar divergences are also considered and English and Australian explorers join in rare linguistic alliance in the face of overwhelming American odds. No wonder the English and the Americans have been described as divided by a common language! Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great essayist and compiler of the first English dictionary, did not like seagoing. He said that "no man should be a sailor who has enough contrivance to get himself into jail, for being at sea is like being in jail with the added possibility of being drowned." In his (17th century) view jail was more comfortable, the rations better and the company more agreeable. What arrogant nonsense - but he would have made an entertaining addition to our pre-trawl discussion group. 
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