Ms. Cooper
Well, today was my second dive and I was lucky enough to sit in the “front seat” for this dive. “Front seat” means that I get to sit in the glass bubble at the front of the sub and operate the cameras. I felt like I could see everything! Our dive was to 2,700 feet, where we found a vertical wall about 70 feet tall that we followed along for a few hours. Since we’ll be going home soon, we only collected a few animals but took lots and lots of pictures of everything we saw. Most of the wall was covered with sponges, crinoids, urchins and sea stars. The most common colors we saw were white, red, and yellow, but we saw a few green sponges as well.
One thing that amazed me about riding in the glass sphere was that everything looked much smaller than it actually is. The glass works the opposite of a microscope, so when we got to the surface, I was amazed at how big the urchins we collected were! They looked much smaller to me while we were under water. Near the beginning of the dive, we saw a swordfish. I thought it was maybe 3 feet long, but my pilot (who has lots of experience in the sphere) guessed it was about 6 or 7 feet long!
The coolest thing we saw was at the very end of our dive. A swimming sea cucumber came right up to the sphere and hung out long enough for us to get some really great pictures and video.
After such a great dive, I think I’m going to be quite sad to reach the end of the deep sea cruise tomorrow.
Today was a very busy day. The laboratory was bustling with scientists working on their deep-sea research. The gentle hum of the ship’s engine was deafened by the sounds of clicking counting devices, noisy pump saltwater filers, and the commotion of scientist discussing their research. That evening the marine biologists got together to discuss their research and student projects. It was so interesting to hear talks on a diverse range of topics. The use of snail slime, urchin spines as a habitat for many unusual creatures, how plankton eat, and worms that live inside the gut of urchins were just some of the research that was taking place onboard. After the presentations, we ate our weight in ice cream sandwiches, danced on the bow of the ship, and just had fun. It was a very long and memorable day.
Sincerely,
Mr. Miller
