One of the truly wonderful things about being a free lance writer is implied within the job title: freedom. I can pick and choose the stories and adventures that I bring to you. When friends and acquaintances are directly involved in the kind of projects and activities that I like to showcase in this weblog, it is all the more exciting to share it with you, my fellow readership.




One such friend, Ms. Tonya Del Sontro of the UCSB Graduate Studies Program in Marine Science, recently returned from a trip that I would consider a "once in a lifetime" kind of event, except it's not her first time going that far out on a mission at sea.

What you will come to find after reading this series is that there are some very committed scientists out there leading some astounding journeys in the name of education and furthering the field of marine biology. There was a palpable intensity and thirst for knowledge that came across in my recent interview with Miss Del Sontro, and I came away from our talk thinking that her teachers and mentors are equally impassioned and eager to learn.

You would not guess that this young woman would be the type to venture on a ship for 25 days straight without land. She's a Jersey Girl! Born and bred, true and true, a 1980's baby raised in the Garden State. But her first forays out of suburbia lead her to the ocean shores, as she took family day trips to Point Pleasant and Sandy Rock. With her first real vacation at age 14 a cruise to Bermuda, it appears she must have a natural gravitation to the sea and life on a ship.




Miss Del Sontro was one of 34 scientists and 23 crew aboard The Thompson (or the TGT as the locals refer to it), for a research expedition, part of a series titled Ocean Explorer. This particular expedition was designed by chief scientist Rachel Hayman. Although she was constantly collaborating with her colleagues, Hayman wrote the grant, came up with the vision and hand picked the crew, so final decisions were hers alone.

Now I can imagine how difficult some of the challenges must have been in terms of sharing a finite space like a ship on an empty ocean with more than fifty people. Just driving across Mexico with one person and a dog was a difficult task, but day after day of blue emptiness and the same steel hull of a ship? That must have been hard. Miss Del Sontro answered my inquiry on this topic with an important piece of information that relates to this entire blog.




This was not just a vacation stroll across a country with free time a plenty. This was a regimented and tightly run program, and there was plenty of work to be done and studying to be completed. Shifts were eight to twelve hours per twenty four and included all the general tasks of monitoring equipment for their proper functionality and maintaining laboratory materials. I got the feeling from Miss Del Sontro that there was very little time to be idle and bicker about the mundane. Instead, each person was on a strict schedule and knew their responsibilities.

After all, this Ocean Explorer mission on the TGT from the University of Washington had a job to do . . . as Miss Del Sontro related to me with a straight face as if i would really have any idea what the following meant: "We went to the Galapagos to study the hydrothermal vent distribution alonga hot-spot affected mid-oceanic ridge or flooding center." OK. In non-scientific English please? "We were trying to find Black Smokers."

Stay tuned for this multi-part series where we can answer the question, what is a Black Smoker?

ER Harris