At Sea
Thirty degrees south of the equator, along the coast of northern Chile, aridity rules the land. This is one of the earth’s great desert belts, circling the globe from the Kalahari to the Great Australian to the Atacama, driest of all. For thousands of years, people have made their homes here in the few fertile valleys, watered by precious rivers descending from the sacred mountains, the Andes. But for their nourishment, for life, they have always looked to the sea.
The worlds beneath the ocean’s surface have their climates too, written in a language far different from those of the land, often in stark contrast to the neighboring realms above the waves. Here along the west coast of South America, cool nutrient-laden waters from the south and from the depths of the trench that parallels the shore nourish super-rich blooms of phytoplankton, the great living base of an astounding pyramid of life that makes these waters some of the richest and most productive in the world. Just a few meters from the parched, sandy coastline where only a few shrubs and cacti survive, lie fields of rose-red anemones, teeming schools of fish, technicolor sponges, fat crabs, tiny shrimp, clams, mussels, barnacles and much, much more. Out in the deeper water, diving birds, sea lions, whales and dolphins take their place at the top of the great food web.
During the last day we have experienced the wonders of these temperate seas in all their excitement and beauty. Last night, in the lounge, we used the video microscope to view a live sample of zooplankton, the bottom level grazers in the marine food chain. A single quick tow through 200 feet of water at the afternoon’s stop had caught tens of thousands of copepods, larval crabs, arrow worms and other creatures, as weird as they are tiny. This was followed by video from a pair of dives, showing the lovely details, pure colors and humor of the rich rocky reef community. Then, just at breakfast time today, we really ran smack into it! First it was a group of fifty or more bottle-nosed dolphins, then sperm whales, then a group of pilot whales and a fin whale, all within a few minutes and a few hundred meters of each other and us! We know now, viscerally, that along this great desert coast the greatest oasis is beneath the sea.
Thirty degrees south of the equator, along the coast of northern Chile, aridity rules the land. This is one of the earth’s great desert belts, circling the globe from the Kalahari to the Great Australian to the Atacama, driest of all. For thousands of years, people have made their homes here in the few fertile valleys, watered by precious rivers descending from the sacred mountains, the Andes. But for their nourishment, for life, they have always looked to the sea.
The worlds beneath the ocean’s surface have their climates too, written in a language far different from those of the land, often in stark contrast to the neighboring realms above the waves. Here along the west coast of South America, cool nutrient-laden waters from the south and from the depths of the trench that parallels the shore nourish super-rich blooms of phytoplankton, the great living base of an astounding pyramid of life that makes these waters some of the richest and most productive in the world. Just a few meters from the parched, sandy coastline where only a few shrubs and cacti survive, lie fields of rose-red anemones, teeming schools of fish, technicolor sponges, fat crabs, tiny shrimp, clams, mussels, barnacles and much, much more. Out in the deeper water, diving birds, sea lions, whales and dolphins take their place at the top of the great food web.
During the last day we have experienced the wonders of these temperate seas in all their excitement and beauty. Last night, in the lounge, we used the video microscope to view a live sample of zooplankton, the bottom level grazers in the marine food chain. A single quick tow through 200 feet of water at the afternoon’s stop had caught tens of thousands of copepods, larval crabs, arrow worms and other creatures, as weird as they are tiny. This was followed by video from a pair of dives, showing the lovely details, pure colors and humor of the rich rocky reef community. Then, just at breakfast time today, we really ran smack into it! First it was a group of fifty or more bottle-nosed dolphins, then sperm whales, then a group of pilot whales and a fin whale, all within a few minutes and a few hundred meters of each other and us! We know now, viscerally, that along this great desert coast the greatest oasis is beneath the sea.
