The Ocean

12/05/2020 - Iso Well-Being Compilation

 

Oh, to sail the seas with Pytheas

And see the midnight sun,

To map the continents with Ptolemy

With newly determined latitude.

 

Or to dive for sunken treasure

In major shipping ports,

Never imagining where it might lead

And how information gleaned might be used.

 

What a treat to meet Magellan

Before his untimely demise

And to continue with his fleet

As they circumnavigated the world.

 

Or maybe to use the first diving bell

And be submerged for nigh on an hour

Seeing what de Lorena saw

And wondering what more there might be.

 

How strange to row a leather clad boat

Underneath the River Thames,

Twelve oarsman to power it

And Drebbel at the helm.

 

Or to skip ahead some many years

To board Fulton’s Nautilus

With a pioneering rudder system

Still in use today.

 

Maybe visit William H James’ workshop

To see him and his miraculous device –

A self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

Requiring no tether to the surface.

 

Or accompany Charles Darwin

Aboard the H.M.S. Beagle

And see the very origins

Of The Origins of Species.

 

How I’d love to transport Edward Forbes

Forward through time and space

To visit the depths below the waves

Where he thought there’d be no life.

 

Or to be introduced to Louis de Pourtales

And esteemed Charles Wyville Thomson

As they discover there is no azoic zone

And life always finds a way.

 

What would it have been like to be aboard

A voyage of scientific discovery,

Sailing the oceans on the Challenger

Long before it’s namesake blasted into space.

 

Or maybe listening to the sea floor

In an acoustic exploration to the ocean,

Learning at the feet of Fessenden

In an icy wonderland.

 

Could I have troubled Beebe and Barton

For a ride in the bathysphere,

Discovering bioluminescent creatures

Never before seen by man?

 

Or perhaps stand with startled fishermen

As they brought a dinosaur back from the dead –

Once thought to be long extinct,

The Coelacanth lives on still.

 

If I could converse with Gagnan and Cousteau

About the aqua-lung and breathing regulators,

About revolutionising underwater exploration,

And it’s all made them feel.

 

Or be part of a hydrographic survey

In the midst of World War II,

Developing new technologies

And bettering existing ones.

 

I’d really rather like to take a trip

In a bathyscaphe with Auguste Piccard,

Plunging deeper into the ocean,

Pushing the limits to which humans could go.

 

Or maybe with his son, Jacques,

To the deepest point of the ocean,

Aboard the Trieste they saw wonders

New to the biological landscape.

 

To stand on the deck of a ship

Discovering seven miles of water below

A place called the Marianas Trench,

Though I prefer the Challenger Deep.

 

Or to pick the brains of Marie Tharp

Who discovered a rift valley

Which extends 40,000 nautical miles

And evidences continental drift.

 

The idea of deep-sea drilling

Perhaps doesn’t seem very exciting

But the samples brought back to the surface

Lead to the modern theory of plate tectonics.

 

Or what about spending a month

Submerged off the coast of America

Cramped in with 5 other people

Studying the Gulf Stream in all its glory.

 

I’d have loved to be aboard Alvin

Discovering deep-sea hydrothermal vents,

Ecosystems beyond the suns reach

And relying on chemosynthesis.

 

Or diving with Sylvia Earle in Hawaii,

Unconnected to the world above,

Over 1000 feet below the surface,

In a pressurised metal suit.

 

To watch Smith and Sandwell

Mapping the seafloor from space

By using declassified Geosat data

And enhancing accuracy like never before.

 

Or to be part of the team

That completed the census of all marine life,

Making a searchable online directory

Of what and where life exists, and how much.

 

To be there when Michael Lombardi

Created an underwater habitat,

Not for fish but for human beings but

To comfortably assist with decompression.

 

Or to capture video of mythical beasts

Like the enigmatic giant squid,

Not just study the lifeless remains

Caught up in nets or washed ashore.

 

What else might we have yet to discover

At the bottom of the deep blue sea?

Will we ever have all the answers

Or will there always be something new to find?