Sylvia Earle Interview (page: 3 / 6) Undersea Explorer	Print Interview

That's true. Was there any luck involved in your career?

Sylvia Earle: Luck, or chance if you will, is a factor that comes ten thousand ways. Things change every day. It was good fortune I think that as a student I met Harold Humm, who later became not just my professor, but my lifetime friend. We correspond, not on a regular basis, but often enough so that it is a real continued contact, even though I haven't seen him for more than a year. There were times when I haven't seen him for several years. But true friends, you don't really have to see all the time. It's wonderful when you can, but you pick up, whenever you get together, and it's as if you have never been apart. That's a bit of an exaggeration to say it like that, but the rapport is steadily there, despite the long distances and the long separations.

It was good fortune, I think, as a student making a transition from New Jersey to Florida, that there was one teacher in junior high school who eased the transition for me. She was the science teacher, and saw the special sparkle in my eye and took me under her wing. Edna Tenure. And just encouraged me. I don't know that I needed a great deal of encouragement, but it was wonderful to know that there was someone who appreciated my kind of curiosity and enthusiasm. I'd do special projects. I guess you could call it that. I'd write stories and draw pictures and do things. Instead of saying it was nonsense, or don't bother, this is not one of your assignments, she encouraged me and suggested other things that I could do, and showed me books that I could read. That was very helpful at that crucial stage -- the age of 12 and 13.

My family was always there, but you expect your family to like you. It gives you a special kind of confidence to find someone who didn't know you before. It's a special kind of endorsement to find that they too have said you are okay, you are doing all right.

I'd like you to remember, if you can, your first dive, and how you felt when you did that.

Sylvia Earle: Remembering my first dive is easy. Anyone who has never dived should try it, and you will find why it's easy to remember the first time. I think it must be like asking an astronaut what was it like the first time you went into space.

It was a life-changing experience to go to that part of the world. It's a life-changing experience to put your face in the water, and be able to breathe underwater. To dive, I'd been using just a face mask -- holding your breath and going down. That too is a revelation. That little piece of glass that enables you to see clearly underwater. And to get a look at the fish on their own terms. That was just enchanting. I cannot remember the exact first moment when I did that. I think it was in the back yard pool, and I was looking at baby ducks in the water with us, swimming around. And that's just very exciting. But it's nothing like having the ability to go and stay underwater, and breathe underwater.
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My first opportunity came as a student of Harold Humm's. I was taking a class in marine biology. I was 18, and was in the Gulf of Mexico. The boat was about five miles off shore. The depth of the water was 15 feet. We had two scuba tanks and two of the old Navy-style aqualungs. No instructions except "breathe naturally." Which meant, simply, don't hold your breath.

Go overboard and just breathe underwater as you take for granted that you breathe above water. And the effect was astonishing. You go down into this clear realm. Well first of all, you are weightless. Which I already knew from using a mask and flippers. But to be down there and then, you breathe in and expect to have water come in and gurgling around. No. It's just, you can breathe. I couldn't believe it! You really can do this!
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So you exhale, and then you inhale, and then you exhale. What I do remember is that they had a hard time getting me to come back to the surface. I didn't want to come. I wanted to stay right there. But we had to take turns on those two tanks with eight students. So it was only consideration for them that I finally came back to the surface.

Tell us about the Tektite II project. You were excluded from the first mission, Tektite I.

Sylvia Earle: In 1969 a notice was circulated among universities in the United States, and elsewhere, that scientists who were interested in living underwater should submit a proposal about what they would do given that opportunity. There was no mention of male or female; it was just sent around with no comment. I put together a proposal of what I would like to do. I thought it sounded like an interesting thing to do. I wasn't convinced that you could do anything more that way than just by diving in and out. I had done quite a lot of that in expeditions on research vessels around the world.

I had been to the Galapagos, out off the southeastern Pacific, to the Juan Fernandez Islands, known as Robinson Crusoe's Island. I spent quite a lot of time in the Indian Ocean and in the Caribbean, and all over the place. But the idea of just staying under water for two weeks, I figured that given that kind of time, I should be able to get to know the fish pretty well and find out who was eating what. To first survey the plants and then see if I could identify preferences about who ate what and see who the grazing fishes were, and follow them around, and see their day/night behavior. That was my plan. So I wrote this up and sent it off the Smithsonian Institution. They were doing the review process for the research proposals. I was surprised when I got a call back, and there was some hemming and hawing on the other end of the line, about -- they thought the project was really good, but what did I think about actually maybe getting together with some other women to stay, for this project. I really wanted to go with three fish people, ichthyologists. I was the plant person, I thought we could work together. We had agreed that this would be a good project to do together. But the powers that be in Washington -- in 1970 this was, by the time the proposals all came through -- were really appalled at the thought of men and women living together under water. So they came up with this scheme to have a women's team.
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There were enough qualified women with qualified proposals that it developed that way. We became quite a curiosity. I can see why. There should not really have been a selection on that basis. I wasn't really with the team that I intended to be with, but it turned out to be just fine. I had not met any of the others before we started the project, but we soon became good friends. We met on our way to the Virgin Islands where the project took place. Became acquainted on the airplane, and then for two weeks of training and learning to use the special equipment, especially re-breathers. These are devices that provide more time than scuba tanks, and they do not create bubbles. It's a system that is much like what astronauts use on the moon in that air is recycled. Carbon dioxide that you generate as you breathe out is absorbed chemically, and oxygen is added automatically as it is consumed. It's a nice little package that fits neatly on your back, instead of being limited to a single hour at 50 feet as is traditional with a scuba tank. With the most refined device, of the sort we were using, you could get as much as twelve hours time. Typically, we only used them for half that time or less. During the two weeks that followed, when we were living together in the Tektite and conducting our research, we got along very well, became very good friends. I still stay in contact with two of the individuals. I have lost track of the other two. I know where they are and what they are doing, but I'm sure that if we got together, we would pick up where we left off and enjoy telling sea stories all over again.

Describe the environment that you lived in for two weeks underwater.

Sylvia Earle: It described by some as the Tektite Hilton. It's a beautiful four-room underwater motel, hotel, laboratory. The outside was white, two columns side by side, with cords running off to one side that supplied the power, the water, and the air that kept the underwater laboratory functional. The system was constructed by General Electric and we teased them saying that it looks like a big kitchen appliance.

Inside it was very comfortable. NASA engineers had looked at human factors, looking at living underwater as a counterpart for living in space. So efforts were made to really focus on what would make a pleasant living surrounding. We had some nice touches, such as different colors in different rooms, carpets on the floor. There was a television set, although nobody bothered much to watch it, because outside it was the greatest show on earth, literally, with a constant changing scene of fish and other creatures that would come by. We were outside as much as we were in. We might be ten or twelve hours out in the water. There was a nice hot shower. There was a freezer filled with frozen foods, and a complete kitchen with range and all the niceties of a nice efficiency apartment. Plus a laboratory set up so that we could bring things inside and look through the microscope. We had room for a few books, and so on. It was a very comfortable place to be.

But the most comfortable, the most appealing place to be was out on the reef. The project that I chose to work with was such that I couldn't get enough time outside. I really slept as little as I could get by with so that I could be out there with the fish, day and night. If I could, I would have been outside 24 hours a day. Couldn't quite arrange to do that, because we human beings do have to eat and sleep, alas. Not that I don't enjoy eating and sleeping, I do. But when there is so much going on, the astronauts surely have the same problem. You have to go to sleep when this incredible scene is out there. And yes, they do have to go to sleep so that they can be alert for the times that they are out trying to do that work. So, we did sleep from time to time in the Tektite habitat.

But we were just one of ten teams in all. The others were all male teams. We constituted the only all women's team. The previous team left some nice little mementos around, such as a little sign over one of the portholes that said "In case of fire, break glass." This, 50 feet underwater, of course. On the shower curtain, because NASA was interested in the behavior of the aquanauts as an analog for what might happen to astronauts in space. So 24 hours a day, they had cameras inside, looking at what we were doing. It was all right with the men's team, but what about men watching the women in the shower? Well, they put a shower curtain up there, but so as not to discourage the poor watchers, they put a pin-up on the outside of the shower curtain. Nice little mementos such as that greeted our arrival.

The best part of the whole experience though was having access to this beautiful clear water that surrounded the reef. This was in the area around St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. About 600 feet off shore, 50 feet down. We had the ability to range out as much as a quarter of a mile away, using either scuba tanks or the rebreather systems. We were able to navigate using compass, we also used a system by simply putting a piece of line along the reef. We could follow it like a highway. That made it possible for us, even at night, to see where we were going, to go out to a station and then find our way safely back.

The opportunity to get to know the fish was extraordinary. We found soon that a fish is not a fish is not a fish, that they all are different as individuals. Of the five angel fish that I saw almost every morning, I'd get up before dawn so that I could watch the change-over time, when the night fish -- the ones that are active at night -- tuck in, and the day fish, the ones that sleep at night, come out. Just as on land there are creatures -- not just fish, a lot of other things as well, corals even -- there are some that are open by day, and many more in fact, that are open at night. A complete change-over of the kinds of creatures that are obvious at night and at day. So I wanted to be out there just at that moment, that half hour or so, just at dawn. The five angel fish that were almost always there -- they're all angel fish, like all Labrador retrievers have certain waggly tail kinds of characteristics that identify them as Labrador retrievers, but every one is different. Some are more shy, some are more aggressive, some are more curious. Some kinds of fish, like groupers, have a particular kind of personality that make it very tough to eat fish after you've gotten to know them on a one to one basis. I certainly don't eat anyone I know personally anymore.
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I take it that this project, just the aspect of living underwater for two weeks, really energized you and had a significant impact.

Sylvia Earle: I soon found the opportunity to stay underwater, was more than just a quantitative advantage. We had more hours in the course of a day than you could achieve on the short scuba tank passport. Using standard scuba diving techniques, it's possible to go to 100 feet for about 20 minutes without decompressing. Decompression is the process that allows the gasses that have entered your system while diving to gradually escape so that you can safely return to the surface. If you stay longer than 20 minutes at 100 feet, it's necessary to take steps as you return to allow this decompression process to occur.

From the Tektite habitat, we were able to stay at 100 for an indefinite period of time, because we were at 50 feet to start with. At the end of the excursion for two weeks, we had to decompress for a long period of time. It wouldn't have mattered had we been there for one day, 14 days, 30 days. Once our tissues became saturated at the depth that we were at, at 50 feet, the decompression time is the same. In our case, it was 21 hours of decompression. We did that in a cylinder that we entered at the end of the dive, and gradually returned to surface pressure. Obviously, there is an advantage in having essentially unlimited diving time, as long as you have energy to go out. Instead of just two or three, maybe four hours in the course of a day at shallow depths, if you space it with time to decompress and have a programmed recovery time in between dives. But, six hours, eight hours, ten hours, twelve hours essentially, as much time as you could stay awake you could be in the water. But it's more than that. There is a qualitative difference in living underwater, and the insight that you can get because we start to have the perspective of a resident. You are there day and night. You see the sun come up. You see the sun go down. You see the whole interacting suite of creatures that come in and out in the course of a day. You don't get that on an in and out passport. You just catch a little glimpse. By becoming a part of the action, you really do see things differently.

The difference could be compared to driving through the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, and going there to live there for a couple of weeks, to camp there, and feel the temperature of the air on a regular basis. Not to just glide through and then you are gone. You can get a lot from a short glimpse, it's better than not being there at all, but boy, there is nothing like making a commitment and staying for some prolonged period of time.

Was there a turning point in your career when the potential of what you might be able to accomplish in this field opened up to you? When, instead of just studying what others have done, you discovered new avenues that you yourself could explore?

Sylvia Earle: I came along at a time when new techniques were opening avenues for exploration in the sea. The use of scuba, for example, was new when I began as a student. Every time I went out in the ocean with a scuba tank, I saw things that weren't in books. I can still do it. It's still that unexplored. The oceans are still virtually unknown. At first, scuba diving was considered to be a sport so fun that a scientist couldn't possibly be using it to any serious advantage. I found that using scuba was like using a microscope. It enabled me to see things better that I could catch a glimpse of from the surface. It was such a difference to actually be there and get to know creatures interacting. It made it possible for me to really use the ocean as a laboratory.

My colleagues, by and large, who studied the ocean, operated from the surface, dangling nets and dredges and bottles, and pulling fragments up and looking at the bits and pieces, glommed together in a mass on the deck. I've done a lot of this myself, but it forces you to be a great detective, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle back together again, and imagine what things are like below. I have a chance to actually go below, at least within the range of diving depth, and see for myself. Try to imagine dragging nets or dredges through a city. Imagine the fragments of this, the chunks of that. What do oceanographers really understand about the sea, based on such techniques?

I think I gained a certain amount of confidence in having been there, seeing it for myself. I became aware that I could contribute something special: this first-hand insight. It is still going on, and it will go on for a long time. We're rewriting the books. These books were written based on these indirect methods of gathering blindly, in fragments and chunks and bits, without knowing what the real situation is like. We're gaining access to the sea, first with scuba tanks, and subsequently with tricky submarines, and even underwater robots that give us a first-hand presence.

You have been so instrumental in devising more sophisticated technologies for doing just that. When did you realize that what existed wasn't enough, that you had to create new suits, new devices for getting below.

Sylvia Earle: As I have come along as a marine biologist, using such things as scuba tanks, and the Tektite habitat, and various submersibles, I've gained an appreciation for the dependence that we have on technology to get where we need to go underwater. We are as reliant on technology to explore the oceans as astronauts are. We are earth-bound either way. Without technology, we have a very limited perspective. With technology, responsibly used, the horizons are infinite. I constantly found myself frustrated diving. Looking at my watch: too little time. Looking at my depth gauge: can't go beyond this depth because I'll get into trouble. Two hundred feet seems like a long distance for a scuba diver. It is deep, deeper than most care to go. But it's ridiculous when you think that the ocean has an average depth of something like 14,000 feet. We are still diddling around the surface up here at 200 feet. The maximum depth is seven miles, about 11,000 meters. And we are just beginning to overcome the problems.

I guess it was a sense of frustration that drove me to try to come up with some solutions to the problem. A willingness to try alternative methods. I had an opportunity to use a system called the Jim Suit in 1979. I was interested in trying it in part because at the time I was doing a review of underwater exploration for a National Geographic book called Exploring the Deep Frontier. It gave me an opportunity to look at the technology that has helped our access or advance into the sea. I was very curious to know, and so were the powers that be at the National Geographic, what's the latest? What's new? What's around the corner? Two things seemed to be in that category. Underwater robotics were just getting started: the idea that you could vicariously go exploring sitting on the surface, watching a television monitor and flying the machine that would be equipped with at least a camera, and maybe tools as well. The alternative, or another approach, was through manned devices. Instead of forcing our physiology to adapt to conditions of the deep sea, to do what astronauts do, wrap yourself in a one-atmosphere containment. Don't try to bend physiologically, just create an appropriate shell around yourself. That shell can be small like an astronaut's suit, or it can be large like a space ship. It can be like a submarine. That's the equivalent of a space ship.

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