Days on the Thompson are filled with ups and downs.

It starts with the bounding main. For those of us new to sea-going adventure, we have been blessed with calm seas and have yet to experience anything approaching severe weather. The winds have picked up in the last 24 hours and the swells have grown, but for the moment it appears as if our bodies have adjusted. Our collective stashes of drugs, herbal and folk remedies, and wrist appliances are sure to be more than adequate to the task of dealing with motion sickness. (I am reading a book on seasickness, given to me by a friend, Clarice Yentsch. Heave ho! was written by a marine biologist, Charles Mazel, and begins with the line: "Homesickness is a longing to be at home. Seasickness is not a longing to be at sea.")

ROPOS control room. ROPOS manager Keith Shepherd (center) piloting ROPOS, engineer Le Olson taking notes on the size of the structures we're trying to recover.

At first glance, opportunities for exercise on board ship are minimal. Margaret Carruthers says that when the seas are rough, you discover muscles that are essential to keeping you upright. There is the ping pong table in the lab and I am told there is a small exercise room with free weights and a stationery bicycle that sometimes isn't (stationery). But there are stairs. All the labs, the main lab, the ROPOS control room, the computer room are on the main deck. The mess and the science room/library/conference room are one deck up on the focscle deck. The quarters for most of the scientific staff and teachers are one deck below the main deck. The laundry is two decks below.

ROPOS and its ups and downs drive the rhythm of life on the ship: Hoisting ROPOS into the water, monitoring ROPOS systems for two hours until it touches down, working ROPOS on the bottom, watching ROPOS ascend, and raising ROPOS and its garage onto the deck.

Keith Sheperd and Istvan Urcuyo discussing their strategy for collecting biological samples from the edifices.

Last night got off to a great start. ROPOS went down, all the way down, without a hitch. The telemetry was fully functioning. The recovery frame made it to the bottom. There was the measuring hoop, just where it had been left the day before. The hoop was retrieved and placed on Roane, a newly rechristened sulfide structure. Low and high temperature probes were deployed. The recovery frame was retrieved and ROPOS headed for the first target structure. Then word came from the bridge that winds were increasing to 25 knots, gusting to 30 knots, and ROPOS had to come off the bottom. The winds and the swells put the vehicle and its recovery at risk and so work is scuttled for the night.

The true ups and downs turn out to be emotional. Good news and successes are periodic and cherished. Encounters with the bottom and the seals and the dolphins are downright euphoric. Hurry up and wait is the order of the day. Expectations are relentless and disappointments are inevitable, often unspoken, but given voice in people's deep faces and sighs. Every operation is complex, filled with dependencies, variables, and unknowns. Conditions are extreme. Technical systems, from satellites to duct tape, are vulnerable. Every person does his or her best, and, of course, there is the weather. Life is full of disappointment and joy, but for the most part we suffer them intermittently and in solitude. There is something about being at sea, on the ship, keeping long hours, living in close quarters, that amplifies every high and low.

Myles Gordon