Glass Eels, Shattered Sea

by Charlene D'Avanzo

  She lifted the bulky sack onto her shoulder as I thanked her and reached for my two smaller bags.

  Walking behind Alise onto the ship gave me a different view of the tattoo decorating one of her arms. What looked like a run-of-the-mill fish from the front turned out to be an eel, with a sizable dorsal fin running along its spine. No wonder the slivery creature had few friends—black and snake-like, the thing looked positively evil.

  Stepping onto the ship’s deck, I said, “So that’s an eel tattoo on your arms. I’ll bet Nick’s grad students are jealous.”

  Nodding, she said over her shoulder, “Yup. An eel tat for an eel cruise.”

  Harvey caught up with us. “Alise, hi. How did the CO2 and TA sampling go?”

  I’ll give you a quick update on the way to your stateroom,” Alise said. “You and Mara are just a few doors down from me.”

  As Intrepid steamed down to South Carolina from Maine, Alise had volunteered to test a new protocol for collecting Harvey’s seawater samples. Walking behind the two of them, I caught some jargon—Niskin samplers, coulometry, acid titrant—ninety percent of which I didn’t understand. Even though Alise was a biologist like me and not a chemist, she had volunteered to help Harvey.

  Just goes to show that one can’t judge a book by its cover, or in this case eel “tats.”

  Harvey and I tossed our bags onto our respective beds, used the john, washed hands, and were out the door in a couple of minutes. Even in the confined space of the stateroom, I hadn’t felt nauseous. Of course, the ship was still tied to the pier.

  “I told Ted we’d meet him in the mess,” Harvey said.

  I followed Harvey down the passageway. “Good. I could use a cup of herbal tea.”

  Even though the ship was still in port and not moving, we followed required protocol. With each hand squarely on a railing, we climbed up the ladder to the 01 deck, one down from the main deck, and followed the passageway to the mess hall. Seated on one side of a long table, Ted was already there, can of soda in hand.

  I had just gotten a mug of mint tea with honey and taken the seat across from Ted when Intrepid ’s engines came alive. I pulled two seasick patches from my back pocket and secured one behind each ear.

  “Here we go,” Ted said. “Next stop, Sargasso Sea.”

  Seated at the head of the table between us, Harvey asked, “How long before we reach our first station, do you think?”

  “Oh, it’s a ways,” Ted answered. “Midday, tomorrow?”

  “Last time I worked on the Sargasso Sea was years ago,” Harvey said, “and our stations were pretty close to the Bermuda lab.”

  “It’s enormous,” I said. “Something like two-thirds of the Atlantic Ocean. And warm. Water temp in the low seventies, warm ocean breezes. And before either of you say it, no, I won’t be swimming unintentionally.”

  During two separate research trips with Ted and Harvey, both in freezing cold water, I ended up in the drink. While neither incident was my fault, exactly, a couple of crewmembers I knew well still teased me about “swimmin’ with the fishes.”

  “Change of subject,” Harvey said. “Why did Lieutenant, um, what’s-his-name, want to talk with you in the airport?”

  I ran a finger around the top of my mug. “Lieutenant Dunn. A very good guy, actually. I asked, and it’s okay if I give you the overview. It was about Nelson and Jack. Turns out Nelson acted as an undercover agent in South Carolina for Operation Broken Glass. Being a retired fisherman, he assumed that role in a sting. Remember I told you Nelson was mumbling something like “cheese” after he got shot? Dunn thinks he was saying “Chinese” because the sting targeted Chinese traffickers.”

  “So they shot Nelson as payback,” Harvey said.

  I swirled my tea. “And they may go after Jack, so Dunn wanted to know if Jack had communicated with me, which he hasn’t. That’s pretty much it.”

  “My lord,” Harvey said. “Murder for eels. What a thing.”

  I looked at Ted to see if he had anything to say. He didn’t.

  12

  After Harvey left to talk with her technicians about the chemistry lab, Ted and I were alone for the first time in more than a week. I was about to reach across the table to put my hand on his, when he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said.

  “What happened, that business with Nelson. It’s…I don’t know.” He shook his head.

  “If you mean trouble follows me around, that’s not fair. I wanted to see how glass eels were caught. It’s just fishing. Who’d think someone would get shot?”

  “You wouldn’t. But when these things happen we—I—worry about you. It’s really hard.”

  When I was kidnapped and left for dead a few months earlier, Angelo had voiced the same sentiment, saying, “I don’t think you appreciate the toll this takes on those of us who care about you.”

  I blinked back tears. “Ted, I’m sorry. Truly. I’m not out looking for trouble. Really, I’m not.”

  Ted looked at me, his navy eyes serious. With his chiseled face and wavy straw-colored hair, he was a very attractive guy in a rugged, outdoorsy way. At that moment, though, he only looked defeated and tired.

  Just then, Intrepid ’s engines came to life. Standing, Ted said, “I know you’re sorry, Mara. We can talk about this later. I’m going up on deck. It’ll be the last time we see land for a while.”

  I waited, but he didn’t ask me to join him.

  In our cabin, Harvey and I used the time before dinner to organize personal stuff like shampoo, toothbrushes, clothes, and rain gear. I knew we were steaming—the engine’s constant drone, along with an occasional list to one side or the other, made that obvious—but the seas were calm, for which I was extremely grateful.

  Trying to sound upbeat, I held up a pair of shorts. “Haven’t seen these since, what, September? Can’t wait for the deliciously warm Sargasso Sea.”

  But Harvey knew me too well. Zipping up her empty duffel, she said, “You and Ted are trying to work things out, and it’s hard. I know that. But I can’t, you know…”

  I sat on my bed. “I do know. He’s your half brother. It wouldn’t be fair. But you and Connor were an unlikely match, and you’re a great couple. Maybe you can, um—”

  “Give you advice? Connor and I are very different. But all I can do, Mara, is tell you what I let go of and why. I will say that it’s worth it. It’s really, really worth it.”

  I glanced at my watch. “That’d be great. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later, but right now I’m really hungry. Time for dinner.”

  On our way to the mess hall, we passed through two lounges where science teams had met to finalize sampling plans and anticipate possible problems. A glance at the whiteboard in each lounge told me which team worked where. The chemist’s board was crisscrossed with formulas, equations, and arrows. The only visual detritus the eel group left behind was a sketch of eel life history: from eggs through a couple of larval stages and finally to glass eels. The sketches weren’t to scale—actual larvae are roughly a few inches long—and netting them from a sea, thousands of feet deep and a thousand wide, was going to be a real challenge.

  The whiteboard just inside the mess announced the dinner menu: steak, shrimp scampi, baked potatoes, rice, veggies, brownies. Feeding three meals daily to over fifty hungry people working outdoors was a big responsibility, and Mark, the senior cook, did a terrific job. I thanked him whenever I could, although the busy man was usually hard to find.

  Harvey wanted to talk with the chemists, so I carried my full plate to a table where the eel biologists were clearly enjoying themselves. Sliding onto a seat, I said, “What’s so funny?”

  Michael Mahoney, the grad student studying eels, told me. “Um, we’re doing eel humor. Want to hear some?”

  “Who could pass that up?” I said.

  In his best Dean Martin voice, Michael sang, “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s a moray.”
He leaned toward me. “Get it?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sure. Moray is an eel. You’ve got to do better than that.”

  “This is a good one,” he said. “When I was a boy, I was always careful to respect my elvers.”

  “That’s marginally better. I’ve got a physics joke. Ready?”

  Michael raised an eyebrow.

  “Have you ever read that book about anti-gravity?”

  “Well, no, I haven’t,” he said.

  “I heard it’s impossible to put down.”

  Michael and the rest of the eel team groaned.

  “Tell me,” I said. “What do you folks hope to get done on this cruise?”

  From the other end of the table, Nick Fisher took the question. “We were just listing eels’ extraordinary traits.” He used his fingers to count. “One, they spawn in a single region of the open ocean. Two, from there they find their way as tiny larvae to rivers all along the Atlantic coast. Three, after that they live in freshwater for years. Four, they then return to seawater and the Sargasso Sea as adults to spawn again.”

  “Given all that,” Michael said, “eels’ ability to adapt to enormous changes in water temperature, salinity, and other variables is mind-boggling. But their numbers have plunged over the last few decades. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I assumed it was overfishing,” I said.

  Nick jumped in. “Sure, but it’s not the whole story. We think global warming is partly the reason.”

  This was new to me. “Wow,” I said. “Keep going.”

  13

  Passionate, Nick spoke quickly. “Eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea where temperatures are on the rise. Eel larvae need food to grow, of course, and we think there’s less available to them because the water is warmer.”

  “I don’t remember you talking about this before. Is that right?”

  He nodded. “This is new research for us. We’re getting preliminary data for our next grant proposal.”

  I nodded. “Sargasso Sea warming and eel decline. That’s interesting. Depressing but interesting. Um, just collecting eel larvae with that huge MOCNESS net is a big effort. Will you also have time to assess what they eat?”

  “We’ll use primary production as indicator of eel larvae food.”

  That surprised me. Measuring either the mass or number of tiny floating phytoplankton—“plants of the sea”—would be a huge project on top of the eel research. Nick correctly interpreted my raised eyebrows.

  “Scientists at the Bermuda lab have been measuring phytoplankton production in the Sargasso Sea since the late eighties. We’ll use their data.”

  I turned to Michael. “This is really exciting work. Looks like you picked the right team for your grad research.”

  The young scientist looked around the table and beamed.

  After dinner I searched for and found Mark, the head chef, in the “back of the house” where the cooking and cleaning up happened. A handsome African American with a bald head and huge smile, Mark had an enormous job. Up before five a.m. and on task until he fell into bed, he was in charge of a critical domain on the ship: the mess hall. That meant Mark oversaw all the food prep and cleanup, the ship’s stores, organization of the kitchen and eating area, and the endless supply of snacks, muffins, bread, and cake for late-night or early-morning workers—or those who just craved something to eat any time of day or night.

  On top of all that, the man somehow managed to remember everyone’s name.

  Mark stood behind a shining stainless steel counter. “Mara Tusconi. Great ta see you again.”

  “A terrific dinner, Mark. I especially liked the shrimp scampi.”

  He beamed. “Good. One of my specialties.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I wanted to say hi to your baker. Where is he?”

  “George got real sick right before we scheduled to leave, so I had to find someone else real quick.” Mark glanced to the side. “See the guy at the sink? Hired him.”

  A crewmember standing behind the sink wiped his hands with a dishtowel, reached into his pocket, and slid a gold ring onto his finger.

  “He’s not a baker, so I’m doing that,” Mark said. “But he’s the best that was around.”

  “And you’re baking on top of everything else,” I said.

  Mark shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  “So when was your last cruise to the Sargasso Sea?” I asked.

  Both hands on the counter, he looked to the side for a moment. “Lemme think. It was just about a year ago. I love headin’ out there. Calm waters, warm. That’s easier on the crew—you guys too.”

  “It’s a special place, for sure,” I said.

  “On the Sargasso, the sunsets are, I don’t know, more vivid. That bright red against the deep blue water.”

  “And when will you be home with your family?”

  “After this trip. A month with my little girl and my wife. It’s great out here, but sometimes I miss them somethin’ terrible.”

  “A month. That’s terrific.

  He nodded. “I haven’t had that much shore time since that awful accident.”

  I sucked in a breath as the image of “that awful accident” flashed through my brain—my colleague, Peter, lying on Intrepid ’s aft deck, pinned beneath an enormous research buoy that had just dropped onto him.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to stir up bad memories.”

  I reached over and squeezed Mark’s hand. “It’s okay. We mustn’t forget Peter’s death and how it happened. We owe him that, at the very least.”

  As twilight darkened, I sought out one of my favorite spots—a quiet bit of deck directly beneath the bridge, the ship’s command headquarters. There, leaning back against a bulkhead, I could look down at the passing sea below or scan the immense night sky, undisturbed. After a quick nod, anyone who had business with the captain up in the bridge would quickly climb the ladder and leave me in peace.

  Since it was one of Ted’s favorite spots as well, I wasn’t surprised when he joined me.

  Settling in, he said, “Up here, the ship feels alive—you know, the constant hum of the engines, how we rock with the waves. It’s hard to notice that when everyone’s working.”

  “That’s why I’m out here now to enjoy this lovely night,” I said. “Especially for us Mainers, it’s pretty warm, and the Sargasso’s going to be even warmer.” After a beat, I added, “Um, I was just talking with Mark, who brought up Peter’s accident. In the context, you know, of extended shore time. It never goes away, does it?”

  “How could it?” Ted said. “As the rescue helicopter lifted Peter off the ship, we had no idea what would happen to him—or if it was an accident or climate change deniers doing their worst.” Taking my hand, he lifted it to his lips and kissed my fingers. “And in the middle of all the craziness, we got together on that cruise.”

  “Are you still glad that we did?”

  Turning, he dropped my hand and stared at me. “Of course I am, Mara. Why would you even ask that?”

  “I don’t know. We can’t decide whether we should live together or not. Things like that. It seems like it should be easier.”

  “We’re not starry-eyed kids, Mara. We’ve both got histories and issues, like we’ve said before.”

  “You’re right,” I said, entangling my fingers in his. “It’s a beautiful night. Let’s name the constellations, feel the ship as she pushes through the waves, and know how amazingly lucky we are.”

  14

  The next morning after breakfast, Dave Davies, the chief scientist from University of South Carolina (someone I didn’t know), suggested that each research team give a very brief description of what they hoped to accomplish on the cruise. The event would be for everyone aboard—scientists, students, technicians, and any crew members who could take the time. So keep it simple and short, ten minutes maximum, Davies said.

  “But we haven’t prepared,” complained a chemist. “And where’s the projector?”

  “No graphs, no formulas, n
one of that,” the chief scientist answered. “Just stand up and tell us the major question, why it’s interesting, and a little about the data you’re collecting and how.”

  It was a great idea. Davies started things off with a little history. I learned that in the early 1950s a scientist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod was the first to define the enormous Sargasso Sea as unique because it was defined solely by the currents encircling it and not land masses. Within the Sargasso is the infamous Bermuda Triangle, Davies said, 1.5 million square miles of ocean, where five fighter planes disappeared in 1945, including the rescue one.

  Ted and I were next. We explained that the Sargasso Sea’s Sargassum was different from other seaweeds because the algae reproduced by fragmenting. In addition, over one hundred types of fish, several sea turtle species, and about 150 invertebrates use the seaweed rafts as habitat. Then we described examples of amazingly cryptic animals living on Sargassum—like the ambush predator fish, with skin the texture and color of the seaweed, that darts into the water and swallows unwary prey whole.

  Nick Fisher made real the frustration of a researcher trying to find spawning eels in the Sargasso. “On our last trip we cruised back and forth with our acoustic gear trying to find their aggregates. Once in a while we found the right kind of echoes, but when we turned the boat around and dropped our nets, we didn’t catch a single egg or larva. This time we’re going to deploy a very large zooplankton net at different depths. We’ll certainly get eel larvae this time but will have to sort through all the other zooplankton out there to count them. The net is called MOCNESS, which is the acronym for Multiple Opening and Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System. MOCNESS is a bear to deploy, but the crew on Intrepid has done it before.”

  Grinning, a crewmember who stood in the back called out, “Happy for you, but not so happy for us!”

  The chemists ended the session by characterizing the Sargasso as deep (over 20,000 feet), saltier than most seawater, warm, and a “biological desert.” Given our account of the rich Sargassum zoo, the term “desert” led to some confusion until Harvey explained that chemists meant what was floating in the water, not living on the seaweed.