At 2330, 100 miles out to sea, the Corwith Cramer is a flurry of activity—furling headsails to slow the boat down, deploying equipment into the black water below, logging reams of data into five different logbooks scattered around the ship. What’s the engine oil pressure? What’s the cloud coverage like? How many copepods are in this petri dish? There is a page and a person for everything.
The Corwith Cramer is a 134-foot, steel, purpose-built brigantine that the Sea Education Association (SEA) uses for scientific discovery and research. Each semester and several times a summer, cohorts of students arrive in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, for a two-part program that marries in-classroom learning with up to six weeks of field work with scientists at sea, in the Atlantic or Pacific. The ship’s scientists also conduct research and collect data for NOAA, particularly in hard-to-reach places. Despite the list of things college students are required to go without while onboard—internet, candy, and music to name a few—it’s a popular program.
I arrived on a foggy May afternoon, ready to shut my phone off and sail out of email range. After a long, gray spring with a new doomsday headline every morning, I’ll admit life on land was getting to me, and I was eager to cast off for
