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Introduction by Emma Johnson

Inside the main salon of the SSV Robert C. Seamans, past gimbaled tables surrounded by students and crew, there is a library. Fiddlesticks keep the volumes from flying across the room, and a small plaque provides some history on the ship’s namesake. Inside the library, there are sections titled things like, “maritime history” and“natural history,” “maritime literature,”and “nautical.” At the desk below the shelves, people were working. They were scribbling in journals, typing on a desktop, or coaxing a laptop to work through weeks of the ocean’s data.

The Seamans was our home for six weeks, but before that, sixteen students met in Falmouth, Massachusetts to start preparing for a semester and a cruise. Summer transitioned into autumn on the Cape, and we began to explore the legacy of mariners that came before us. We boarded a schooner for the first time, and faces filled with excitement and wonder at the prospect of taking a humble collection of steel, wood, and canvas across the South Pacific. When librarians kindly brought centuries-old collections of naturalists’ best attempts to characterize what lives in the sea, we gasped and laughed and wondered which illustration we would have tattooed on our arms.

After six weeks in Falmouth, fifteenstudents, a program assistant, acaptain, and two professors made theirway to the other side of the globe tojoin thirteen crew members alreadyliving on the Seamans. Fiji’s Pacifichumidity was a seasonal change fromthe winter winds blowing from the Atlantic.
Days later, the boat sailed north, and we got our first taste of running a boat underway. After days of a blue horizon, a dot of land appeared. We anchored in the bay at Funafuti, the capital of Tuvalu, and had the privilege of exploring the island. From Tuvalu, we sailed south to Savusavu, re-entering Fiji and learning more about nations in the South Pacific. From Savusavu, we continued to Port Denarau, where we arranged affairs to prepare for our longest passage, crossing the South Pacific Gyre to New Zealand.

Our time underway was distinct from our time on land. The shore presented opportunities to learn from landscapes and people that were new to us. We observed ecosystems and markets, buying and eating and walking. We came back on the ship filled with wonder and with questions – what is the future of these islands? What is our place in a globally connected climate? What drives the movement of water here?Back on the ship, a place that came to feel like home, we used our isolation to push ourselves. We learned to take care of the ship and of each other. We cataloged organisms we found in the ocean as we traversed almost thirty degrees in latitude. Nearing Auckland, each watch noticed more signs of land. During a dawn watch, beginning at 1am and finishing at 7am, a storm and sunrise revealed a city skyline. Our time as a community, taking care of each other, and the ship, was drawing to a close. Our journey was singular. One ship, 134-feet long, with eight sails and thirty-four humans. We plotted a unique 3,272 nautical milelong path across the South Pacific. Our journey was also one instant in a long tradition of people being pushed to observe and learn on the sea. We looked at the expanse of blue around us, for many of us, the first time we had been out of sight of land on the ocean, and the salted air moved us.

Many of us found ourselves making. Our response to all of the new routine and strange, rafted community, the groundbreaking sensory experiences, and elemental experiences of wind, sweat and spray, was to create. Even before we stepped foot on the Seamans, studying the maritime environment spurred sketches and music, paintings and stories. We framed landscapes in photographs. We knitted, embroidered, and crafted with every fiber on deck. On the boat, its inhabitants sang shanties about sailors long ago, and then made up tunes to work to. And we wrote.

In this issue of Sea Writer, our class shares what we want readers to know about our journey and the ocean around us. Some pieces are direct observation from our time on the Seamans. Others are writing about places and events that our journey did not reach, and instead engage with pressing issues on the front lines of a changing world that span place and time. All of them culminate in a group’s experience of the ocean, one that we hope readers can delight in and learn from.  

About SEAWriter

SEAWriter is a student-published magazine, usually created as part of SEA’s Environmental Communications course. Each edition features articles, creative writing, and artwork contributed by program students and faculty. Environmental communication is essential in raising awareness, inspiring action, and bridging the gap between science and society. SEAWriter serves as a culmination of everything students have learned in all their courses and research as well as their field component. Through storytelling and visual expression, students apply their knowledge and creativity to effectively convey environmental messages to a broader audience.