George Island & the Inian Islands, Alaska
Fed by the tumultuous Gulf of Alaska, the waters around Cross Sound are particularly dense with biomass. Sprinkled throughout the northern entrance to the Inside Passage, the islands of Cross Sound were buzzing with activity. Created by wind hundreds of miles away, a steady long-period swell was our first indication that the National Geographic Sea Bird was nearing the Pacific Ocean.
Serving as the pulse for another world, the tides of southeast Alaska can swing by as much as 15 feet. Not too much unlike Darwin or Ricketts, we explored the most accessible of all marine ecosystems: the intertidal zone. More than any other place, a tidepool is often where we have our most intimate first-hand encounter with such an apparently alien world. Questions arise more quickly than answers can be found in this place so foreign to humans. A thin barrier is all that separates theirs and ours.
Today, I decided to crash through the air-sea interface for another round of question-evoking exploration. Swaying in the cold, nutrient-rich waters amidst a dense kelp forests, I am dazzled by how tissue-thin fronds from the kelp Alaria sp. break up sunlight. The large algae ripples like amber curtains in an ancient temple, but they are anchored to the rock by holdfasts and are buoyed to the surface via gas-filled floats. The sight and sound of my bubbles coaxes a pair of large black rockfish from the protection of the thick Laminaria algae. Curious, the fish come right up to me and scan my features in a penetrating manner usually reserved for ‘higher’ forms of life.
As the surge increased, the kelp swayed with more vigor. I fought the urge to stay in one place and found myself amongst those that are at the mercy of currents and tide. Pulsing steadily and with direction, a lion’s mane jelly caught my eye. Filming the jelly became like a waltz as we rotated around one another, drifting to and fro, all the while the kelp swayed in time. We couldn’t be any more different but we both rely on the health of this ocean planet for our perpetuity.
Since more of Earth is covered by salt water than land, maybe terrestrial living is more alien than marine.
