28-Feb – Poly Cups Dive to 3000m Below

28-Feb – Poly Cups Dive to 3000m Below

Benthos Scientists, Sadie and Nicky handed me a polystyrene cup this morning, but without coffee, and told me to put my artistic skills to good use. “Why?” I said and they explained that if I decorated it, it will be put into a sack together with everybody else’s and attached to the DTIS, dive 3000 meters down in the Abyssal plain. So I just drew on some butler penguins with felt markers and a bit of a Tangaroa portrait. When the DTS was finally down on the bottom, I watched some amazing footage that the camera was transmitting back to the mother ship as it skimmed along bottom filming. Strangely the image of a dust-covered Stella beer bottle stuck in my mind. Sure enough, when the DTIS came back up and was hoisted back on board, my poly coffee cup was the size of a thimble, not even big enough anymore for a short short black. It was a bit crumpled too, musty have got the bends coming back up too fast.