The Marine Biologist Who Dove Right In
It’s 1969, in the middle of the Gulf of California. Above is a blazing hot sky; below, the blue sea stretches for miles in all directions, interrupted only by the presence of an oceanographic research ship. Aboard it a man walks to the railing, studies the water, pauses to consider, then slips over the side. This is Bill Hamner.
On this day, Hamner will unknowingly set into motion a series of events that, several decades later, will result in multiple National Geographic articles, the birth of an international tourist destination, and a fundamental shift in how scientists think about open ocean biology. But Hamner doesn’t know any of this. At this moment, he is both literally and figuratively treading water. He’s hot, the deck is sweltering, and he’s looking, desperately, for something meaningful to do with his career.
The biologists go about their work as if this is how it should be.
Hamner doesn’t really belong onboard. An ornithologist by training, he has dedicated his career to understanding the inner workings of birds; already he has illuminated some of the physiological mechanisms that calibrate the breeding cycles of avian bodies to the sun’s rise and set. He does this ornithology work as an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, a valuable position because it offers the possibility of tenure, and tenure means security for his wife and two small children. But then Hamner
