When we gathered around the lab table in the main deck, some people stood, weathering the ship’s rocking, while others perched on chairs or leaned against bolted down furniture. The boat’s movement, at first so foreign to most of us who had never traveled so many days at sea, had become commonplace. A heartbeat. All eyes were on the second mate, Jay, who had been aboard the R/V Marcus Langseth for more than fourteen years. Her eyes welled up as we told her where we were from and she spoke about her life, so much of it filled by time at sea and tethered by an unending love for water. 

She told us many things in the short hour we had together, and one piece of advice stuck with me, even after dinner in the galley and time watching the sun fall back into clouds. A ringing in the night air, even louder than the consistent chirp of the sonar devices that lived below our dorm window, taking data on the ocean depths. 

“Take risks.”

There’s something to be said for getting out of your comfort zone. I never expected that my journey aboard the Langseth would be so much of doing just that. Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. I am a desert girl from Tucson, Arizona. Most of my learning about the ocean, up until college, had been through pictures and stories while living in a land-locked state. Most of my conversations about water had been about conservation and water education– a given in the desert. My younger self never expected to be aboard a research vessel, surrounded by water that stretched as far as I could see in all directions. Some days, the sunsets left me asking myself, Is this real?’

So much of life aboard a ship is about adapting, getting used to new rhythms and new normals. You become part of the ship community quickly, in close quarters with people you’ve never met but who all share your same passion for learning, teaching, and the ocean. There’s vulnerability in being willing to open up and become part of that community. You must be willing to lose some of your privacy, to ask questions to people you’ve never met, to laugh together through meals and passing in cramped below-deck hallways. In learning the stories of others, and giving pieces of yourself in return, you grow.

You adapt in getting used to the ship’s schedule: to meals shared in the galley, to showers timed around roommates’ schedules, to taking your daily Dramamine at just the right time so as not to be drowsy during lessons. It is quite literally, like learning to walk again, acclimating to the roll of the ocean constantly interrupting your steps. There’s risk in breaking up the normal, building new routines. You adapt to a new schedule of learning, switching up your roles each day from teacher to student. Everyone around you has so much knowledge and expertise in their field. Your mind is constantly open to new information, challenging preconceptions or building on old beliefs. You’re constantly thinking, how can I take this learning home to make my classroom a better place? How does this make me a better teacher? Taking these risks, allows you to grow. 

Some of these “risks” could be seen as inconveniences. Breaks in the usual comfort of our everyday lives. However, sometimes it’s good to get comfortable with getting uncomfortable. To challenge our thoughts and ourselves. After all, science happens when we do exactly that. When we take risks, we learn together, we innovate, and we create something greater than we ever could alone. Science works when we challenge our ideas and perspectives. Most science educators never get the chance to experience research like this first hand, aboard a research vessel in the middle of the ocean. But however, “uncomfortable” they may be at first, these experiences give you pieces of knowledge and experience to help you connect your students to science. At the end of the day, moments of uncomfortability are drops in the bucket. They are forgotten during successful research operations, seeing all that hard work and learning come to fruition. They fade as we look together at the sunset, expansive and magnificent, filling the sky. 

“Take risks.” Why not?

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