Paid a Visit to the Atlantis and Alvin yesterday with ABC news on board. We leave tomorrow...

Hey everyone well you can imagine we've been running around here in Mobile, AL in preparation for boarding the Atlantis tomorrow! I'm actually taking a quick break and then I have to finish up packing the computer gear! Check it out!  Yesterday we spent the entire day in Gulfport on the Atlantis. We were met by Samantha "Mandy" Joye and did a great interview with her focusing on her experiences in the ALVIN over the last 30 days. You'll see this in the documentary but I can tell you this much "THERE's OIL DOWN THERE," lots of it!
We spent some time in the Science lab with Mandy and then had the opportunity to work with Matt and Erin from ABC news and helped them crunch some video they needed to get out for Nightline.  We heard some of you saw that report so let us know how it looked! We didn't get to see it...Anyhow back to packing!
Got up close with "ALVIN" and you can see that here too. Please send questions and comments and we will try to respond to them ASAP. This is a wonderful scientific expedition and your all invited to come along with Mike deGruy and me...see ya!

Scientists gather at the annual BAYS & BAYOUS Symposium

We're here in Mobile, AL. and spent our first day meeting many of the leading scientists in the Gulf area. There was plenty to learn about the effects of the oil spill in this region and many stories were shared. One interesting story was that of Kerry St Pe who gave an incredibly informative talk on the condition of the wetlands and how they have been in a steady decline over the last several decades. The wetlands play a vital role in the ecosystem and specifically in recovery from catastrophic events such as Hurricanes and pollution. The amazing thing is how resilient they are when left alone vs. digging up the shoreline and removing flora and fauna and sand that may be contaminated with pollutants. Of course the most recent threat to the wetlands has been the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The remedy quite surprisingly enough appears to be to "Just leave them alone." Also amazing to us Kerry St. Pe did believe that using dispersants was actually a good thing. Read more about the wetlands here.

The modern world we live in...Greetings from 35,000 miles high in the sky over Texas

So I'm sitting here on an American Airlines flight headed to Gulfport, MS and posting on the plane from my iPad. It's pretty incredible how far technology can soar in some areas and yet fail in other situations. Take for example the Gulf, a catastrophic failure of technology onboard the DEEPWATER Horizon...There is more information surfacing everyday and maybe some of you out there have your own theories based on the current data available, of course, on the INTERNET. Now if only they could apply some of that great technology out there to cleaning up the oil. We will look into that matter as well. For now 50 year old technology needs to get modernized!

Phase II on LAND Jan 2nd - Feb. 4th

OK so here's the plan for Phase II of "Deepwater Rising." We return to the Gulf and cover it by rugged Range Rover for one month to finish episodes 2-6. More to come...gotta finish packing as we leave at the crack of dawn for Gulfport. Next post will be from the GULF!

Schools on Board via CYBERSPACE

Well at the suggestion from the Academic community we will be responding to children all over the country with any questions they may have relating to the oil spill. We will try to field as many posts as possible and re-direct your questions to the incredible scientific community aboard the Atlantis. I guess we'll need a BELL! School aboard will be in session beginning Dec 6th!

 So to all of you students out there lets see what questions you can come up with...Like hmmm where's all that oil now? Oil is a natural substance can't nature deal with it? What's PLANKTON?