The Nautilus exploration voyage from Honolulu to American Samoa was scheduled to last a few weeks. Along the way, they planned to explore the deep ocean floor around Jarvis Island with robotic vehicles to learn more about the area’s biodiversity.
However, that didn’t happen.
Mechanical issues on the vessel led to a two-week delay at the docks and a shortened trip.
“We kind of just did a transit from Hawaiʻi to Samoa, where we did the mapping of the sea floor," said Molokaʻi's Gandharva Mahina Hou Ross.
Ross is a Hawaiian language immersion teacher for Molokaʻi High School’s O Hina I Ka Malama program. He was selected as a science communication fellow from applicants worldwide for this Nautilus leg.
Though Ross said the change in plans was a disappointment, he still had some memorable moments. He’s also a Hokule’a crewmember and is familiar with traditional navigation and environmental observations. Traversing the equator was a first for him.
“I really wanted to go to see crossing the equator and see the climate changes and the wind changes and how the stars kind of change as we cross the equator. And so I spent a lot of time watching the stars and looking at things we would if we were doing traditional navigation," he said.
Ross' job aboard the Nautilus was to share the team’s work with students, educators and the public by doing outreach through livestreams.
He said he was still able to complete that during a short dive mission off Makapu’u.
“We had some Hawaiian language questions came in. So I was able to communicate in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi to a worldwide audience, whoever was listening in, and was communicating with some people from Hawaiʻi so that was really cool.”
Ross has also been sharing the experience with his own students since he got back. He said he hopes to participate in a future Nautilus voyage to be able to experience the robotic ocean floor exploration.
The vessel is continuing on with other planned voyages through the end of the year.
