An Open Letter to My Young Self

January 24, 2022 in Personal

Tomorrow night I will present some of my work at Photo Night, a monthly event hosted by the UNC Chapter of the National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA) and the Carolina Photojournalism program. While I have given several presentations at UNC over the past few years, sharing my work at Photo Night feels particularly significant.

I’ve spent the past week pulling photos and video files off my hard drives, organizing PowerPoint slides, and reflecting on the experiences I’ve had since graduating from the UNC School of Journalism just over a decade ago. If only my freshly-graduated-self could see where my career has taken me — she would be amazed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the students I’ll be talking with tomorrow night, especially those who are graduating this May. I imagine some of them are harboring anxieties or insecurities similar to what I felt 12 years ago. Leaving life as a student and becoming a young professional. Getting that first job. Those are daunting tasks even when the world isn’t reeling from a pandemic.

I wonder if the words I would write to my younger self could provide some comfort to a current college student? Maybe? Regardless, if I could travel back in time to 2010, and hand a letter to my 22-year-old self, here is what I would say:

**Leave your troubles at sea level.** Enjoying the view from my favorite spot on the Woody Ridge Trail [photo by Ryan Hurley]

Let Go

November 22, 2021 in Personal

I open my email and let out a long sigh. At the top of my inbox is a message titled “Alvin SVE postponed.”

This is not good.

Our chief scientist has just sent a long, detailed message to our whole expedition team. In it, he explains what has gone wrong with the submersible:

“…a problem was encountered with the sub that has resulted in an all-stop of activities… Obviously it is imperative to sort this out before any dive activities resume, and it is not clear at this point how long that process will take, although it is more likely to be months than days.”

We are scheduled to fly down to Puerto Rico four days from now. After months and months of planning, our history-making expedition to take HOV Alvin deeper than ever before is now postponed indefinitely. At this point, no one can say when (or if) the expedition will happen.

Send in the Robots

November 01, 2021 in Ocean

Well, this is different.

I have just boarded the E/V Nautilus in San Pedro, California. While I immediately recognize the friendly faces of my shipmates (even obscured behind masks), the aft deck contains several changes: a new extension, a new crane, and some distinctive ocean robots. In place of ROV Hercules, there is a bright red and orange vehicle called HROV Nereid Under Ice (NUI) and an eye-catching yellow robot called Mesobot, both from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

On this expedition, our team, including several scientists and engineers from WHOI, will demonstrate the capabilities of these ocean robots, both individually and in tandem.

Jessica Kozik wrangles line on the aft deck of the Sarmiento de Gamboa. — Jessica Kozik wrangles line on the aft deck of the *Sarmiento de Gamboa*.

Always in Motion

June 25, 2021 in Ocean

As the Sarmiento de Gamboa departs Vigo, jubilant energy radiates across the aft deck. Several members of the science team and crew have gathered here in the bright sunshine, pointing as our ship passes the Cíes Islands, taking photos, and relishing the joy of this moment.

Setting sail is always an exhilarating and unique experience — watching the shoreline recede and seeing only open ocean ahead. But today feels particularly euphoric.

This expedition has been a long time in the making, and everyone on board (especially our lead scientists) have overcome challenges to be here. After years of planning, two weeks of quarantine, and four days in port, we are finally heading out to sea to conduct research on essential ocean processes.

In our wide-eyed excitement, we cannot conceive of what the North Atlantic has in store for us over the next three weeks.

La Cuarentena

April 29, 2021 in Travel

I was fortunate to get fully vaccinated before leaving the U.S. (and most of our team has been vaccinated as well.) But the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, like all responsible organizations running international operations during COVID19, requires us to complete a full two-week quarantine before we board the R/V Sarmiento de Gamboa and sail into the North Atlantic Ocean.

A brand new one-line-a-day journal, versus mine — after five years of wear and tear (and lots of travel).

1,826 Days

March 02, 2021 in Personal

On my 28th birthday, my dear friend Jenny gave me a special gift — a five year journal. As a lifelong lover of words, I’ve been given many journals of the years, but never one like this: the journal is designed to write just one line (or a few sentences) every day for five years straight. So on any given day, you can see where you were, who you were with, what you were doing, thinking, or feeling exactly a year, or a few years prior.

Jenny included a lovely inscription inside the cover:

Marley! I know you like to document life with photographs, but when I heard of this 5-year-long journal I immediately thought of you…

I remember thinking it was a thoughtful gift. But it also felt a bit like being handed a challenge: Write something every single day for the next five years. Stick to it. Don’t forget.

Okay, I thought. Challenge accepted.

Capturing sunset during my first visit to Joshua Tree National Park in February.

2020 in 20 Photos

December 30, 2020

This year marked the first time in almost a decade that I did not leave the country. But in the midst of pandemic life, I feel fortunate I had the opportunity to travel (in compliance with COVID-19 protocols) to some incredible places within the U.S.

Below is a selection of images I captured this year.

A solo camping trip to southern Arizona in early February — before the world changed.

The Bright Lights

December 28, 2020

Oh, 2020. The year of all things bad.

The virus, the preventable loss of life, the economic turmoil, the racial reckoning, the divisive politics, the injustices, the anxiety, the fear, the judgement, and the isolation. It goes without saying: the list of bad things from 2020 is extensive and exhausting.

It is my greatest hope that as we enter into 2021, the collective adversity of this year will start to dissipate and our world will begin to heal.

I read an article in the New York Times recently that said 2020 will long be remembered and studied as a time when more than 1.5 million people globally died during a pandemic, racial unrest gripped the world, and democracy itself faced extraordinary tests.

History will remember the bad of 2020. All of us will.

And yet. I also want to remember the good.

A wide variety of sponges create a stunning landscape at Footprint Reef, off the coast of central California.

Aboard E/V Nautilus III: Ocean Flair at Footprint Reef

October 25, 2020 in Ocean

As the ROVs descend through the water column, slivers of silver flash across the monitors. First just a few, then hundreds, then seemingly thousands of anchovies chase our bright lights towards the sea floor. Their presence is the first sign that we are diving in an area abundant with life.

When the ROVs arrive at the bottom 20 minutes later, it appears as though we are sitting in a garden — a really funky garden.

A cluster of brooding octopus linger in the cracks and crevices of Davidson Seamount.

Aboard E/V Nautilus Part II: Welcome to the Octocone

October 18, 2020 in Ocean

In the control van, we’re talking about collective nouns for groups of animals. A murder of crows. A parade of elephants. A conspiracy of lemurs.

“Anyone know what a group of octopus is called?” I ask the room. A quick Google search yields mixed results. One list refers to a group of octopus as “a consortium”, while another result states they are solitary animals that live alone in an underwater den for their entire lives… you won't find them in a pack/herd/group in real life.

Tonight, we will prove that statement to be quite wrong.

Lila Bellucci slices a new section from a sediment core taken from the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

Aboard E/V Nautilus Part I: The Marvels of Deep Sea Mud

October 03, 2020 in Ocean

Just after 2:00am in the E/V Nautilus Control Van, our team is conducting business as usual: the ROVs are stationed roughly 3,000 feet below the ship, gathering samples of methane-rich mud from the ocean floor. I zoom the camera out to a wide angle view as pilot Dan Cormany skillfully guides a sediment core back into the rack on the front of the ROV.

While Dan secures the tube, Chief Scientist Andrew Thurber provides a running commentary that is both informative and entertaining. He tells us one milliliter of mud contains a billion bacteria. He details the myriad interactions between microbes. And he gives a vivid description of his favorite one, which sounds like something straight out of a science fiction movie:

“Bacteriovorax finds other bacteria that it wants to eat. It rams it, then spins into the cell like drill. Once it gets inside, it eats everything, replicates, and then exits.”

Before this expedition, collecting mud might have sounded a bit mundane. Not anymore.

I took this photo of Mt. Rainier (the view from our hotel in Seattle) two days before the wildfire smoke rolled into town.

Quarantine for a Cause

October 01, 2020 in Travel

Early morning sunlight slices through a thin gap in the hotel room curtains. As I open my eyes, I think for a minute about where I am, and how I got here. Yesterday I woke up in my bed in Carrboro. Then I went to the airport for the first time in eight months. Two flights and nine hours later, I arrived at a Residence Inn just a few miles from SeaTac airport.

And this is where I will spend the next two weeks.

“Stamped from the Beginning is a history of how racist ideas are built, and how they are built to last. Understanding this history is essential if we want to have any hope of progress. This book will forever change the way we think about race.” — … — *“Stamped from the Beginning* is a history of how racist ideas are built, and how they are built to last. Understanding this history is essential if we want to have any hope of progress. This book will forever change the way we think about race.” — Touré (author of *Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness*)

Summer Reading

August 31, 2020 in Books

“If Barack Obama came to embody America’s history of racial progress, then Donald Trump should come to embody America’s history of racist progress. And racist progress has consistently followed racial progress.” — Ibram X. Kendi

The following should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway: reading big books about racism does not automatically make you anti-racist. It does not make you woke or superior. It does not inoculate you from the constant, horrific headlines about innocent Black people murdered by cops. But in a time where participating in protests is not always possible, and donating money to Showing Up for Racial Justice, Black lives Matter, and the Equal Justice Initiative (and many, many others) simply doesn’t feel like enough, reading about the Black experience in America feels like a proactive (albeit small) thing to do during this challenging time.

Taking a quick inventory of my water supply while stranded in Death Valley, California.

Don't Panic. Be Prepared.

March 21, 2020 in Adventure

The midday desert sun beats down relentlessly. I drink more water and sit down in the dirt next to my car. Leaning my head against the bumper, I take a deep breath and remind myself that I am okay.

I am currently stuck in a remote corner of Death Valley National Park. My car is busted, I have absolutely no cell phone signal, and I am all alone.

But I’m okay.

Engineers work in the clean room of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Tiny Electronic Voices

January 14, 2020 in Outer Space

They begin life as notions, as questions or hypotheses. In time they turn into elaborate sculptures of metal, epoxy and silicon. In sudden eruptions of fire and billowing smoke they are tossed up and out of the atmosphere, out into the cold void between worlds. Streaking like bullets across the immense expanses of the solar system, they carry armadas of instruments to catalog and analyze all that they pass — chattering away back to their human parents with tiny electronic voices across hundreds of millions of miles.

Soaking up my favorite form of “exposure” on the summit of Mt. Shasta in 2017.

Intention for 2020: Exposure

January 03, 2020 in Personal

New Years resolutions are old hat. Significant changes in life require formulating a plan and making a commitment regardless of what month of the year it is.

Still, it’s nice to start a new year off with new energy. In the place of resolutions or random goals specific to the month of January, I have started a tradition of setting a one-word intention for the new year. In 2015, it was freedom. In 2018 (the year I quit my job and started my full-time freelance career) it was tenacity. The word I’ve chosen for 2020 is exposure.

One of the most special (and most important) books I read this year turned out to be a novel about love.

The Year in Books

December 31, 2019 in Personal

I am an expedition by myself, complete with rations, a weapon, and a book to read. - Beryl Markham

This past year included over forty flights, eight road trips, and approximately four dozen books. Looking back at what I read in 2019, it’s easy to spot some obvious parallels: like reading Wake in Fright while road-tripping across the Australian Outback, or finishing up Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia while flying to Apia, Samoa.

I read my usual fair share of non-fiction adventure stories, but I also picked up a few things outside my wheelhouse: the memoir of a famous actor. A guide to effective public speaking. A novel about love.

I will always enjoy stories of extreme endeavors in remote places (and you’ll see several included in the list below), but variety is the spice of life. The diverse collection of books I read this year offered up inspiration, comfort, affirmation, challenge, pain, and most importantly new perspectives.

Always Worth It

December 26, 2019 in Ocean

In February of 2019, Kate Gould traveled to the Florida Keys to construct underwater tables at four different offshore locations. Through a collaboration with the Coral Restoration Foundation, she obtained 64 fragments of Orbicella annularis (boulder star coral) and transplanted them to her tables. For the past year, she has been monitoring the growth and overall health of these corals as part of her PhD research in the Bruno Lab at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Here she reflects on how the project is going, the challenges and rewards that come with underwater field work, and what she has learned so far.

A Different Kind of Summit

October 22, 2019 in Adventure

“If we were up there right now, we’d be drinking tea in the refugio,” I say, staring at the bright, glaciated summit surrounded by stars. “And we’d start climbing in three hours.”

It is a perfectly clear night. From our vantage point at The Secret Garden hostel, we can see the entirety of the Cotopaxi volcano. I stare longingly at the beautiful mountain I have wanted to climb for so long, trying to detach from the lump of disappointment that seems to have settled in my stomach.

The riots and protests that started the day I arrived in Ecuador have increased in intensity and violence, resulting in a start of emergency in Quito. All schools are closed. The government has moved from Quito to Guayaquil. And every national park in the country is closed.

The civil unrest has thrown a giant wrench in our plans for attempting some alpine summit bids. We’ve done a few big hikes, but our ice axes, crampons, and other mountaineering equipment has remained at the bottom of our duffle bags, untouched.

I’m bummed out, but trying to look on the bright side: I’ve spent just over a week in one of my favorite countries, enjoying conversations with people from all over the world, and practicing my rusty Spanish.

Of course dear Jon, the best adventure buddy in the world, has said all the right things: This has been a great trip and Ecuador is awesome. Thank you for bringing me here. Don’t worry— we’ll come back to climb Cotopaxi.

The following morning, we pack our bags to head to the Quito airport. We think our trip is over. But the real adventure is just about to begin.

View of Mauna Kea at sunset from high on Mauna Loa

Decompression Time

October 17, 2019 in Personal

Sharp, loose lava rocks lurch under my boots. I stagger slightly, adjust my stance, and keep going. I will spend the next 10 hours hiking up and down this volcano, but my footing will never feel completely steady.

This lack of balance is nothing new. Having just returned to land after three weeks at sea, I’ve been trying to find solid footing (physically and mentally) for the past six days.

Coming back from a big expedition requires a period of adjustment. I often equate it to scuba diving. If you come up too fast from a deep dive, nitrogen bubbles in your bloodstream will burst.

Likewise, transitioning too quickly from expedition life back to “real life” can result in the mental equivalent of the bends.