Susan Gasser

submersible's spotlights as a slow-motion blizzard of mucus. Indeed, the biologists on this trip say they probably identified a dozen new species. (They need to double-check with their Russian colleagues, who have been at this business a lot longer and who have a literature that's both rich and hard to access). They're on the frontier of marine biology. The US Coast Guard provided the icebreaker, which is specially outfitted for scientific research. It seems the Coast Guard wants to maintain its ability to travel in this ice-encrusted ocean, but it hardly needs a border patrol at this latitude. So the Healy was commissioned first and foremost to support research. It's a raison d'etre — or pretext if you prefer — that makes just about everyone happy. The Beagle might have been more romantic, but there's no beating the creature comforts of a ship that comfortably sleeps well over 100, and which offers wide-screen TVs for movies and network news feeds. The cruise also offers its share of adventure. Biologists clamber down Jacob's ladders on the sides of the icebreaker and venture out onto the floating ice itself. Just a meter of hard surface separates them from the abyss, which extends more than two kilometers below. A Coast Guard officer with a very serious rifle stands guard for polar bears. And a few especially adventurous scientists don dry suits and climb into the –1 degree C water to capture ctenophores and survey the amphipods that scamper along the undersides of the floes. Like expeditions of yore, this one, too, has a patron. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's office of Ocean Exploration came up with $2.3 million to fund what it dubbed the " Hidden Ocean " cruise. NOAA also provided its own publicity machine – it sent along a public affairs specialist and a web producer, who put together daily reports for the NOAA website (http://www.oceanexplorer.noaa. gov/explorations/05arctic/welco me.html). NOAA also footed the cost of helicoptering three journalists (myself included) out 125 km to the Healy, for the final few days of the cruise. The cruise is a throwback to the days when a naturalist like John James Audubon could succeed even without being affiliated with a storied university. Kevin Raskoff, for example, was a central player in this trip even though he hails from the obscure campus of California State University Monterey Bay. Raskoff finds remarkable creatures and takes …