Death On Sea Sargasso

Never very far from our minds was the recent disappearance of three of our fellow scientists, Martin Sturgis, Louis Downs and Paul Morgan. These men were the initiators of the study and there had been no trace of them for more than three weeks. I was engaged to Sam DeVane, the head bio-geochemist. John McBride was brilliant too. I'm sorry, Doctor. I don't mean to cry. It's just that they were such vital people. Just give me a moment. I'll get on with it. I know that I must.

The trouble started on the third day. A school of whales attacked our boat and sank it. We found ourselves adrift on a life raft in shark-infested waters. We drifted for days and then the water turned to the deep electric blue that marks the Sargasso. Here we feared that our raft would entangle itself within the sargassum (seaweed) that circle the sea in an endless current and grow in the millions of tons throughout the area. We also found tar balls on the algae, probably the result of oil slicks, which could have mired us in one fatal position.

The Sargasso Sea lies in the middle of The Bermuda Triangle. It's really an oceanic desert with few fish. One of its many natural enigmas and an adjunct to our investigation via the National Geographic Society involved the effects of PCB on the Anguilla Eel. This creature starts its life as an egg in the freezing depths of the Sargasso. Then it metamorphoses into an 'elver' and migrates to fresh water. No one knows why it returns to the Sargasso to spawn.