June 24, 2010
By David M. Lawrence
Like most Americans, my immigrant ancestors came to what became the United States by the sea. Many came by sail, such as William Coxe who came to Jamestown, Va., in 1610, or Henry Lawrence and Thomas Whittemore who came to Charlestown, Mass., during the Great Migration of the 1630s. Some came by steamship, or traveled repeatedly by steamship, such as my Chinese ancestors Yee Kim Wo and Yee Jock Leong, in the latter part of the eighteenth century and early part of the twentieth century.
The names of many of these ships are lost to history. Some are known, such as the ship that brought Coxe to Virginia, or the ships that transported my great-grandfather, Yee Jock Leong, between San Francisco and China (several of those played roles in decisive historical events, such as the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and World War II). Many of my ancestors worked on ships, as owners, builders, sailors, or fishermen. The more I look into my past, the more I realize that the sea is an important part of my family narrative.
When I first became interested in the sea, I didn't understand its significance. I read accounts of the Greek battle of Salamis, or of the bitter battles in the early days of World War II, or of the great nineteenth century whaling and fishing fleets, but focused on action and adventure – I somehow overlooked the terrible toll the sea enacted by shipwreck and war.
I likewise remained unaware of how important the sea is to our economy – to our very lives.
That unawareness seems to have permeated our culture. We don't think about the food we eat or where it comes from. We just expect it to be on the grocery store shelves when we remember to go shopping. We don't think about how our foreign-made cars arrive. We don't think of where much of the oil we burn in our automobiles comes from – at least not until a disaster like Deepwater Horizon. We don't think about our history, about how we got to where we are today.
We certainly don't think about how healthy oceans keep us alive, whether it is by providing us oxygen, by providing the water that makes the rains fall on the places that grow the staple crops the more than six billion of us need to survive, or by absorbing excess heat as well as excess carbon dioxide to slow the climate changes that our wasteful use of fossil fuels brings on.
Much of this I intellectually knew – I didn't teach oceanography at a college for nothing – but being here on the SSV Corwith Cramer really drives home the realization of how important the oceans are to my very survival. To my kids' very survival. To all of our very survival. I stood out on the quarterdeck a few minutes ago, stared out on the seemingly endless waterscape around me, and thought about the thousands of bits of plastic we have found in a couple of weeks of rather puny net tows.
The sea has taken good care of us for millennia. Maybe it's time we begin returning the favor.
