We sort of think of the Pacific Ocean as being this enormous, vast watery realm that will never be exploited fully.
You know, you have some fishing boats here and there,
but you go out onto the bow of the ship when we’re transiting and you see nothing but water everywhere.
If you’re only thinking about now, or if you’re only thinking about 10 years or 20 years from now, you’re not thinking about it right.
Because, the way technology is developing right now, in maybe a hundred years, or even 500 years, which is nothing,
you could have all types of companies and all types of entities that are exploiting the deep sea in the Pacific,
in areas that we could never dream of right now.
We have to think ahead. And we have to think of protecting resources well in advance of exploitation.
That’s what we’re trying to do with this particular cruise and I think that’s the value in it,
we’re trying to find out what’s down there and we’re trying to find out how valuable those monuments are and
we’re trying to justify their existence by showing what they’re protecting, so that hopefully they’ll persist for a very long time.
CAPSTONE stands for the Campaign to Address Pacific Monument Science,Technology, and Ocean Needs.
And it is an initiative that was created by the Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.
And the initiative was designed to come out to the Pacific and do something very, very worthwhile out here,
which of course is to do some deepwater exploration in the monuments.
If we just look at the monuments and how much they’ve been explored, well, tomorrow will be the very first deepwater dive in the Wake monument.
I know of no other dive that’s ever been conducted in Wake.
So that gives you an idea of how little is known.
It’s completely unexplored. And the vast majority of those monuments are completely unexplored.
I think right now, we are doing what we need to do here.
We actually have to go into these monuments and start looking and seeing what they’re doing,
and prove to the world that they’re a good idea.