North Carolina Pelagic

We live on a watery planet, and we live because of those waters. The sea is the womb and cradle that once rocked every creature. But dry land emerges from the sea, and so did adventurous creatures who found more complex ways to live and breathe.

Eventually some of the adventurous returned to the sea, always bringing a bit of the dry land on which to float. Fishing boats that challenge the open ocean are now highly evolved, powerful white beasts that growl deeply, and spit both spray and fumes. They are extensions of our own blundering feet, our walk upon the water made possible with ingenuity and brute strength rather than miraculous faith.

I was with ten birders from New England on an expedition to North Carolina, trying to find birds we had never seen before, "life birds." Our fishing boat, the Country Girl, cut through the green waves along the Carolina shores, then headed out to sea. We searched for the most adventurous creatures of all, the birds that had returned to the great waters and had made them their home.

The cold ocean close to the eastern coasts of North America comes down in a current from the north. Farther off the coast is another vast current from the south, heated by the tropical sun and rushing even to the arctic, eventually warming a Europe that otherwise might be locked in ice.

It began as a cool morning, overcast with a moderate breeze, but after two hours in jackets and slickers, suddenly the air turned sultry. The waves were still rising and falling as before, but the color was now an amazing shade of deep blue, a liquid sparkling blue as unlike the color of sky as the water itself was unlike the air.

These were the warm gulf stream waters, holding different life forms, including the birds that flew here far from land. Soon we saw them, the shearwaters that sailed above the waves and spirited away the wealth of food that floated near the surface, the shrimp and crabs and fish among the sargasso weeds. There were dozens of Cory's shearwaters, some Audubon's shearwaters, and finally the petrels.

There were many small storm petrels, in fact three different kinds that bounced on the oil-soaked waters in our wake like little Saint Peters (petrel means little rock). It was the fish oil that we were spreading, hoping to attract the many ocean-going species collectively called tubenoses. They possess a powerful sense of smell to guide them to food on the trackless sea.

Most curious of all was a large dark jaeger called the pomerine, a hunter and thief who hung out just over the back of the boat, landing briefly on the water when we paused to enjoy the circling shearwaters. It was the only jaeger we saw, and we missed entirely the sought-after white-tailed tropicbird.

There are also four larger gadfly petrels that are found off the Carolina coast, the most common being the black-capped petrel, which nests on Hispaniola and Cuba. We saw a few dozen of these, but it was afternoon before the big adventure began.

An all-dark bird, perhaps a herald petrel, was seen in the distance and we doubled back. These rarely seen petrels nest on islands off the coast of Brazil, and a few spend the rest of the year in the gulf stream off our shores. Suddenly one did appear alongside, streaking in from the distance and heading swiftly away. The Captain hit the throttle and the boat hurtled after it with a roar.

It was like a ride at Riverside and we held on, but still managed to line up along the rail, even those that had been hanging over the back of the boat being sick. We bobbed and weaved with the petrel for ten minutes as it glided gracefully over the waves that sometimes seemed higher than the boat.

At thirty miles per hour, the bird rode the restless air without a wing beat. What an amazing gift of grace that tames the terrible void of the sea and turns it into a home. We too had tamed our own turbulent need to see and know what lies out there. Without such an urge to explore, life would still be imprisoned in a single cell beneath the sea.