63 FEET UNDER THE SEA

摘要

When I first catch a glimpse of fabien cousteau, he looks a little like an astronaut on a spacewalk. In fact, he's 63 ft. below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean at the world's only habitable underwater science lab, Aquarius, where he is camped out with a team of scientists for a record-breaking stay lasting 31 days. It's day 15 of Mission 31, and the ocean explorer and environmentalist, who was kind enough to let me visit, seems very much in his element. Today he's monitoring the vital signs of coral that's been exposed to things like fertilizer runoff. "What we found was pretty surprising in terms of why reefs in close proximity to humans are degrading," says Cousteau.