Don Walsh, a pioneering US Navy explorer, died on Nov. 12 at his home in Myrtle Point, Ore. He was 92. On Jan. 23, 1960, Walsh was a Navy lieutenant in command of the bathyscaphe Trieste, when he and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard dove to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, reaching and measuring the deepest point in the world’s oceans.
Walsh and Piccard spent 20 minutes at the ocean floor, taking measurements and peering through the super-fortified viewing holes in the Trieste. What they saw opened new frontiers in deep-sea marine biology. They reported spotting fish, shrimp, and jellyfish at depths below 30,000 feet. The observations were the first eyewitness clues to the range of life that could survive in the most extreme depths.
A popular, full-day excursion to 
Intriguing news from 
The world’s newest island has risen from the Pacific Ocean off the Japanese island of Iwo Jima after an underwater volcanic eruption that began toward the end of October. In just 10 days, volcanic ash and rocks built up on the shallow seabed, forming an island that emerged from below the water’s surface. The eruption has now subsided.
A disturbing account of the 
A wonderful story from 
In August, we posted 
Of the various wind assist technologies available for commercial shipping, which is the most cost-efficient? It is likely, too soon to tell. AIrbus is reported to be trying two different approaches — retrofitting one existing ship with suction sails and building three new ships with Flettner rotors.
Here is a post suitable for Halloween. It is not a ghost story but rather the tale of two mysterious skeletons found in a 
This afternoon, sailing south from Ålesund bound for Haugesund, on Hurtigruten’s 
Around 5 am about 14 miles southwest of the island of Heligoland, Germany, the British bulk carrier 
We recently crossed the 
I am currently traveling, so I managed to miss 
The 
In a 