"The depths of the sea are just as mys­te­ri­ous as the galax­ies above us and there, too, hold more ques­tions than an­swers. How­ev­er, every deep dive Dr Amon takes thou­sands of kilo­me­tres be­low the floor of the Earth is both a per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney."

RYAN BA­CHOO

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Deep with­in the bow­els of the ocean is where Dr Di­va Amon dis­cov­ered her­self.

Per­haps it is an oxy­moron that the ocean, which is the largest liv­ing space on Earth and of which on­ly one per cent has been ex­plored in hu­man­i­ty’s his­to­ry, is where Dr Amon has found mean­ing in her life.

It start­ed with a sim­ple cu­rios­i­ty as a child. “I just wished I could pull away the ocean and see what was un­der there,” she told the Sun­day Guardian WE mag­a­zine in an in­ter­view last week.

At 36 years old, Dr Amon is among the youngest on a crew that ex­plores the depths of the ocean. She has moved from strength to strength and suc­cess has bred suc­cess. Last Tues­day, she was an­nounced as a co-re­cip­i­ent of the Caribbean’s most pres­ti­gious cor­po­rate prize–The An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Awards for Caribbean Ex­cel­lence. She is this year’s joint Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Lau­re­ate for her com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing the con­ser­va­tion of the Caribbean and glob­al ma­rine en­vi­ron­ments through ma­rine sci­ence, pol­i­cy, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

“Isn’t that just so ex­cit­ing? Be­ing able to be among the first peo­ple on the plan­et to see some­thing whether that is a new species, a new habi­tat, a new be­hav­iour and that hap­pens every sin­gle time that I ven­ture in­to the deep ocean,” she said with ex­u­ber­ance.

“This all re­al­ly start­ed with the de­sire to ex­plore and see new things but that has mor­phed in­to bet­ter un­der­stand­ing this part of our plan­et that we know so lit­tle about, and ul­ti­mate­ly work to con­serve it.”

That de­sire to ex­plore the depths of the ocean would spur her rise in ma­rine sci­ence. Her work has been fea­tured on Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic, BBC, and CNN In­ter­na­tion­al. It would al­so make her cross paths with ac­tor Will Smith in the Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic se­ries, Wel­come to Earth. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star joined Dr Amon on a deep-sea dive which last­ed sev­en to eight hours.

She re­called the mo­ment fond­ly: “Be­ing able to be Will Smith’s guide down in­to the deep ocean, again right here in our own back­yard, the Ba­hamas, there are very few days that are as mem­o­rable as that.”

Both were ner­vous but for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. Dr Amon for meet­ing the fa­mous ac­tor and Smith for ven­tur­ing in­to the dark un­known of the ocean.

The depths of the sea are just as mys­te­ri­ous as the galax­ies above us and there, too, hold more ques­tions than an­swers. How­ev­er, every deep dive Dr Amon takes thou­sands of kilo­me­tres be­low the floor of the earth is both a per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney.

“It is tru­ly a hum­bling ex­pe­ri­ence to go to these parts of the plan­et that ex­ist un­der ex­treme con­di­tions like crush­ing pres­sure, no sun­light, freez­ing tem­per­a­tures and see an­i­mal life ab­solute­ly thriv­ing,” she told us as she tried to find the words to de­scribe an ex­pe­ri­ence on­ly a few have been af­ford­ed.

How­ev­er, as much as she “loves every minute” in the depths of the ocean, it is the re­turn to civil­i­sa­tion that of­fers Dr Amon a dis­tinct re­flec­tion on this thing called life. “One of the best parts of ex­plor­ing the deep ocean is when you start that jour­ney back up to the sur­face and when you burst through the wa­ter sur­face and you see all of that sun­light, it es­sen­tial­ly feels like go­ing home. It re­minds you of the beau­ti­ful plan­et we live on.”

As the ef­fects of cli­mate change grip the globe caus­ing droughts in some parts of the world and ex­treme flood­ing in oth­ers, Dr Amon can en­joy one part of the plan­et that is yet to be touched. She said: “I’m so lucky to work in a place that is so close to pris­tine on the plan­et. Be­ing able to go down there has shown me what an in­cred­i­bly beau­ti­ful place the deep ocean and this plan­et Earth is, what a crit­i­cal­ly frag­ile place the deep ocean is and how much we still have to un­der­stand about it.”

Through her re­search in the deep ocean, Dr Amon and the teams she works with are mak­ing se­ri­ous gains on how to treat prob­lems those who live on the sur­face of the Earth are fac­ing. The Mar­aval res­i­dent told us: “What is per­haps most ex­cit­ing about this is not just the re­al di­ver­si­ty of habi­tats or the re­al di­ver­si­ty of an­i­mals, but it’s al­so that this place, the deep ocean, could pro­vide so­lu­tions to some of the great­est chal­lenges hu­man­i­ty is fac­ing. For in­stance, an­tibi­ot­ic re­sis­tance or al­ter­na­tive med­i­cines. There is so much we don’t un­der­stand, but the deep ocean is crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant to us be­ing here on Earth.”

A for­mer stu­dent of St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, Dr Amon went on to study Ma­rine Bi­ol­o­gy and Oceanog­ra­phy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Southamp­ton, one of the world’s most recog­nis­able in­sti­tu­tions in the field.

She es­tab­lished an or­gan­i­sa­tion called Spe­Seas, which is ded­i­cat­ed to ma­rine sci­ence, ed­u­ca­tion, and ad­vo­ca­cy in T&T. “The prob­lem is not get­ting a lot of women in­to ma­rine sci­ence, there are many in­cred­i­ble women ma­rine sci­en­tists in T&T and the Caribbean, work­ing their butts off to try to make things bet­ter. What needs to change is the re­ten­tion of the ex­per­tise that is be­ing cre­at­ed be­cause we have great ed­u­ca­tion­al sys­tems. We re­al­ly need to work hard­er, in­sti­tu­tion­al­ly and oth­er­wise, to put things in place to al­low women to thrive and flour­ish in that in­dus­try in T&T, and a key part of that is the recog­ni­tion of that ca­reer as be­ing im­por­tant.”

Dr Amon says she un­der­stands there are press­ing is­sues that come with deep sea sci­ence such as it is heav­i­ly re­source in­ten­sive. A lot of mon­ey and a lot of ex­pen­sive, high-tech equip­ment are re­quired. “That means de­vel­op­ing coun­tries around the world like T&T and those in the Caribbean have been large­ly left out of that re­search,” she added.

Though she al­ready has a full plate in her hands, Dr Amon has added the need to en­cour­age more bud­ding ma­rine sci­en­tists across the Caribbean to chase af­ter their dreams. It is one of the rea­sons she is be­ing recog­nised by the An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Awards for Caribbean Ex­cel­lence. Re­act­ing to the award, she said: “There are so few awards like it, es­pe­cial­ly for sci­ence. To hear that I was a co-re­cip­i­ent this year and to see the oth­er win­ners this year and sit among these peo­ple and sit among all the co­horts who have gone be­fore us, it’s a dream come true. I am very ex­cit­ed to use the prize and the recog­ni­tion to cre­ate bet­ter ocean stew­ard­ship.”

For this young ma­rine sci­en­tist, it’s been a long, suc­cess­ful leap for some­one who once shocked her coun­ter­parts by say­ing she was go­ing to study ma­rine sci­ence at uni­ver­si­ty. “Every­one was like, that’s not im­por­tant. What are you go­ing to do with that?” And with every deep dive in­to the ocean she takes, Dr Di­va Amon an­swers them.