It's really too early to assess the damage going on at depth, but it terrifies me to even think about it. The decision to mix chemical dispersants at the well head seemed like a good one at the time (I confess I supported it) but now it may turn out to have been the worst thing to do. How much of that oil is going to stay down there causing biological damage, and for how long?

There are vast biological communities of benthic life forms that move vertically through the water column; huge shoals of worms, crustaceans and ctenophores and the larvae of many other creatures, even vertebrates, that move diurnally between surface and mid-water, feeding on plankton. These communities may now have to pass through layers of oil, not in concentrated patches, but diluted over many hundreds of square miles. We simply don't know.

There is a lot of life down there, this is the realm of macrofauna, too, like giant squid and the sperm whale that feed on them, as well as the microscopic larvae of fish that spend much of their adult lives on the surface.

The pathetic struggles of oil-soaked birds is heartbreaking, but in truth, they are at one extreme of the food chain and they can be replaced. After the spill is finally over those areas will eventually be repopulated from other, pristine shores. But we know so little about what goes on in the deep sea and its connections to the rest of the world ocean. The sunless sea is the single largest habitat on the planet, and it is remarkably uniform, and connected in a seamless layer around the entire world. And of course, the Gulf of Mexico is the origin of the world's greatest ocean current, as well as the recipient of the waters that replace the Gulf Stream's constant drain.

We simply have no idea what is going to happen now. We haven't got a clue. I know that this ignorance will be a comfort to those who insist on full knowledge of all factors before they arrive at any conclusion. But to me it is terrifying.

I haven't talked about my maritime interests much lately, but I think you all know how much I love the sea. And I live in Florida. I was born and raised within a day's sail of where this spill occurred, and I know and care about those waters, and I've sailed them often. This is a holocaust.

There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.

--Herman Melville