These extremes are just part of what's to be enjoyed - and endured - if you happen to be someone whose work entails extended stays at sea.

And why exactly do people choose to leave dry land, a warm bed, family, friends, a daily routine, and any semblance of privacy? What's the impetus for spending enough weeks and months afloat that time at sea is measured in years?

Many were inspired by Jacques Cousteau's voyages. A few were mesmerized by the vigorous (and fictional) adventures of Lloyd Bridges in Sea Hunt. Others head to sea as part of a lengthy family tradition. Some go because their careers demand it. And still others confess a love for isolation and remoteness and a penchant for slipping the yoke of on-shore pressures.

In the simplest terms, those who spend chunks of time toiling at sea do so because the open ocean holds what they're looking for, and what can't be found on land–whether that be a shimmering, lucrative haul of bluefin tuna, reams of data with clues to global climate change, or the crisp video image of an elusive deep-sea creature. For fishermen, oceanographers, marine biologists, explorers, engineers, oil drillers, ship captains and others, the rolling, pitching, watery workplace offers up a compelling bounty of excitement, knowledge, experience, income, and sometimes, escape.

Looking for Questions

For many researchers, time at sea not only provides answers, but questions as well. "I never get that sense of what questions to ask and what to look for unless I get out on deck," says Anne Bucklin, University of New Hampshire (UNH) Sea Grant director and zoology research professor in UNH's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space. "I could probably do most of my work with samples that I get from other people," she allows. "But you get a complete understanding of how the ocean ecosystem works by standing on a ship and looking at it."

Bucklin, a biological oceanographer, explains that she was drawn into the field of open ocean genetics by the intellectual challenges of large-scale processes, and the fact that so little is known about the open ocean. "When I was young," she recalls, "if there was a bunk, I'd go. I have students now who are the same."

One of Bucklin's former students is James Pierson, now University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography (URI GSO) marine research specialist. Pierson is working on the GLOBEC (Global Ocean Ecosystem Research) program, a 10-year study of the population dynamics of marine zooplankton and fish that will aid in assessing and predicting how climate change affects marine ecosystems. To assess cod and haddock populations in the North Atlantic, Pierson and colleagues spend two weeks at sea each month, from January to June, collecting zooplankton samples from 41 marine stations. Pierson admits that those weeks can get "a little long when we have to shut down for weather." But he adds: "I enjoy being out there. I learn a lot."

For researchers and students, the sea is both laboratory and classroom. Sheri White, a fourth-year graduate student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (MIT/WHOI) Joint Program, jokes that her marine exposure during childhood was confined to canoeing on man-made lakes in Texas with her father. In describing the satisfaction of hands-on experience with a WHOI submersible, White says: "Aerospace engineers have to watch astronauts with their instruments; I get to go down on the Alvin."

Of course, because our bodies were designed neither to dive to great depths nor to bob about on a stormy sea, the ocean can also be a highly effective, low-tech torture chamber. Ee Lin Lim confesses, "I go to sea because I have to." This WHOI biology postdoctoral scholar elaborates: "I get really sick. I ride the racks and then proceed to morning sickness." And then, she says, "Miraculously, I forget everything. I forget hanging over the rail. I forget lying in my bed moaning. I forget all those things, and I think, what a wonderful trip."

Women at Work

Paving the way for that trip were all the women who went to sea before Lim and White–researchers and students and first mates who had to contend not only with seasickness, but also with the rocky reception from men on board. Susan Tarbell, WHOI physical oceanography senior research associate, remembers her first trip to sea in 1966, when all her colleagues (male) "coped by pretending I wasn't there."

Since then, she says, the atmosphere on deck has "gone from resentment (the 60s) to acceptance (the 70s) to welcoming (the 80s), to no more newsworthy than a female broadcaster."

Yet, Cathy Offinger still recalls ports in Recife and Panama in the late 1970s, when the locals assumed she and her female colleagues "were prostitutes trying to get on board the ship." Offinger, director of operations for the Institute for Exploration, based in Mystic, Conn., says such assumptions are far less likely now. And that lets her concentrate fully on her job.

"Women are juggling so much," says Offinger. "At sea, I don't have to think about cooking and cleaning and shopping. I have the freedom to focus on work."

One of the high points of Offinger's career was being part of the team that discovered the Titanic in 1985. More recently, she has been working with archeologists on a project in the Black Sea, "looking for whatever we can find." Offinger notes that because the archaeological community is just now getting access to the deep sea, there is much to discover.

Closer to home, Lisa Gusmini teaches navigation to fisherman at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy (her alma mater), through an educational program supported by MIT Sea Grant. Gusmini is also a captain for tugboats and ferries that depart from the Quincy Shipyard. Yet, although she's spent an impressive eight years at sea, men still get on her boat and ask, "Are you sure you're qualified to do this?" But Gusmini shrugs off such remarks. What's important, she says, is that she gets respect from the men who work for her. She also likes that her son can tell people, "My Mom drives a boat."

When people find out about the length of Meg Tivey's sea stays, they often ask what she does with her kids for the duration. "I put them in the refrigerator," deadpans the WHOI marine chemistry and geochemistry associate scientist, who also allows that no one seems to ask her seagoing husband the same question.

Tivey jokes that she and her husband spent their honeymoon on the research vessel Atlantis: "He slept with three other men, and I slept with one other woman." She adds: "Now that I have two children, I adore going to sea. You focus 100 percent on your work. You sleep, eat, and do work."

18-Hour Days

James Bellingham agrees. "People work 18-hour days because what the heck else is there to do?" As principal research engineer with MIT Sea Grant's Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) Laboratory, Bellingham spends an average of three months per year at sea running missions with AUVs in places like the Arctic, the Antarctic, and off the coast of New Zealand. In his latest foray, Bellingham and colleagues spent a frigid month in the Labrador Sea, dodging winter storms and 30-foot seas to gather information that could lead to a clearer understanding of global climate change.

Bellingham got involved in the operational side of AUVs, he says, "because it was clear that it wasn't being done and sponsors were not going to support research on AUVs if none of them actually went into the ocean."

While the researcher is quick to point out the value of what's learned from working in the field, he also mentions the more pedestrian costs and worries of leaving home–like boarding pets for a month and making sure that water lines don't freeze. And then there's a price to pay on the personal side. Upon returning from a month away, says Bellingham, "Kids take a while before they are willing to talk to you again."

But for many, there's a certain appeal to being out of touch. "Going to sea is a real good place to hide," quips Sallye Davis, third mate on the R/V Knorr. Davis has spent six of the last 20 years on the water.

And Mary-Lynn Dickson, URI GSO assistant marine research scientist, got to miss the whole Gulf War while at sea. "We heard Armed Forces Radio about smart bombs. But we never saw the pictures," she says. "Now, ships have e-mail and fax. You're almost in touch too much. It's almost like being at home."

Almost, but not quite. Bellingham explains how some ships limit telephone access to sailors spending seven or eight months each year at sea because "They can spend their entire paycheck on the telephone."

When Home is the Water

Fishermen are particularly aware of the strains of a life at sea. Richard Taylor, now based in Gloucester, Mass., started fishing 30 years ago and figures he spent 11 of those first 15 years at sea. "I jumped from boat to boat for many years until I got my own boat. If you asked where I lived, I'd say on the water." And, he offers, "That kind of lifestyle isn't good for relationships."

But Taylor is also keen to explain what drew him to the sea and kept him there. In addition to freeing him up from life in a small town, he says, fishing offered an income otherwise unimaginable back in the 1960s. "When I started fishing," he says, "the minimum wage was 50 cents an hour. An unskilled laborer cleared $22.50 a week. In the first five days we went fishing, we cleared $400."

While fishing is potentially profitable, Taylor says, "It's absolutely grueling. It's a young man's racket." And a dangerous one as well, particularly because fishermen willing to take risks can make more money when the weather is bad. While Taylor figures the odds of meeting misfortune are greater on the highway than on a fishing boat, he allows that "there were many, many vessels that I've worked that went down." About one notorious storm he weathered off the coast of Alaska, he says simply, "The Good Lord let us get away."

These days, the fisherman generally can be found on land, either fixing his boat or scheduling trips. And he says that the tight-knit fishing community in Gloucester, with its understanding and respect for the traditional fishing life, has taught him something about how families cope with long absences. In his current marriage, Taylor says, "My wife is happiest in a funny sort of way when I'm gone. She's free to run the household in her own way."

Like Taylor, Mark Phillips of Greenport, N.Y., has been fishing for 30 years. "It's the only thing I know how to do," he says.

Phillips prefers the challenge of midwater fisheries–"the ones you have to work at." As an example, he cites an experimental tuna pair trawling project in which he worked with Cliff Goudey, MIT Sea Grant Marine Advisory leader. In that fishery –aimed at reducing bycatch–two vessels worked together, each pulling one side of a net to haul in bigeye, yellow fin, and albacore tuna on the southern side of Georges Bank. "We were all pioneers with that," Phillips says proudly.

The fisherman spends far less time at sea now, partly because of changes in fishing regulations and partly because he now owns and operates the dock where he used to pack the fish caught on his boat, The Illusion.

When asked if he'd like his 10-year-old son to follow in his footsteps, Phillips is pensive. "I don't know," he says. "It's a hard industry, but it's an honest one. You get out of it what you put into it. You work hard, you make money. You goof off, you make nothing. I don't know what it will be like in 15 years."

For Cliff Goudey, 18 years at MIT Sea Grant and previous jobs with the Coast Guard and running a 65-foot research vessel out of WHOI have provided plenty of time on the water. One draw, he says, is the challenge of self-reliance. "Even on a 210-foot ship with the Coast Guard, you had to know everything that you might have to do and how to do it. A regular fisheries patrol could turn into a search and rescue operation. When you're at sea, the routine quickly becomes anything but routine."

That self-sufficiency and readiness to respond to any situation are particularly acute for the one in charge of a vessel, he says. "When you're the captain, you never sleep very well. It's always catnapping, because with every noise, you've got to figure whether the person on watch is dealing with it. If you're in your bunk, noise and motion are the only information you've got."

Career Plans–and Accidents

For Henrick Schmidt, MIT ocean engineering professor, noise is everything. Schmidt, who is also an associate director of MIT Sea Grant, studies underwater acoustics, although he trained as a structural engineer. When students ask how he planned his career, Schmidt generally says, "It was all a sequence of accidents. I never expected 15 years ago that I would ever set foot on the Arctic ice as part of my job."

Now, Schmidt looks back at his stays on Arctic ice packs–the longest was six weeks–as more exciting than time at sea. "There you really feel how small a part you are of this planet," he reflects. "You have to respect the environment and nature."

It's an environment that is worlds away from the fluorescent, cubicled confines of 9 to 5. It's a world that Richard Taylor describes with awe, recalling his youthful wonder at the sea's plenitude of life forms and the appeal of a life that takes its cues from nature.

"It's not about the clock," he muses. "Its about the wind."