Philippine Sea, August 30-- It's an eerie sight, watching the remotely operated vehicle disappear into the night sea. At first the ROV's brilliant lights flood the water. Gradually the rover's glowing yellow shell fades away until all that remains is a brilliant ball of turquoise light, shrinking as it sinks steadily beneath the blue-black waves. Then the water becomes an impenetrable wall of darkness.

However, in the video room the view remains clear. With a full complement of lights — 1600 watts' worth — the Pacific looks sky blue all the way to the bottom, and the view of the ocean floor is brighter and sharper than on the previous dives.

We've been waiting for this moment for what seems like forever. It was last Thursday morning when the rover's scanning sonar — indispensable for the search — was fixed. But then a tropical storm was bearing down directly on the site, forcing the team to abandon the search and take cover in Palau. Finally, now we are on-site and the ROV is roaming across the ocean floor.

A Rough Trip to Safety

We're happy to be back searching after our brief layover in Palau. But even getting back to a safe harbor wasn't without problems. On the open ocean, though you can see a storm coming from miles away, it's difficult to get out of the way. Our flight was spurred by weather reports of a low pressure system almost over a hundred miles away, but when a tropical depression turns nasty, its wrath can reach out across hundreds of miles.

That first morning of transit, seas were choppy but not rough enough to send folks scrambling for their bunks. Breakfast featured a long-awaited treat: Texas rancher L.D. Cox's fabled "two-song" biscuits.

"They're called "two-song" cause I sings two songs while I knead the dough," L.D. informs us.

Few things in life prove as good as advertised, but as every man aboard will testify, buttered two-song biscuits with a drizzle of honey take the sting out of being driven off target and into port.

By afternoon, however, no one was thinking of food. The good ship Sea Eagle is never the most stable vessel, and with a storm brewing she rides like a Tilt-a-Whirl. By nightfall we were fighting 13-foot seas. The view from the bridge changes with each moment — facing straight down into the drink, and then up into the pitch-black sky.

Twelve-foot waves cut our speed to under 4 knots and drove the ship miles off course. Instead of pulling into Palau Saturday morning as planned, we reached the dock just before sunset.

Back in Business

Two days of rest and 30 hours of transit later and we were back on-site. Mike Kutzleb, president of Phoenix Marine, the ROV contractor, joined the team in Palau to oversee operations. The rover hit the water at 1a.m. on Tuesday and reached the bottom two hours later. Soon, the revived sonar monitor was displaying details of the submarine topography, and expedition leader Curt Newport was on the way to finally coordinating the ROV's precise location with the underwater maps composed during his survey of the ocean floor two months earlier.

Then, like a recurring nightmare, the ground-fault breaker tripped. Duration on the bottom: 11 minutes.

Two miles doesn't sound that far away, but when it's two miles straight down through the Pacific Ocean, there's no way to troubleshoot a fault by long distance. Reluctantly, project manager Steve Saint Amour began vehicle recovery.

Again, repairs were made and now we're back in business. The ROV was first steered toward an object known as Target 1071, one that on sonar at least, looks promising. But in the lights of the ROV it becomes clear that this is not a ship, but a large rock formation. We're disappointed. But there are other targets to examine.

Our mission goes on.