Composite image of selection of photographs from Antartica, by Margaret Augustine

Following the release, in 1987, of two captive bottlenose dolphins in Savannah Georgia, the R/V Heraclitus passed through the Panama Canal before making its way southwards along the Pacific coast-line of South America. Aboard was a young but highly-motivated crew, aged between 16 and 28, for several members of which it was their first time at sea. Besides intensive training of the Heraclitus crew in all matters relating to navigation, diving and the ship's systems, this first part of the voyage was also used to train visiting members of the Biosphere 2 project, who were given extended expedition training and experienced, at first hand, the complexities of small group dynamics. This valuable know-how was to stand the 'biospherians' in good stead during their pioneering two-year experiment inside Biosphere 2, the world's first ever, closed, biospheric system.