An Ode to SEA
By Rebecca Trinh
The Long Wake of a Single Lecture
In 2011, a random undergraduate lecture at UC Berkeley changed the course of my life in the most profound ways, and in ways that keep impacting me 15 years later.
A new professor gave a guest lecture about marine biology and ecology, and of course, everyone in class, even the jocks, began to listen. The animals were interesting and weird, and easier to comprehend than the Coriolis effect and Ekman -driven upwelling (little did we know that marine science is more physics and chemistry than it is cute little animals). At the end of his lecture, almost as an aside, he mentioned Sea Education Association (SEA)—a program where students study marine science, maritime history, and sail a brigantine tall ship for a month or more while conducting research at sea. Pirates, whaling history, celestial navigation, hauling lines, setting sails—real hands-on oceanography. He had taught for SEA for several years and saw first hand how it positively impacted young students. The professor said applications were now open for the summer semester.
It sounded magical. But I had never sailed before, I get notoriously sea sick, even on small boat outings, and I just assumed I wouldn’t be accepted.
A month later, at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, the largest gathering of earth science nerds in the world, I wandered into the poster hall (arguably for the free beer) and saw a poster about SEA. I struck up a conversation with the man standing there. He was enthusiastic, generous, and gave me his business card and told me, “Reach out if you ever need anything from me.” Only later did I realize he was SEA’s president.
Newly energized, my friend and I applied.
I was accepted. And then my heart sank.
The tuition was far beyond what my family could afford. I didn’t even tell my parents I had been accepted—they had been trying to steer me away from a career in oceanography and marine biology since I was 4 years old. My friend, however, had received a needs-based scholarship to attend the summer program.
After a few days of quiet heartbreak, I did something bold: I emailed the SEA president. I excitedly told him I had just been accepted into SEA’s summer program and then reminded him of our brief conversation--remember when you said “reach out if you ever need anything from me”, well here I am in need. I worked up the courage to ask, somewhat desperately, is there any way to adjust or overcome the cost of the program to make it more affordable for my family?
To my astonishment, he replied.
He congratulated me on my acceptance into the program and suggested I apply for an alumni scholarship, which required a letter from a former SEA faculty member. My heart leaped with joy, because I did in fact know a former professor of the program! My Berkeley professor was literally the one that told me about SEA only a few months ago.
This professor didn’t know me well at all, so it might be weird for me to email him and ask if he could help me with this alumni scholarship application, but hey, crazier things have happened.
I nervously asked if he would write on my behalf.
He didn’t hesitate.
His enthusiasm and support of me, no matter what outcomes occur with the alumni scholarship, meant so much to me. I don’t think I’ve ever had someone believe in me so much, especially at such a young age.
And it worked—the scholarship reduced the cost dramatically, and in summer 2012 I boarded the SSV Robert C. Seamans in Hawaii and sailed across the North Pacific to San Francisco.
That voyage changed me.
I learned to steer by compass, cook in a swaying galley, stand watch in the engine room, and haul lines in rhythm to sea shanties. I learned to navigate by stars. Coriolis and Ekman transport were no longer textbook concepts—they were winds and currents shaping our daily lives. I was seasick every single day for the entire month. I fell. I struggled. I endured North Pacific storms.
And one evening, I saw it—the green flash. That fleeting emerald shimmer at sunset I had assumed was myth. It lasted seconds but felt eternal. I never forgot it.
When we docked in San Francisco, everyone was melancholic as they disembarked and had their cell phones returned to them, I thought this was an amazing gift SEA had given me, but this will be the end of my journey with SEA.
I was wrong.
A Dream That Wouldn’t Die
After returning from SEA, my Berkeley friends and I hatched a crazy idea to retrace John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts’ 1940 Sea of Cortez expedition. We loved their book. We loved the blend of science, philosophy, and story. But we also knew no one would fund such an improbable, interdisciplinary adventure.
Over the years, at weddings and reunions, we would laugh about “that crazy Sea of Cortez idea.”
Then in 2025, amid federal science cuts and DOGE and uncertainty about my NOAA contract position, I was doom-scrolling through email when I saw SEA had extended the deadline for the Elsaesser Fellowship. The fellowship supported alumni pursuing ambitious ocean-related dreams—science, art, filmmaking—that have been elusive to fund and bring to life.
I jokingly asked my husband if I had an ocean dream to apply to this fellowship.
My husband looked at me and said, “You’ve been talking about the Sea of Cortez expedition for over ten years. That’s your dream.”
The application was due in less than two weeks.
My friends thought I was slightly unhinged—but agreed to help. We scrambled to draft a proposal, thinking “we likely won’t get this award anyways, so it’s not actually like we are committing to carrying out a whole massive expedition endeavor”.
In the meantime, I was furloughed from my job without pay. Then I learned my position would be eliminated entirely.
One day after losing my NOAA job, I received the email: we had been awarded the 2025 Elsaesser Fellowship.
The fellowship honors SEA Captain Armin E. Elsaesser, who captained the Pride of Baltimore and perished when it sank at sea. Learning about his life and loss gave the award even deeper meaning. This wasn’t just funding—it was lineage.
For my birthday in August 2025, my husband surprised me by driving us over an hour north to Baltimore to do a behind the scenes tour of the National Aquarium. It was a lovely day and a lovely deeply enjoyable experience. As we were walking around Baltimore, we just so happened to pass a memorial to Elsaesser and the Pride of Baltimore, which felt like a serendipitous moment. I was deeply frustrated with the lost of my job and where I was in life, and while I was thankful for the SEA Elsasser Fellowship funding, it was nowhere enough to carry out the expedition and documentary at a meaningful scale, so I had been applying nonstop to other funding opportunities and reaching out to potential donors to only hit road blocks and closed doors. But this moment, its connection to SEA, maritime history, my younger days as a student at Berkeley, and my friends, it all felt like I was on the right path starting this new Sea of Cortez expedition from scratch, starting my own organization through Green Flash Conservation Science, and truly living Steinbeck and Ricketts spirit of love for the ocean and curiosity and not being tethered to big government institutions or conventional ideas about what a successful life may look like.
Building Something From Nothing
Losing my job forced a reckoning. If this expedition was going to happen, it would have to exist outside traditional institutions. So, I founded Green Flash Conservation Science, named for that moment at sea when myth becomes visible.
Planning the 2026 Sea of Cortez expedition has been the most difficult logistical challenge of my life. Harder than planning our 250-person wedding from across the country. Harder than any research cruise I’ve worked on. Harder than the six years it took to do my PhD. We had no institutional backing at first—just a small team spread across California, Arizona, New York, Virginia, and Mexico.
Many of our successes have come as we reached out to mentors, old friends, and new collaborators. I reconnected with the Berkeley professor who had first introduced me to SEA—now director of the Farallon Institute. It is crazy how all these years later, as a married adult with a PhD, his enthusiasm and joy for my success and empathy for my losses brings me back to those days when I was just an undergrad at Berkeley. And through his connections with friends in Baja, we found our captain for the expedition. He is a 4th generation captain and fisherman born and raised in La Paz, Baja California Sur, our starting point for our 2026 Sea of Cortez expedition to retrace Steinbeck and Ricketts’ steps and visit 12 of their original sites to understand how these ecosystems have changed in the last 85 years. These are the local stories we would like to learn from and share through our expedition and documentary. Like Steinbeck and Ricketts, we aim to showcase the human landscape as much as the ecological one.
We are pairing classic intertidal surveys with environmental DNA and photo-quadrats, bringing a historic dataset into the modern era. We are working with Baja nonprofits to turn several of the original sites into long-term community monitoring locations.
This expedition exists because one professor believed in a student. Because a president answered an email. Because a fellowship honored a captain. Because friends said yes to something improbable.
And because sometimes, when you stand on deck long enough, myth becomes real.
I am proud to be SEA class S-242.
And I am still following that wake.