Who Is Captain Seaweed?

Captain Horatio Seaweed is the global steward of the oceans.  He is a human super hero who gained his powers through exposure to extraordinary and unique environmental conditions in a place no one has yet to discover.  His transformation gave him special powers of the oceans, many of which he still has not discovered.  He has the acute ability to sense the health of the oceans and gauge atmospheric conditions as affected by the oceans, and use that to help seafaring vessels navigate potentially deadly situations and help those who find themselves in trouble at sea.  His ability to communicate with all animal life is key to his ability to maintain his guardianship over all the oceans at all times.

Captain Seaweed also can see and feel both natural and human effects on the oceans and how they affect conditions around the world including on land and within both the hydrosphere and the atmosphere.  His mission is the help empower humans to live with respect for the oceans and their great power to affect all life on Earth, as well as to help defend the ocean against those who may harm it, whether on purpose or unwittingly.

Born on a skipjack in the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia, Captain Seaweed comes from am lineage of seafaring families.  His great grandfather, Horatio Seaweed I, was born on the gun deck of the HMS Victory and was named after Admiral Horatio Nelson. His grandfather, Horatio Seaweed II, was born on a clipper ship rounding the horn.  His, Father Horatio Seaweed III, was born on a Glouster fisherman’s schooner during a storm.  His heritage has been tracked backed to a small agricultural community in Ancient Rome that was founded on the great Italian Peninsula on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Transformation

One day, the young Horatio Seaweed received a logbook from the crew of his father’s schooner relating that his father the Captain was washed overboard during a storm.  The old leather bound log book hints at a mysterious uncharted island somewhere in the South Atlantic that his father had been searching for over many years.

Using his father’s old log book as a guide, Horatio set sail on an old wooden sailboat to find this mysterious island and, hopefully, find and rescue his father.  After a long dangerous passage, Horatio was caught in a storm and his boat is destroyed on the reef of an uncharted island.

The island is a gigantic meteor that crashed eons ago.  It has an enormous magnetic force and a mysterious cloaking effect that explains why it had never been found except by those doomed to fall within its clutches.  As it had happened so many times before to other seafaring explorers, Captain Seaweed unwittingly becomes captive to this mysterious island and is not heard from again for many years. 

What happened is an amazing story of life and culture captured in a time continuum, where ecology was central to the power and preservation of those who were ensnared by this nautical black hole.  Yet, only Horatio Seaweed would become entangled in a series of environmental and ecological phenomena that no human could possibly survive… but he did. 

Stay tuned to ecology.com to learn what happened to Captain Seaweed and the fate of the mysterious island.