Fall 2004

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A Long Strange Trip Christopher Hamilton’s sea change from welfare kid to high seas professor

–Charles Creekmore

Shown here last fall on the schooner Spirit of Massachusetts off Cape Hatteras, N.C., Chris Hamilton spends the fall and winter months as a marine science instructor for Long Island University’s SEAmester program. The rest of the year he videotapes whales off the coast of Cape Cod for his video production company, In the Wild Productions, based in Provincetown (photo by Cathy Green). MOST EDUCATORS NEVER HAVE TO deal with distractions such as tempests, the bends, sharks, dickering with voodoo priests, or warding off evil spirits. Those are just some of the forces faced by Christopher Hamilton ’92 as coordinator and marine science instructor for Long Island University’s SEAmester program. Each SEAmester, during the program’s nine-week cruise, 24 college students sail a traditionally rigged schooner to the Caribbean while earning a semester of credit in science, the humanities, and seamanship. Other lessons aren’t in the course description. Take the white squall one class encountered off Cape Fear. For 16 hours, 60-mile-per-hour winds whipped up so much sea spray that it gushed like torrential rain. The fiercely tacking boat heeled over so far that most students were hurled from their bunks and seasickness was the order of the day. Hamilton has a sense of humor about SEAmester’s crash course in educational adventure. “It’s not for students who are deeply attached to blow dryers and pedicures,” he explains. But he also had to overcome his own queasiness when he took on the job in 1999. “During my whole first trip I was questioning myself the way every new faculty member does: ‘Hey, they’re gonna find me out and realize I don’t know anything,’” recalls Hamilton. “But gradually I discovered how much I did know, and that I was able to capture the attention and imagination of my students.” One wonders how Hamilton could have doubted himself. He’s already packed a lifetime of Indiana Jones adventure into his 30-something years while working at the Smithsonian Institution, earning a master’s degree in biogeochemistry from UC Davis, and serving as a research officer at Harvard. In the process, he’s taken three research cruises, logged more than 200 dives as a certified research scuba diver, and spent two summers at a remote field station on Catalina Island. Hamilton notes with a wry grin that he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Gemini, so he thrives on change and challenge. He was raised in the seafaring town of Provincetown, Mass., while presumably being fitted for seven-league boots. He describes himself as “a poster boy for welfare families,” a financially strapped kid who got his first big break as a geology major at UMass Amherst. In addition to attending classes, he rocked out as the bass player in a popular band called Minibus and was named the outstanding senior in geology. During all the SEAmester cruises aboard either the Harvey Gamage or the schooner Spirit of Massachusetts, Hamilton teaches three intensive courses in biology and geology. His lab happens to be the whole East Coast and the Caribbean, which might mean snorkeling among coral reefs in the Virgin Islands, hiking through Dominica’s Valley of Desolation, scuba diving into the Bahamas’ Cave of Indescribable Horrors, or landing at exotic ports of call all over the map. A seven-person crew teaches the students every seafaring skill from striking sails to principles of navigation. One of Hamilton’s unsung duties as coordinator is haggling. Once, in Haiti, he found a voodoo priest to conduct a traditional ritual for his students. He was a colorful character with the title of Hourigan Waldorf, described by Hamilton as “a cool dude who is also Mr. Charisma.” Then the wrangling began. “That’ll be $3,000,” said Waldorf. “No way,” countered Hamilton. “That’s absolutely unacceptable. I’ll give you $100.” “Okay,” said the priest. Having magically bargained down Waldorf by $2,900, Hamilton led his students into what he calls “the heart of darkness,” an open-air site writhing with dancers and drummers performing rituals to ward off evil spirits. During the ceremony, the priest took the SEAmester observers one by one to a spooky back room haunted by bleached bones, blazing candles, and snakes preserved in alcohol. There the priest “cleansed” their souls by pouring liquid incense on their hands and lighting it. Wondrously, nobody got burned. “But it was such a powerful experience,” Hamilton says about the entire voodoo rite, “that some of my students wept.” Even without the voodoo, this magical mystery touring inspires deep sea change in SEAmester students. Most undergo a metaphysical transformation that Hamilton is uniquely qualified to direct, having made a similar existential leap from a boy without means to a mentor rich in experience. “We take them to faraway places,” says Hamilton, “and teach them things that really bend their minds.” http://www.inthewildproductions.com/

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