"I saw in the Jim Suit at 1,250 feet in midday, in Hawaii, six miles off shore, 1,250 feet down. I imagined that it would be completely dark, just black, black dark, but it wasn't. There was enough sunlight coming down at midday in this clear ocean water that it looked like the deepest indigo, like twilight. There weren't stars visible to me, but there were bioluminescent creatures flashing with their blue fire, some of the same creatures that I had become enchanted with in childhood reading the works of William Beebe. He looked out of the porth*** of his little bathysphere and saw little fish go by with blinking lights, saw octopuses that flashed with blue fire. Instead of squirting a puff of black ink, the squids and the octopuses that he described sometimes squirted a puff of bioluminescent ink. What good does black ink do in a black environment? It's nice to have something that flashes, that will distract a would-be predator. A puff of bioluminescent glow-in-the-dark substance is what they do. I saw a shark, but it wasn't a big one. It was only about 18 inches long, with a luminous green eye. So many wonderful creatures!" - Excerpt from interview with Dr. Sylvia Earle, Ph.D., (Undersea Explorer, 1991.)