It's hard to explain, but let me put it like this: Take your office building and all your colleagues, pick it all up, and move it to the middle of nowhere. Take away all phones, Internet service, newspapers, and television. Take away weekends and days off. Take away changing scenery. Work as hard as you know how on as little sleep as you can handle with the same people every day for 22 days.

Work
Eat
Work
Eat
Work
Eat
Work some more
Sleep

The routine both drives you mad and keeps you going.

Sleep

open my eyes to complete darkness. It must be the middle of the night. Is that my alarm going off? Can't be. Back to sleep . . .

Then the room rocks, and the sloshing of the 29,000-gallon fuel tanks below reminds me of where I am. I am in a bunk that folds out from the wall three feet from the floor, in a small windowless room just below sea level, on a ship in the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from land.

The first night, when the feeling of "I'm so lucky just to be here" dulled most of my senses, sleeping in this little bunk was part of the adventure. I imagined that just beyond my closed curtains, the sea was rocking me to sleep.

That was before the seasickness and nightmares set in. Then this tiny cabin became a dark cavern where I battled insomnia amid visions of sinking ships, shark attacks, and tropical storms. Soon I was walking around during the day like a baby in need of a nap — overtired, overworked, emotions running high.

The scientists don't sleep either, but for a different reason. They have just three weeks at sea and must get as much done in that time as they can. Some of them rise at 4:30 a.m. to prepare the equipment for the day's dive. Some work all night every night, napping only when they have the chance, often on deck in plastic lawn chairs with the thunder of the engines for a lullaby.

Eat

howering is, at best, a challenge. The rolling of the sea turns a simple ritual into a naked balancing act. The shower is a curtained-off corner in a bathroom smaller than my bedroom closet back home — so small that for the ladies, shaving your legs is out of the question, unless you don't mind your head ending up in the toilet.

I dress quietly by the small light over my bunk to avoid waking my two roommates, who usually come to bed just before I get up. I throw on yesterday's clothes, run my fingers through my damp hair, grab my notebook, pen, and camera, and head for the deck. I'll put on clean clothes later — maybe. If any of my clothes are clean.

Then I'm off to the galley for the morning smorgasbord. Breakfast, like every meal, is a danger to the waistline. Too many choices. The food is great, but the coffee makes a landlubber like me long for Starbucks. Most mornings I grab a bagel on the run and head off to see the launch. But when I have time, I indulge in blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup.

Mealtimes are set: Breakfast is at 7:15, lunch at 11:30, and dinner at 5:30 — right after ALVIN's recovery. We are so well-trained by now to go to the galley as soon as the sub comes up that if she surfaces early, it's as if Pavlov has rung our dinner bell. Our stomachs start to growl, and the rest of the afternoon seems endless until the food is finally served.

Work

envisioned days spent basking in the sun while typing away on my laptop, but soon learned that work time and break time must be kept separate. So I typically work in the computer lab from ALVIN's launch until her recovery.

One day, my work is interrupted by an announcement: "Attention all hands, attention all hands. There is a large log floating by on starboard side." This may not seem like big news, but we're at sea. Water and sky, blue on blue, day in day out. A log floating by is something to check out. I watch it — a branch actually — drift slowly by our ship. This branch and our ship, two specks in the vast ocean. I wonder about its journey. How long has it been floating out here? How many storms has it endured? How many ships has it seen?

In the shadow of the branch, a large school of shimmering blue fish darts back and forth, moving together like one animal. I had counted on a daily dose of dolphins, sharks, and whales, but this is the first surface sea life I've seen. So I'm delighted when the small fish attract a group of oceanic white-tip sharks. At about three feet long, the sharks are hardly big enough to give the small fish a proper scare. But still, it is a glimpse of an oceanic eco-system — big fish chasing small fish.

Then back to work.

Sleep?

hen dinner is over, we have until 7:00 the next morning to do as we wish. You would think we would sleep, but many of us don't. The scientists often work into the night, dissecting and cataloging the day's samples of tubeworms, mussels, and limpets.

Now and then the need for fun and socializing outweighs the need for work or sleep. Some people play ping-pong in the main lab, others watch movies on the DVD player in the lounge, play cards in the galley, or just relax in the night air on deck.

One rainy evening, a scientist, an engineer and I, all in need of a break, sat below the ladder-well near the submarine hangar, passing the time singing old sea shanties as the ship steamed along from 9 North to 11 North — a ten-hour journey. My companions asked me to sing an old camp song I knew about the ill-fated Titanic. It took a lot of persuading, but I finally gave in. I hadn't finished the first chorus of "it was sad, so sad, it was sad when the great ship went down," before a ship's alarm sounded. The engineer took off to see what the trouble was. The scientist chuckled with delight at the concerned look on my face. "Finish the song," she said. No way.

By the end of the adventure, ALVIN's morning launch and evening recovery are a normal part of my day, the hours spent in the computer lab are my job, and that poor excuse for a bed is just where I sleep. There is no place so dark as a bunk in a windowless cabin, closed in by curtains on all sides. By the end, it isn't the vast ocean rocking me to sleep; it's exhaustion.