Maplab
The Treasure Map That Led Me to the Bottom of the Sea
It wasn’t always easy being a black woman in my early days as an oceanographer. But a fictional pirate and a pioneering ocean explorer helped chart my course.
I grew up in the Hawaiian islands, so the ocean has always been a sacred place to me. My summers included many hours spent in the waves, and ample time for reading. The book that captured my imagination above all others was Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.
One of the central anchors of the story is Captain Flint’s treasure map. The irony is that, as you read the book (or watch the Disney movie), the details of the map are never revealed. It is just the notion of the map’s existence, and what it could lead to, that drives Long John Silver and others to the point of obsession.