By Rick Wright

Staff Writer

Cape Elizabeth resident and University of Southern Maine student Johnny Wise is scheduled to sail away from home July 9, embarking on a six-month voyage.

However, this is no leisurely junket. For Wise and his crew, this voyage is all about business.

Calling the trip “A Voyage to Save Our Oceans,” Wise’s group will study the effects of oil and chemical dispersants on the Gulf of Mexico’s marine animals and their environments.

Tissue samples will be collected from a variety of animals to determine the short-term and long-term effect of these pollutants.

The samples will be taken from squid, krill, fish and whales along the Atlantic seaboard and in the Gulf.

“We’ll take those samples and analyze them for petroleum products, chemical dispersants and heavy metals. We can show with that concrete data that this is how oil is impacting the environment,” Wise said.

The samples will be taken to various ports along the way and shipped to the Wise Lab of Environmental and Genetic Toxicology at the University of Southern Maine where they can be studied in detail.

“Knowing (the data) will enable us to set better regulations for oil wells, oil tankers and anything else that has oil on the ocean,” Wise said. “We’ll get the data. We’ll hand it to the policymakers and then we’ll be hands off.”

Wise is one of several people that will live aboard the 93-foot sailboat named Odyssey for the entire six months. He will be joined by Matthew Braun, another Cape Elizabeth resident. Both men are student researchers for the Wise Lab. 

A senior at USM, Wise, 20, is working toward a Bachelor of Science in biology. He plans to go on to graduate school for a doctoral degree and eventually get into the eco tourism industry.

At various times during the trip, Wise will be joined temporarily by his father John, mother Sandra, brother James and sister Catherine. Wise’s father, Dr. John Wise Sr., started the Wise Lab at USM in 2002. All of the family members currently work in the lab. 

Catherine Wise, 19, is a USM sophomore who majors in biology and plays on the soccer team.

Catherine said she will be on the voyage at the beginning and end of the fall semester to avoid conflicts with her soccer season.

“I’m really excited for it. It’s going to be very different but I can’t wait to go,” Catherine Wise said. “I hope that we do get some good results from it.”

 Catherine Wise said she is looking forward to being up close to marine wildlife and studying them in the ocean since her biology concentration is in marine mammals.

The Odyssey is owned by a nonprofit organization called Ocean Alliance that is based in Massachusetts. USM is a partner with Ocean Alliance. The Odyssey is the only sailboat in the world equipped with a state-of-the-art cell culture laboratory.

“We believe that we can bring a unique set of skills and resources to bear on this disaster. We need to get out in front of this problem and try to understand what damage this pollution is doing and can do to the Gulf of Mexico wildlife,” Johnny Wise said in an e-mail.

Johnny Wise joins a list of Mainers involved with the Gulf oil spill caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig April 20.

George Maltby, 27, of South Portland is already in the Gulf, working aboard a research vessel, Endeavor, owned by the University of Rhode Island. 

 A 2001 graduate of South Portland High School, Maltby is the assistant engineer on the Endeavor, which is working with the National Science Foundation to track pollutants in Gulf waters.

Oil and other pollutants are being tracked by an autonomous underwater vehicle named Sentry, which is owned by the Foundation.

After being near the site of the blown out oil well for more than a week, Maltby’s ship was scheduled to return to port at St. Petersburg, Fla., this week.

 “It has been so amazing to be so close to ground zero. There are about 80 to 90 boats within a 10 nautical mile area,” Maltby wrote in an e-mail from his Gulf of Mexico station. “It’s very sad to see the amount of oil in the water. At night you can see the glow from the drill rigs burning off the gas from the drillings.”

 Rick Wright can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 237 or news@inthesentry.com.