How many sponges do I need so I can soak up the Pacific Ocean and walk to Hawaii?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I guess you answered the question okay but you really only need to soak up enough Pacific Ocean water to create a land bridge, which would be way less than the whole ocean.

LINK TO COLUMN: How many sponges do I need so I can soak up the Pacific Ocean and walk to Hawaii? - The Straight Dope

2

Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, dopefan, we’re glad you’ve joined us. For future ref: when you start a thread, it’s helpful to other readers if you provide a link to the column in question. Saves search time (yes, it’s on the front page now, but it will shortly sink into the Archives) and helps keep us on the same page. No biggie, I’ve edited into the bottom of your post, and you’ll know for next time, and, as I say, welcome.

3

Do you have details? What would the route be? How far would the water level have to fall to create such a land bridge? Would the first land bridge you could make be useful, or would you have to soak up more water to find a more easily-traversable bridge further down?

I suspect Hawaii would lose a lot of its appeal without the surrounding Pacific Ocean, anyway.

4

Simpler answer: Seal off the sponges so they can’t fill with water and will float, then make a giant pontoon bridge out of them.

5

Or you could always just introduce a genetically-modified strain of sponge that grows unchecked and chokes off the entire ocean. The global environmental catastrophe this causes would be inconvenient, but at least Hawaii would be more readily-accessible.

6

[quote=“Bozuit, post:3, topic:693771”]

Do you have details? What would the route be? How far would the water level have to fall to create such a land bridge?

I though you could follow a ridge from Korea but there are gaps in the ridge and a deep trench blocking access. So the best way would be to walk from California. It looks like you would have to drain down to about 14,000 to 15,000 feet. Deep but a lot less than the 35,827 feet maximum Pacific Ocean depth.

7

There is always the method that the Professor and the Skipper used in the Sherlock Holmes episode of Gilligan’s Island and just walk on the bottom of the ocean.

It takes a long time, though, because, as Holmes said, you have to:

8

Unless you use the Pirates of the Caribbean trick where you turn a boat upside-down, fill it with magical non-buoyant air and walk on the seabed underneath it.