The Sun Will Rise
   by Yamuna Kona

   In the Gulf
   by Diane Buccheri

   Oil
   by Diane Buccheri

   What's Next?
   by Diane Buccheri

   Surrounded
   by Roger Singer

   On Sea Sponges
   by Andrea Applebee

   Gray Whales
   by Sue Arnold

   Adelita: Heart of a Revolution, Part 2
   by Wallace J. Nichols with Andy Myers

   There's Nothing Else
   by Lauren Shapiro

   The Many Faces of Ireland, Part 2
   by Judi Getch Brodman

   Salty Acres
   by Janet Caplan

   House of Sand and Water
   by Christine Brooks

   Autumn Marsh
   by Melba Milak

   OCEAN Writing Contest Winner
   Jeannie Peace

   OCEAN Photography Contest Winner
   Jaime Rose Farreh




A glimpse into this issue . . .





  

   IN THE GULF

   written by Diane Buccheri

   photographed by Jeannie Peace


   “The awful day we were dreading is now here. Six foot bands of ugly thick oil sludge
   washed up on Pensacola Beach today. I haven’t been out to the beach because
   of the toxic smell. I can’t afford to get sick. They have also put a swimming advisory
   out. Personally, I think they should close the beach. Needless to say, I’m heartbroken.
   My dream of coming here and actually having a good life at the beach seems to
   be coming to an end. Not sure where I could go from here. I feel so dead inside.”

   This did not continue to feature in her local news, Jeannie Peace said a few days
   later during the last week of June 2010. “Everyone is concerned with keeping the
   beaches open. People just want things back to normal.”
  
   Weeks later, “At the beach, the energy of living things is gone. Dead. I felt nothing.
   No energy.”

   She also commented that the gulf has already carried a heavy burden.
  
   The United States drills 90% of its offshore oil in the Gulf of Mexico with 4,000 oil and gas
   platforms and tens of thousands of miles of pipelines. This isn’t the first oil spill in the gulf.
   According to government records, half a million or more barrels of oil and drilling fluids
   spilled before BP’s largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Oil leaks from pipelines, vessel
   traffic, and wells.


   Read the Full Article






  
  OIL

   by Diane Buccheri


   We pull it up out of the earth where it’s lain, for how long? We burn it to move the pace
   of our every day activities along faster and better. When once we lit a candle to light a
   small area of a room, we now flip a switch and light the entire room. Once we walked or
   rode by horse or sailed; now with a switch we ignite an engine and drive at 30, 40, 60 miles
   every hour and speed along the water, despite the wind and wave conditions. Once we
   stoked a fire to heat a room or cook a meal. Now we push buttons or turn a dial and we
   have heat momentarily if not instantly. We spoke in person or wrote. With a click, we
   communicate with millions all the way around the world.

   The oil which we burn every moment, is formed from decomposed organic matter, the
   preserved remains of prehistoric zooplankton and algae that settled to a sea or lake
   bottom in large quantities under anoxic conditions, conditions lacking oxygen.

   Carbon dioxide emissions from burning oil float through the air, settle onto the ground, flow
   through the waters, sink into the dirt, and lay on the plants, animals, and us. We breathe it
   into our lungs and bloodstream. It sinks deep, deep, deep, within the ocean and is stored.

   The ocean absorbs approximately half of all the carbon dioxide produced by humans and
   human technology. Although this is beneficial for our atmosphere, it is detrimental for the
   ocean’s biology and ecosystem, obvious with the slowed growth of plankton, algae, corals,
   and shell forming animals, and other invertebrates at the most basic and ecologically vital
   level of the oceanic food chain.


   Read the Full Article

 





  WHAT'S NEXT?
 
   by Diane Buccheri


   “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant
   we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.” Tony Hayward, BP’s
   chief executive, said this May 14, 2010 with oil gushing from the damaged DeepWater
   Horizon oil drilling rig since April 20.

   Oil is carried by the ocean’s wind and currents, and through the many layers of
   currents to the ocean’s bottom, depths chasms deep.

   Poisonous gases and particles from spilled crude oil are blown by wind from the ocean’s
   surface into the atmosphere, circulated around the earth, and fall back to the earth and
   ocean with rain. The toxins act pathogenically on us and every animal. Ultimately, they
   flow back into the ocean, circulate, evaporate again or sink through the columns of
   water and marine life, contaminating all the way to the ocean’s floor. Circulated through
   the Gulf Stream, these poisons could sufficiently contaminate the Atlantic Ocean to cause
   cataclysmic climate changes.

   When the oil first gushed from the ocean’s floor during spring 2010 –– the spawning fish, the
   hatchling sea turtles, the cetacean calves, the birds and zooplankton and seaweed and
   shellfish –– how many never matured, how many mature ones died?


   Read the Full Article








 







  GRAY WHALES

   by Sue Arnold, California Gray Whale Coalition
   www.californiagraywhalecoalition.org


   Miracles happen at the most unexpected moments to the most unexpected people.
   Pachico Mayoral is no exception. This Mexican fisherman’s story of his first magical
   encounter with a gray whale has lost none of its mystery and awe in spite of the fact
   it happened 36 years ago.

   But today, Mayoral’s eyes are filled with sadness as he gazes out across the tranquil
   waters of Laguna San Ignacio, one of the most important gray whale nurseries in Baja,
   California Sur.

   An eerie emptiness envelopes the laguna. Like someone removed all the children from
   a village. The gales of laughter and fun have gone, leaving an immense sense of loss.
   At a time when the laguna is usually full of tourists on the water in their small pangas,
   playing with big mama whales and their calves, the silence is overwhelming. This is the
   fourth consecutive year of low numbers of cows and calves.

   Sitting in the canvas dining tent at his camp on the edge of San Ignacio Laguna, Baja,
   Mexico, Pachico’s eyes glisten with unshed tears, a hand touching his heart as though
   in pain. He knows the gray whales are in trouble. Pachico says it’s the worst year he’s
   seen since the miracle happened all those years ago.
 
   People gather around to listen.


   Read the Full Article


   Photograph © James Michael Dorsey, www.jamesdorsey.com






  ADELITA: HEART OF A REVOLUTION, PART 2

   by Wallace J. Nichols with Andy Myers
   Excerpt from Oceans, companion book to DisneyNature’s film Oceans


   In the years since Adelita, much has changed, scientifically, environmentally, and, most
   significantly, socially. Prior to Adelita, flipper tagging was how we tracked long distance
   turtle migration. But with a metal tag all you know is point A and point B; a turtle that was
   once there, then is now here, now, nothing more. Satellite tracking, then a nascent
   technology, held great promise, but it was expensive and tricky to do in the water. Think
   of your cell phone in 1996; unwieldy to say the least. How long would the glue hold? Would
   the battery last? Can the transmitter survive in the salty sea? And sea turtles are far from
   safe out there. All these questions and more were laid to rest when Adelita reached Japan.
  
   Since Adelita we have tracked over fifty turtles along the Baja Peninsula. Today’s gear is better,
   smaller and cheaper. Methods of attachment are more reliable and analysis tools are much
   more powerful. The information provides a greater understanding of migration and lifecycle,
   ecology and behavior, as well as threats and potential solutions. The technology has
   expanded to include tiny cameras that provide a turtle-eye view and tiny transmitters injected
   to give biofeedback — body temperature, heart rate, respiration, and other valuable
   information. It is becoming standard procedure to track dive patterns and locations of
   endangered ocean wildlife, watching when, where, and how deep animals descend in
   search of food or to avoid predators. Such data is now used in real time to help fishers and
   boat captains avoid interactions with such endangered species.

  
   Read the Full Excerpt 
   Photograph Insert © David Barron

  



 

  THE MANY FACES OF IRELAND, PART 2

   by Judi Getch Brodman

  
   Leaving Kinsale, on the southern coast of Ireland, I haven’t yet found why my father dreamed
   of bringing his wife and three daughters to this island. I felt his presence at Old Head, as I always
   do by the ocean, but it’s not the coastline of Ireland that drew him here, I know that. I make my
   way up the west coast to Doolin.

   I drive further west along the southern coast of Ireland through Clonakilty (Cloich na Coillte),
   then the town of Skibbereen, heading out to the end of a tiny finger peninsula to Baltimore, a
   fishing village named after the O’Driscoll castle, Dún na Séad, meaning Fort of the Jewels. The
   road to the beacon winds past the small enclosed harbor filled with sailboats and small
   powerboats, and is surrounded by beautifully built stone walls with late blooming summer flowers
   tumbling over. Leading upward, the road turns to dirt, ending in a small parking area. The
   multilayered, multicolored cliffs drop off hundreds of feet in front of me –– steep and unprotected.
  
   A gentleman who lives nearby tells of many singles and couples who jumped to their death from
   this point. How desperate they must have been. Romeo and Juliets, lovers who can only be together
   in the next world? He directs me to a narrow, rocky, dirt trail that leads even higher.


   Read the Full Story

   Photograph © Allan Dawson



And so much more!