About OCEAN
OCEAN Writing Contest
OCEAN Photography Contest
Contributors Guidelines
Advertisers & Retailers
OCEAN Associates
Today
|
| | |
|
OCEAN Magazine Summer 2010, Issue 27
But Mainly We Surfed
by Jeff Beyl
Flowing Along the Currents
by Diane Buccheri
Silver Shimmer
by John Stuart Reid
DNA Music from the Ocean
by Diane Buccheri with Stuart Mitchell
Resonance
by Diane Buccheri
The Tidal Line
by Nancy Dickeman
Catch of the Day
by Tom Sheehan
Glacial Harmony
by John Thomas Clark
His Blue Eyes Upon the Horizon
by Diane Buccheri
Adelita: Heart of a Revolution
by Wallace J. Nichols with Andy Myers
Sea Otter Surrogate Mothers
by Joy Ehle
Lessons of the Carolinas
by Sally Charette
The Many Faces of Ireland
by Judi Getch Brodman
To the Beach . . . in January
by Melba Milak
OCEAN Writing Contest Wnner
OCEAN Photography Contest Winner
A glimpse into this issue . . .
BUT MAINLY WE SURFED
by Jeff Beyl
When I was younger, up through my teens, we lived in a house that stood on pilings out
over the sand and the ocean. We could smell the creosote of the pilings from our living
room .Waking up in the morning I could tell from the sound of the ocean what the
waves were like and whether or not it would be worth ditching school to go surfing. I
couldn’t see the water from where I lay, my bedroom being on the highway side of the
house. But I could feel it vibrating through the sand, up the pilings, through the
floorboards of the house, into my mattress and into me. If the ocean crashed and
rumbled it meant the waves were closing out. If I could feel the heavy vibrating bump
of the surf against the pilings of our house it meant the tide was too high and the waves
would be breaking too close to shore, unrideable. But if I could feel the pulse of the
break, then hear the longer hissing roll, it meant that the peaks were holding up,
perhaps there was an offshore wind, and the waves were breaking long and smooth.
That decided it. There would be no school today.
I grew up in Malibu from the mid- and late sixties through the early eighties. We surfed.
That’s mainly what we did. We did other things too. We snorkeled, we played beach
volleyball, We threw Frisbees. We listened to rock and roll music. We had great driftwood
bonfires in the evenings. We looked at girls. But mainly we surfed. I wanted to study
oceanography when I grew up. I figured missing school to go surfing was almost like
still going to school. I was spending time in the ocean after all. Didn’t that count? An
oceanographer should spend time in the ocean. It was the ocean that mattered. Our
lives centered on it and in it.
Read
the Full Story
DNA Music from the Ocean
by Diane Buccheri with Stuart Mitchell
With cell phones, computers, Blackberries, iPods, Kindles, iPads, satellite
navigation systems, radios, televisions, landline telephones, radar and
microwave towers, power lines, hydrophones –– all things powered with
electricity –– we radiate unnatural waves of energy creating vibration
and sound, through our atmosphere, onto the earth’s surface, into the
ocean. Massive amounts, with 6.5 billion people on earth, many of whom
use these electric technologies all day into the night, with many of them
never turned off or unplugged. And with day being night some place
and night being day another, we continually emit waves of unnatural
energy.
In a time when we are possibly drowning out the fish, waterfowl, and ocean mammals’ means of survival, Stuart Mitchell is peering deep within, listening. From their depths, from the depth of
ancestry and the span of their species, he creates beauty. And he reveals their beauty to us, their biological song that mingles with our non-stop chaos of electrical waves. In a time that we nearly
spin ourselves into frantic activity, and live mostly unaware that it is Nature that governs us, he brings to us the ancient songs of Nature.
Read the Full Article
Music of Stuart Mitchell
HIS BLUE EYES UPON THE HORIZON
by Diane Buccheri
“You could not not fish because that’s how you lived,” the fisherman looked me in the eye.
Just past toddling on his young, clumsy legs, he trailed behind his father along the docks, among the men from their
island. They fished for a living.
During dawn every morning they rise, slide on their oil clothes, step into their boots while scanning the horizon, watching
the sky and wind, tide and currents, and head out to the horizon. There, they pull in nets, grab each fish, sort and toss the
desirable ones into baskets. The rest they throw back, back to the ocean, to the gulls and pelicans who gather for their
easy breakfast while others swim away.
From the fish house their fish goes to markets near and far in all directions.
At home their families eat fish daily, and for all special occasions –– baked, fried, sautéed, broiled, grilled, stuffed, in
soups and salads.
Long ago, their grandfathers and theirs too, rowed their boats to their nets. They traded their catch with mainlanders for
flour, sugar, tea and coffee, salt and pepper, for clothing.
And there were always fish, plenty. The ocean always provided.
Then came technology.
Read
the Full Story
SEA OTTER SURROGATE MOTHERS
by Joy Ehle
All day and night a roaring gale blasts heavy spray into a tumbling sea. Floating in the trough between the great waves
that has disappeared. A mother that, if still alive, is probably frantic to find her pup.
The pup’s thick coat of baby fur retains so much air it makes her too buoyant to dive for food. It will be at least 8 more
weeks before it is replaced by adult fur. Sea otter fur is the most dense animal fur on earth. The pup is too small to swim
against the strong currents of the incoming tide and like a floating cork she is at the mercy of the sea –– a sea that deposits
this little ball of exhausted fur on the beach along with blades of kelp, empty shells, and other treasures. The little pup teeters
between sleep and wakefulness by the edge of water where waves push bubbles across the sand.
Read the Full Article
Photograph © Chuck Graham, www.chuckgrahamphoto.com
THE MANY FACES OF IRELAND
by Judi Getch Brodman
From the patio, I see the flashing light in the black and white striped Old Head lighthouse, a modern
incarnation of what the Eirinn clan, for whom Ireland is named, performed so long ago: keeping the
fires burning twenty-four hours a day, warning the ships of the headland, warning off invaders. Many
invaders sailed into the bay of Old Head seeking shelter in the hidden harbor of Kinsale including the
Spanish, the French, and the English. Its location, with the ocean and wind currents to the south and
the Atlantic to the west, made Kinsale a prime territory for conquerors.
In the distance stands the Stone of Accord, the logo of Old Head Golf Links. In ancient times, this stone
was used by pre-Christians to agree upon important issues. It also was a wedding stone. Marriage
vows were exchanged for only a year. The vows were renewed every year by the couple if they chose,
each standing on one side of the stone, joining hands through the hole.
I find myself on this treacherous point, two miles out in the Atlantic Ocean. I wonder what part my
father played in this day, opening an entire chapter of Irish history to me.
Read the Full Story
Photograph © Judi Getch Brodman
ADELITA: HEART OF A REVOLUTION
by Wallace J. Nichols with Andy Myers
Excerpt from Oceans, companion book to
DisneyNature’s film Oceans, www.amazon.com
J, as he goes by, is as passionate about the entire ocean as he is about turtles and thinks we are on the verge of a new way of looking
at ocean science. His Oceanophilia theory posits that the next step towards understanding our water planet is linking neuroscience with
marine biology, emotion with science. But he still gets excited tracking sea turtles.
August 10, 1996. A few miles off the coast of dusty Baja California Peninsula, the land appears as a thin ribbon on the horizon and the wind
rips across the water unimpeded by anything but a prayer. In a small boat a handful of people is gathered around a female loggerhead
turtle. She is called Adelita after a local fisherman’s daughter, herself the namesake of the heroine of the Mexican Revolution. The team
affixes a Bible-sized box to the turtle’s brown and yellow heart-shaped shell. In the box is a satellite transmitter, one of the first ever to track
the migration of a sea turtle. It will allow them to follow her wherever she might roam for the next year or so, perhaps longer if the batteries
hold. After a wait for the slow curing resin to set, the team lowers Adelita into the water and a historic journey is on.
Read the Full Excerpt
Photograph © Dan Coyro
And so much more!
| |
| | |
|
|
|