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1. I am currently reading this book and enjoying it and learning a lot (like stuff floated from the West to Europe way pre-Columbus, and Japanese boats that got caught up in currents also made it to the West, sometimes with living people, sometimes with dead people) and recently read this one, which gives a great overview of where oceanography is today.
2. I currently live an hour away from the ocean and it is too far.
3. I grew up about 100 yards from the ocean.
4. Oceans are very cool and fragile.
5. I want to visit South Point on the Big Island, one day, in that this is one of the main collection places for any sort of debris that gets tossed or allowed into the Pacific.
1. I have been lucky enough to live very near the ocean most of my life. Sometimes it was a 10-minute drive away, and sometimes it was a few blocks' walk, for a short while when I was a kind living here.
2. I love the ocean very much and continue to make an effort to live nearby it. It is something of a religion with me. I like the beach in all seasons. I like the constantly varying sights and sounds, which even though they aren't the same day to day, are also somehow timeless year after year.
3. My favorite ocean critter is probably the elusive sand dollar.
4. One thing I don't enjoy about the ocean is when there are a lot of tiny jellyfish larvae in the water, and they cling to your skin.
5. At the beach, my favorite thing to do is wait for the big tall slow rollers and jump them.
6. I still hope to learn to surf...even after 40.
7. Ocean dumping, littering, wetlands development, oil spills...those things are bad.
You also were not around 3 million of your closest friends, as I was, I would suspect.
Not *entirely* sure what you mean there? I grew up in what is (in parts) a surf town, so for sure most of my friends hung out at the beach. But not all the time because while the beach is beautiful it is also cold (south of New Zealand... HELLO Antarctic currents). (I suspect that is a reason why they remain beautiful.) So yeah, uncrowded beaches if that's what you mean?
'pode, I grew up in LA County, hence the millions to the East of me. The largest sewage outfall in the world a few miles to the north. DDT in the ocean sediments from all of the pesticide plants there were in the past. Up in El Segundo, we used to like to surf there because of the oil tankers off shore and the oil sheen kept the water glassy.
AND, there was a small (3.0) earthquake yesterday, centered off Hermosa Beach in the ocean somewhere.
1. I used to live near the ocean. Pretty much my entire life was spent within at least a half hour drive from the beach. Or right on the Chesapeake bay.
2. Now I live in the mountains. Sometimes I miss the water.
3. It takes exactly 4 and a half hours from my house in West Asheville to standing by the Atlantic with sand between my toes on Folly Beach, SC.
4. This is a good thing.
I love the beach. It is a big part of my life. I have always lived near it. I live on the mainland but live very close to the intracoastal waterway and bridges. I was born in this beach down and will probably die here. My father was a surfer and my mom and dad met on the beach.
My favorite thing to do is sit under the umbrella and read and meditate, play with my kids in the surf, ocean kayak, and boogie board.
The thought of oil washing up on Florida beaches, or any beach, is just about the most depressing thing that has happened in my lifetime. (Not to mention oil and chemical dispersants in the actual ocean, devastating the ecosystem and killing animals and everything in its path) I fear that my children will not have the same beach that I grew up with.
Further thinking about the beach... I love the beach but I loathe the sun and very hot weather in general. My perfect beach day is at about 78deg with just enough air movement for a breeze, but not enough to move sand around. And I will be the one either in the water, or under an umbrella with my cover up, hat, and bajillion spf sunblock :)
gaspode, I'm the same way about the sun. I don't mind the heat I just don't want the rays frying my skin. That's why I usually go once or twice a week and only for a few hours at a time. It's too easy to get too much sun even if I sit under the umbrella and reapply sunblock. If I lived on the "beachside" I think I would go more often in the evenings to walk or bring a picnic.
I would get burned in the Spring, peel, and then tan for the rest of the summer. Of course, I am paying the price for that now.
We would usually go up to the house and watch TV as soon as the wind came up, around 1:30 or 2:00. It was weird to be sitting in a dark room with the TV on and see all these people walking by on the way to the beach and know they that they had to drive home all sandy and salty and sweaty and we had a nice hose in the yard that would give warm water for about 30 seconds before it got cold.
Of course, in Winter, would go out on weekends with just a t shirt as our "wetsuit," and then come in and shiver under covers and watch the Rams lose.
I wasn't in Boston long enough to even get down to Beavertail. Now I am stuck in this stupid desert until I figure out how to get my son shoehorned into adulthood.
Love love love the ocean. I grew up in SoCal usually within half an hour to an hour of the beach. My long-time dream is to have a home within walking distance of the beach. I can't tolerate a lot of sun, so it's just as well I prefer the rockier, tide pool strewn beaches here in the rainy PNW to sunny, sandy beaches. And it's been way too long since I've seen the ocean. I keep trying to get the mister to agree to a couple days on the Washington coast, but it hasn't happened yet.
Exactly, unsurprising. I wonder how common it is and if it has a name. It is a bit similar to the sudden impulse to jump when confronted with a height. I get that occasionally, and I understand that one is pretty common and innocuous.
the sudden impulse to jump when confronted with a height
This happens to me too! I thought I was nuts.
Oceans are awesome, although I get freaked out if I can't touch the bottom. And we're talking serious hyperventilation grabbing for anything nearby freak outs. Big water is scary.
Has anyone watched any episodes of the Life series? I think they're done by the same people that did Planet Earth and aired on Discovery. In either the arctic one or the sea one they filmed all these star fish on rocks under the ice and the sped up the film so you could see their movement. It was so cool.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
