BP announced yesterday it would give net profits from the oil being pumped from Deepwater Horizon to Gulf Coast wildlife. Since they say they’ve already spent a billion dollars on the cleanup I’m wondering if they really expect to have a net profit from the well. Seems like a blatantly stupid way to make themselves look good. Seriously, BP. And if they simply calculate just expense on this particular well it’s a fair bet that the 45 days it took them to design something that is half-way working to capture the oil was pretty darned expensive. Hmmmm….hmmmmm???

Today is World Ocean Day and my dive agency, PADI, is asking people to be aware that sharks are becoming more and more scarce. When the shark population crashes, everything under it will crash due to the balance sharks create in our waters. I tried explaining that to a man and his family who had caught a shark and left it to die on the beach. My environmental lesson didn’t help the shark. I walked back by later and found it rolling in the water. They had tossed it like garbage into the water.

Sometimes its difficult to stay hopeful, to stay positive with the environmental catastrophe happening in the Gulf. Yet I know nature is resilient and much more intelligent than humans. An example….Monsanto engineered seeds that were resistant to Roundup so fields could be sprayed with Roundup to kill weeds but not the crop. Now, weeds have evolved to the point where Roundup is no longer working. The solution? Go back to more toxic sprays, more genetically engineered seeds…at least for some farmers. Others are going organic. Those who realize nature will outsmart us are learning to work with nature, not against it.

Slowly, seemingly at a snail’s pace, we are learning that nature is more powerful than we are and the only way to preserve any quality of life for ourselves and wildlife on the planet is to work with earth’s energies…the plants, ocean, wind…sunlight. If we make a friend of nature we can all thrive. To pit ourselves against it is a death sentence.

At 2.30am I was dreaming about blobs of thick, oozing oil on the white sand with the sound of helicopters flying overhead. I awakened with the phrase, “BP needs a piece of equipment large enough to hold the oil it is bringing to the surface but it will take two weeks to arrive from the North Sea.” I awakened with this statement echoing in my mind and couldn’t get back to sleep.

Can anyone help me understand how Buffoon Petroleum can be so short sighted? It is one bit of stupidity after another and frankly I don’t understand how they operate, seeing that they are the 5th or 6th biggest oil company in the world. And we trust our waters to these nut-jobs?

Okay…enough of the sleep-deprived rant. Now….before federal waters in the Pensacola area were closed a couple of guys were out scuba diving and one came up through a plume (remember those things BP says do not exist?) of oil 60 feet under the surface. He was coated in oil. Did you hear that from the media? Also, before the federal waters were closed a charter boat was snapper fishing and oil came up on their line and the snapper, caught at about 100 feet of depth, were coated in oil. This was reported on CNN.

Friends of mine have neighbors in Pensacola that are captains for oil rig vessels. The guy worked for Transocean until he resigned in December because he thought they didn’t have their stuff together. Coupled with BP, who are known to have safety violations in the past that caused accidents and deaths and Haliburton (I am intentionally leaving out the part of Satan’s spawn owning Haliburton because it might be too harsh) who is owned by one less-than-trustworthy person, are we really surprised that we have the scale of disaster in the Gulf of Mexico? We as a nation must stand up and demand accountability starting with ourselves, our governments and these sleeze-ball corporations who rape and pillage our earth while we stand by with dazed stares.

I like to focus my comments on what I experience while on the beaches but my nightmares prompted this commentary. Rather than seascapes I bring dreamscapes–nightmares– to the blog today. And this comes from the grief I am feeling which I describe this way: If I take all the sadness and grief I’ve ever felt in this lifetime about friends and family dying and multiply that by 100, it begins to describe my feelings. I can only touch small bits at a time and breath through it.

I’m not sure I need to write anything as the picture of the shell pretty much says it all. Is this how Shell Oil got it’s name?

The Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge STILL HAS NOT BEEN CLEANED from three days ago when I reported it. To find out I had to park in a trail parking lot (the beach parking lot was closed due to cleanup activity) and hike through sweltering dunes to the beach. After about 3 miles…1.5 through the relic dunes and then another 1.5 on the beach, I saw a few of Clean Harbors employees working IN FRONT OF THE FEW HO– USES at the refuge. NOTHING….NOTHING had been done in the refuge itself. When I exited the relic dunes and came over the primary dune line the sight was horrific. Huge pools of oil far down from where the pittance of Clean Harbor crew was working. By the way, Clean Harbor is a company from California. Glad that’s close to the Gulf Coast…wouldn’t wanna hire folks not from here. (you can check out my video from June 6th on youtube.com….search under simonelipscomb — no space). And they are the worst of the cleanup crews I have witnessed ‘working’ along the coast. BP–you are wastin’ your money on them.

At Gulf State Park, there was a sign posted clearly stating it is unsafe to swim in the water. I walked down the beach to the condos and people were swimming in the water there. I asked two women if they weren’t concerned and did their condo tell them about the danger of swimming in the Gulf. They said they were only there for a week so didn’t think just a week would kill them. I told them I hoped they were right.

Or what about the kids and families in the water….is anybody paying attention to the signs, the warnings? Have they not looked around them at the oil-soaked seaweed or jumped over cow-pattie sized oil melts to get to the water?
Where is this child’s parents? Do they know how to read?

I met a couple walking on the beach. He saw all my cameras and gear and walked over…he said, Is there oil on the beach? I said, Yes. See those blobs of brown melting to black? He says, Oh…so that’s what was on my feet when I came in the condo last night. I would argue that his University of Alabama hat predicted the behavior but nobody in his condo warned him of the oil-soaked beach. Are the condo owners/managers willing to risk people’s health to boost the economy? And why are they allowing the beaches to remain open to swimming? If people cannot act to protect themselves, then somebody must.
I used to like chocolate. Now I’m not so sure. But one thing I am sure of…it IS truly the end of the world as we know it. And it’s just the tip of the proverbial iceburg here in Alabama, of that I am sure.

For the past several weeks the threat of oil washing ashore on the Alabama coast was not a reality so many folks here, myself included, began to wish it away. I think we were thinking that by some magical blessing we would be spared…that skimmers would sop it up before it entered Mobile Bay or coated the beaches and marsh grass here. We were in denial–a stage of grief.

During the past few days the reality of what these sacred shores is about to experience slapped us hard in the face. The photos from Louisiana are horrifying but could that really happen here?

Yesterday while walking along the beach I met and talked with several people who appeared to be in various stages of grief. Some looked dazed while other just stood and stared into the Gulf. For people living here, the Gulf of Mexico is a mother, a nurturer and provider. Those of us that grew up here love this body of water and the waters connected to it with deep passion.

I watched a child building a sand castle at the edge of the washed-up oil. If only his sand castle would keep the oil out of his kingdom. If only it was that simple.

At the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge oil oozed into ghost crab holes, the summer sun turning globs of oil into rivers of death. I stood in horror, knowing these delicate crabs were being poisoned and there was nothing I could do but witness and later share what I saw with others.

Later in the afternoon a furious thunderstorm drove everyone off the beach. As the sky popped pink and thunder crashed, it felt as if all of nature was thundering a collective NO!! I sat in silence under the shelter at Gulf State Park pier gazing over the huge expanse of the Gulf and was moved beyond grief to an emotion I have never known before. I felt the immensity of this mighty water and the bottomless pit of grief within me. An ocean of sadness seemed to pour from the skies, a collective agony of all creatures, all nature energies and all humans. The Gulf appeared angry and furious which only magnified my emotions.

Let us all say to the Gulf–we are sorry for allowing you to be raped and exploited. What can we do to help you, to make this right?