Tag: OCEAN

Moving from Apathy to Action

Moving from Apathy to Action

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As I was enjoying a quiet breakfast I picked up my latest copy of Dive Training magazine and started reading a story about marine species that are headed for extinction and how they got that way. Not light reading, especially while attempting digestion.

It’s much easier to set aside articles such as this and watch squirrels frolic on the deck or watch my ginger cat friend play. However, when the Deepwater Horizon exploded I knew I could no longer be an armchair activist and so for the last year and a half I have forced myself to pay attention to articles and other information that helps me understand what is happening on our water planet and why.

Meet the Goliath grouper. This amazing fish can reach 800 pounds and grow to eight feet in length. They were found along Atlantic and Gulf coasts of Florida, the Caribbean and down the coast of Brazil. Their population decreased 80% in ten years. Two reasons are cited for their decline. First, channelization of the Everglades. Baby Goliath’s live in mangroves and when channels are created to drain the swamps and wetlands, the home for juveniles disappear. The second reason has to do with reproduction habits. During their annual spawning more than 100 would gather in key places. Since they are so big they were easy to see and catch. Dive Training writes that over one quarter of their spawning sites have been fished out and many have fewer than 10 fish left to gather.

When I read this my bowl of yogurt, cashews and apples almost became a projectile. I am so angry and saddened by continued reports of countless issues where humans take and take and take resources and repayment comes in the form of toxic wastes and by-products of a consumer-based society where human selfishness is elevated to new heights on a daily basis it seems. I took a few breaths and continued reading. Thanks to wildlife biologists and laws, change is occurring. Some aggregations have doubled in size. Recovery will be slow but it is beginning.

There are humans that give back and have love and compassion for our planet and all of it’s inhabitants.

I have had amazing underwater experiences as a diver and one was with a Goliath grouper I met in Key Largo, Florida. Here’s what I wrote about him in my photography book, Place of Spirit. “Goliath in size, the grouper is strangely engaging. He approaches me, flares his gills, and rattles his gill plates. I am not certain if it is a sign of affection or a prelude to aggression. His spirit and energy match his physical size and dwarf me in comparison. His small, beady eyes intimidate me as I swim to another part of the wreck. How could this reef-dweller find me worth of investigation? When his attention turns to another diver, there is no sorrow for I feel exposed, as if he sees beyond my mask to a place where spirit dwells. Even with my discomfort, I am grateful this deacon of the deep makes contact.”

Part of my personal commitment to taking action is to educate and immerse myself in saltwater environments to learn and commune with these sacred places and the animals that live there. And then to share what I learn with others in order to stir people to appreciate and love our natural world. If love and respect for the planet can be cultivated within humanity, we can make a positive difference.

What are you willing to do to help create love, appreciation and respect for Earth and all beings that live here?

To order my book, Place of Spirit, or other books I have written, please visit my website Turtle Island Adventures.

Dance of the Dolphins

Dance of the Dolphins

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Paddling my SUP board on Mobile Bay and Weeks Bay this morning was a fantastic two hours of saltwater delight. The water was calm, the sunrise soft and inviting and I had two hours of dolphin bliss. And people wonder why I’m moving back to this place–this sacred, holy place.

I started in Mobile Bay and paddled through the pass at Weeks Bay. As I was making my way up the bay, I heard a HUGE splash. I turned around and saw fast-moving rings of water moving away from a large bottlenose dolphin. Another joined him and swam along side my board. Of course, I greeted them, said good morning, sang to them and laughed at their antics. In their hunting they turned head-down and their tales stuck up out of the water as they feasted. Dolphin tales, large sighs of air coming from their blowhole, calm water…what else could I ask for?

I paddled about 20 minutes with them as they fed and finally turned and paddled back towards the mouth of the bay. As I neared the pass, I saw misty blows backlit by the sunrise as a larger pod swam across the bay. How could I possibly resist another encounter? So I paddled back up the bay at an angle to intersect this larger group.

There were seven or eight in this group and one leaped out of the water right beside me, close enough to splash my board. There was one baby but the rest were adults. More feeding, more tails all around me, more cruises beside me. So elated was I, I about levitated off the board. I knew the meaning of joy on a visceral level.

After another 30 minutes of watching dolphin dance in the brackish water, I paddled back down the bay, through the pass and on to mom’s beach. My day was so blessed, so totally made awesome by these brothers and sisters of the sea.

After cleaning up and having my breakfast, I read where four dolphins had washed up in Alabama during the past week. The dead cetaceans consisted of a pregnant female and unborn baby, and a mother and baby. The mysterious dolphin deaths continue, all the more reason I am grateful for healthy dolphins frolicking and feeding.

If you pray, please say a prayer for all wildlife on the Gulf Coast. We’re still dealing with a LOT of unknowns from the oil spill. And while you’re at it, please say a prayer for the people here as well.

To order my books on nature, please visit my website, Turtle Island Adventures. You’ll find a children’s book on the oil spill, a photography book of images from many beautiful places in nature along with prayerful descriptions and a book of essays on the relationship between humans and nature, full of funny and inspirational stories.

P.S. These are stock image photographs. I was too busy communing to take photos. Sometimes the best photographs are those I never take.

City of Gulf Shores Allows BP Protestors at National Shrimp Festival

City of Gulf Shores Allows BP Protestors at National Shrimp Festival

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It took an attorney volunteering to help this group of concerned citizens get a permit to peacefully, non-violently gather at the National Shrimp Festival, but Gulf Shores finally gave permission, after turning the group down twice. The attorney pointed out to the city that they have a constitutional right to peacefully assemble. Legalities….

So if you happen to be at the National Shrimp Festival at Gulf Shores, AL please be sure to check out Lifeguard Stand #2 and learn more about what’s REALLY happening to the Gulf of Mexico, its beaches and wildlife. Those slick BP ads are simply not giving both sides of the story.

Pelicans, Turnstones, Monarchs and Masses of Fish

Pelicans, Turnstones, Monarchs and Masses of Fish

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There was quite a gathering of wildlife this morning at Ft. Morgan Beach. Just offshore from the point of land where Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico meet, more than 300 pelicans gathered as large schools of fish swam in the shallows. Snowy egrets, gulls, terns, turnstones, sanderlings, and humans fishing, made for quite a beautiful experience at the beach.

So many pelicans were dive-bombing fish schools that it appeared to be a tangle of wings, feathers and pouches as they feasted. Monarch butterflies were launching from the beach probably hoping to ride the north wind to Mexico. I don’t know how they dodged the mass of brown feathers and webbed feet whirling through the sky but they did. I watched as they fluttered furiously, miraculously missing what I thought was certain dunking from ravenous birds.

About 85% of the mass of pelicans was first-year birds. Very few adults were present. It was Fishing 101 for young pelicans.

Other shorebirds in attendance didn’t get in the way of the pouched-wonders. Sandwich and royal terns, laughing gulls, great blue herons, snowy egrets and ruddy turnstones all enjoyed the buffet but stayed carefully out of the way of the mass of large birds.

One of the humans present threw out a cast net and completely filled it with fish. So many that he couldn’t bring the net to the beach. I’m not sure what was the cause but something was creating this mass of fish in shallow waters. But birds and humans weren’t the only ones enjoying it. Several bottlenose dolphin arrived to claim their fare share.

I sat quietly on the beach, photographing in amazement. I finally stopped and just watched, witnessed the unique experience. It was great seeing so many pelicans and fish and I truly hope that chemical exposure from the oil spill won’t kill future generations as it moves through the DNA. We don’t know what the future holds really. But for today, I enjoyed the absolute beauty of this beach and its lively residents.

What Spill?

What Spill?

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“That’s just not the kind of thing we want to carry,” said the manager at the gift shop at a local chain of restaurants in the Gulf Shores, Alabama area. She was referring to my illustrated kid’s book, The Gulf Oil Spill Story. Kids love it, school librarians and teachers do as well. So what’s with this manager? I read between the lines—we don’t carry oil-spill related anything—but thought perhaps I was exaggerating.

Gulf Shores hosts the National Shrimp Festival each year. This year a group of environmentally aware and concerned citizens want to march in the parade to show support of the Gulf and to let people know that the oil spill is still a serious concern here. The City of Gulf Shores is DENYING THEM A PERMIT. How can they do that? These are not violent people. They simply want others to know and remember what continues to happen to the environment here and stop pretending like the largest oil spill in US History didn’t happen here.

The Grand Festival of Arts and Books was in Fairhope, Alabama. The book portion was sponsored by Page and Palette, a local bookstore who is heavily involved in the community. They invited me to participate in their celebration of locally-authored children’s books. Page and Palette and the staff there are educating, informing and encouraging people to be aware of what’s happening in their community by inviting authors that share environmental messages with kids.

I understand that merchants do not want tourists to have images like this in mind when planning vacations. I know they want to increase revenue and make more money every year. That’s how our economy functions in the take-as-much-as-you-can-get-at-any-cost economy. Is it too much to expect from business owners to also have a conscience? To care about telling the truth? To actually use an event like the spill to educate their customers?

I have a friend in Gulf Shores. Eydie and her husband own <em>Printing Zone and have my books for sale in their shop. She has been dedicated to helping get my work into the community and school there. She’s standing up for the beautiful environment because of her love of nature and her concern. My childhood friend, Leslie Flowers, has my books for sale in her hair salon in Magnolia Springs. She cares, too.

It’s people like Eydie and Leslie and businesses like Printing Zone and Page and Palette that make a difference in the world. Teachers that care, librarians that care…you all are my heros! Writers like me and other independent writers depend on compassionate, caring, environmentally responsible and aware businesses, schools and individuals to help get the Work out into the world.

I’m weary of mayors, tourism boards and businesses here on the Gulf Coast who fear the truth, who think that if tourists know the truth they’ll stop coming here and who are working diligently to deny that the oil spill ever happened. These are the same officials who last year refused to close beaches, where children were routinely playing in crude oil, because as the Orange Beach mayor stated, “There’s no law against stupid.”

I envision there being room for profit and truth. What about you?

To order my children’s book on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill that happened on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida please visit my web site OR buy it locally at Printing Zone, Page and Palette or Magnolia Hair Center.

© Simone Lipscomb 2024