Coming Soon: 4th Oceanic Blog-A-Thon!

World Oceans Day is only 2 weeks away! June 8th is just around the corner! :o)

So I guess it's time for another reminder about the Oceanic Blog-A-Thon (4th edition already?!) and instructions for participating!

The Oceanic Blog-A-Thon is an annual (as long as I can keep it going!) blogging marathon in honour of World Oceans Day. It's a moment to stop and to celebrate and share our love and respect and gratitude for the 80% of our planet that is covered by water: our seas and oceans. It's a moment to try and help increase awareness in the people around us, help them realise how important our oceans are to us, either on a personal level, or for scientific/ecological reasons. We get together to share fond memories of the seas, beaches, coastal holidays. We teach/learn something about a special oceanic environment or critter or plant. We remember how the oceans have inspired us at some point in our lives...

This year I won't be hosting the Oceanic Blog-A-Thon on the same day as WOD because on June 8th I'll be on a sailboat in the Greek Isles celebrating my parents' 40th Anniversary, without an internet connection! So the Blog-A-Thon will take place over the following weekend: June 9th (starting as soon as I get home from the airport) and 10th. To participate all you need to do is write an ocean-related post on your blog, whatever inspires you! Post it anytime around World Oceans Day (June 8th) or that same weekend, and then either e-mail me the link at crazycrisb AT ymail DOT com (trying to avoid robotic spam trolls) or just leave a comment here (or on the blogathon page when it's up) with the link. As in previous years I'll visit each of your posts and write a little introduction and link up to it on the main Oceanic Blog-A-Thon post here so everyone else will be able to go read your post on your blog.

The link at the top of this post sends you to more info and things you could do for WOD. You can visit the previous editions of the Oceanic Blog-A-Thon by clicking: 2011 - 2010 - 2009.

I hope you've got your creative aquatic juices flowing! I've pretty much figured out what I'm going to write on both my blogs... now I just need to squeeze out the time this week in between preparing and teaching my classes and preparing for the trip so I can have them written and scheduled to post automatically on WOD! Will be a challenge! :p  Can't wait to see what you guys have up your sleeves this year! :o)

Please help me get the word out about this event! Tell your own readers about it (use the photo above), they might want to join in the fishy fun! Let's see how many participants we can get this year... ;o)

To Beach Or Not To Beach?

Yesterday was my first visit to the beach this year (I'm not counting my first dive 2 weeks ago, wearing a neoprene suit is a bit cheating), thanks to my sister being home for the week (to celebrate her 30th bday!) with some friends from the UK and Canada. Can't come to Alicante for a week and not go to the beach!

Gorgeous day at the Playa de San Juan. Lots of sun, a light breeze, a flat Mediterranean. But the question is...

The Iron Throne is MINE!

Wear Blue Tell Twosday!

Only one month left 'till World Oceans Day! have you been thinking about what you're going to write for the Oceanic Blog-A-Thon? ;o)

It's strange that with a planet 3/4 covered by water we seem to pay a lot more attention to what happens on land than we do in the sea. Although perhaps it's not that strange seeing as how we have lungs instead of gills and live on land... Whether or not they agree on Climate Change (and rationally I don't understand how one couldn't agree on that!), you can be pretty sure almost everyone is aware of the situation / debate. At the very least the name rings a bell. Ditto deforestation problems in the Amazon and other tropical forests. Problems with wetlands.

Sadly very few people seem to be aware of the very serious problems our Oceans are facing day after day! These include rising sea temperatures (global warming), overfishing (which not only reduces some fish species to unsustainable population levels, it can modify the balance in complex ocean food webs), habitat destruction, acidification and pollution. Just one of these would be a severe problem... their combined effect is even worse and threatens extinction for many aquatic species, starting with anything living in a coral reef! ;o(

So it's time to take action! Do something to help protect our oceans! At the very least we need to get the word out, increase public awareness as to how vital the oceans are for our survival on this planet! It's time to start Wearing Blue and Telling Two again. For more information on the Main Factors Destroying Ocean Health (and possible solutions!), check out the State of the Ocean website.

 Finally, I wanted to embed another adorable video announcing World Oceans Day... but can't seem to make it work! So just go see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1mq9HiCwHE&feature=youtu.be

 

I sure hope I'll be seeing many of you here for the Oceanic Blog-A-Thon on the weekend of June 9th and 10th! :o)

Mother's Day Walk

Yesterday was Mother's Day here in Spain, and as usual my dad sent my sisters and me an e-mail reminding us of the date a few days before. Why the reminder? Well, as I'm sure you will have noticed when I said yesterday, it's probably not the same day you guys celebrate Mother's Day! I think it's on a different day in every single country I've lived in!!! When we were in Mexico it was May 10th (always), in the U.S. the 2nd Sunday in May... and I needed a reminder of that because my last year of high school and first two years of college I was in a different country (Mexico then Spain)! In Spain it's the 1st Sunday in May. Then when I moved to Belgium it was back to the 2nd Sunday... but my mom was in Spain so for her it was a week earlier! Plus I got confused with publicity on French TV channels (which we got in Belgium) because in France it's the last Sunday in May! My parents visited my sister in England the 2nd weekend of March... lucky coincidence turned out that Sunday was Mother's Day there! And I have absolutely no idea when Mother's Day is in New Zealand where my other sister lives! :p  All this is very confusing!

Anyhow I showed up at my parents' place with a new trio of orchids (one for each daughter).

Then we hopped in the car to go do a bit of exploring in the back country (i.e. my hiking haunts!). I chose I place I'd been curious about for a while now, only 1/2h from Alicante: an artificial reservoir with a damn built in the early 17th century! I'd been told the Pantano de Tibi is a beautiful place and the walking is easy (my mom has several frustrating health problems which don't let her do all the crazy hiking she used to love, has to take it easier now).

Movie Madness: The Avengers rule!

In one word:

AWESOME!!!

Some random thoughts (because I'm still a bit tired from my crazy weekend in Germany and Luxembourg and can't seem to get my brain to function rationally, and I really wanted to get this out before it hit the screens in the US):

Monthly Movies: April'12

April... an odd month with a few movies I'm kind of scared about confessing in public that I actually went to see them! :p