World Ocean's Day is only a month away!

OMG! How did I let so much time pass before reminding you guys about World Oceans Day?! In my mind I was going to do this monthly reminder with photos and videos starting in January... but I've been so busy I never got around to it! :o(

So listen up people (for those who don't already know):

JUNE 8th IS WORLD OCEANS DAY!!!

Yup, it's an official (UN-declared) day dedicated to our Seas and Oceans! Considering our planet is 80% covered by water it seems fitting the Oceans should get at least one day a year for themselves!

Oceanic Blog-A-Thon 2012

Welcome, welcome, welcome! 

It's time for our World Oceans Day annual get-together of bloggers who care about our seas and oceans and want to help protect them and increase awareness about how important they are, whether on a personal level or an environmental or scientific one. It's time for the 4th annual

OCEANIC BLOG-A-THON!

 

4th edition already?! How time flies! Seems like just yesterday I learnt about World Oceans Day and was wondering what I could do to honour it... and so many wonderful people joined in the fun for the past three editions with some fabulous posts, I can't wait to see what you guys have prepared this year! My post probably won't be up until tomorrow because I'm presently sleep-deprived and exhausted from all day travelling home from Greece... and in desperate need of a REAL shower! A week on a sailboat with just minimum water showers... fun but... ;o)

from World Atlas.com

Speaking of Greece, how about a few Oceanic Facts about the Aegean Sea to kick off this year's edition? 

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)

Live stranding and rescue of 30 dolphins on a Brazilian beach!

Have you heard about this???

From the YouTube page: "About 30 Dolphins stranded and saved by local people at Arraial do Cabo (Brazil) in the morning at 8:00 AM on March 5th 2012."

WOW!

Playing with Trash to Keep the Oceans Clean!

You remember me talking about that beach clean I helped organise here in Alicante, as a part of an environmental initiative hosted by the Volvo Ocean Race (story about the Volvo in Alicante here)? I hinted at there being another reason behind the trash collection than just cleaning up the beach... that the trash had a "higher purpose"! Well, it's time (way past it if you ask me! :p) to reveal said purpose: ART!

"Huh? ART??? In the same sentence as TRASH???  Whaaaaaaat???"

I hear you! But let me explain! There's this group of crazy artist surfer dudes who wanted to do something more for the marine environment that is pretty much their home, so they travel around the world collecting trash that the ocean has dumped back on our beaches (or directly abandoned there by man). With this trash they put together some pretty amazing sculptures (which I will share with you in another post) and show them in exhibits in the hopes of raising awareness for the problem of all that damn trash that's floating around in our oceans. Their name: Skeleton Sea. And they're collaborating with the Volvo Ocean Race this year on a project called Keep The Oceans Clean! At each race stopover port they'll organise a beach clean, then with the trash collected (and more "quality" rubbish previously collect elsewhere) they'll organise a series of workshops during which they will create a sculpture with the help of the local population. And Alicante was their first spot! It's a good thing they did bring all that extra beach rubbish with them, because although we picked up a lot of junk during our beach clean up, most of it wasn't "quality" trash, not of much use for the sculpture...




Not much you can do with cigarette butts and lollipop sticks, huh?

Marine Debris and Seal Entanglement

Before I bring back to life series of posts like Fishy Fridays, Page vs Screen, or Come Dive With Me, I've got to finish up with a couple of posts I had prepared just before the holidays and which I didn't have time to work on because of all the Christmas blogging and holiday activities! :p

I'm hoping you remember a few posts I wrote back in October (so long ago, how time flies!) about cleaning up local beaches, particularly the one organized by the Volvo Ocean Race and Skeleton Sea which was to be linked with a workshop centered on creating art from the marine debris... The second part of that post is coming soon (playing with trash!), but first I wanted to share this video with you about how marine debris can inflict harm on Stellar Sea Lions in Alaska. I hope you have 10' to watch it. It's interesting, sadly quite informative about this problem and does offer a few simple suggestions of things we can do to help, even if we don't live on the coast! (for example cutting loops... soft drink / beer six packs anyone?)

And let me launch the first reminder: World Oceans Day is only 5 months away!!! (June 8th) ;o)

Keep the Oceans Clean! starting with Alicante's Postiguet Beach

For the past month or so I've been helping out as a local contact to organise a beach clean here on Alicante's main beach, the Postiguet, and yesterday was the big day! The event was part of an initiative called Keep The Oceans Clean!, a global environmental campaign organised by the Volvo Ocean Race and a group of artists (who happen to be surfers) called Skeleton Sea. The purpose of this programme is to raise awareness of the problems posed by the long-life trash floating around in our oceans, piling up on our beaches...  A beach clean will be organised in each of the 10 stop-overs of this incredible round-the-world race, hoping to get as much local participation as possible, starting here in Alicante!

Underwater Clean Up in Santa Pola

Well that was interesting! And EXHAUSTING!!! A couple of hours in the sun, on the boat or in the water, are always tiring. Add the trash collecting and no wonder I'm so dead!

I got up at very early o'clock this morning, and zipped along the coast to the other end of the Alicante Bay to Santa Pola, to join in the 1st annual clean up organised by ANTHIAS, the dive club I've been going out with this summer, for "Clean Up Your World Day". 10 conscientious divers answered the call. We got our equipment ready as quickly as possible, piled it in the boat, and got the general instructions for the day's work.

 Our target:

the breakwater protecting Santa Pola's harbour, favourite haunt of local amateur fishermen.

The A-Team gets geared up to start on the first section:

They're off!

Those of us on the boat (B-Team) watch them bobbing up and down between the seabed and the surface, while the fishermen look on wondering what these crazy people are up to.

While filling up several trash bags with cans, juice boxes, plastic bags (by far the big winner), fishing lines, our friends occasionally bring us back some of the most random objects, way to big to fit in a bag!

abandoned fishing gear never really stops fishing! :s

du-dun, du-dun... (cue Jaws theme)

it was a plastic barnacle-covered table top!

would anyone like half a chair?

Halfway down the line we switch places. A comes up for some sun, B jumps in the water!

Main problem with this clean up? Crappy visibility!!!

Can't see much, can you? The bottom is all silt, so it finds itself easily in suspension in the water column (one good kick with the flippers and you're blind!). You have to get really close to things to be able to see them at all...

Quite disturbing!!!

Even looking up it's hard to make out the boat!

While we were doing our watery part, a few others worked along the rocks, braving the wrath of the fishermen who didn't like being interrupted, but who couldn't be bothered to clean up after themselves! grrrr....

I don't know what the final tally is, but we brought up a lot of shit! Hopefully next year more people will join in.

And now I'm turning in early... have to get up at bloody early o'clock again to go hiking! I must be crazy... :p

Time to Clean Up The World

Did you know that the 3rd weekend in September is "Clean Up The World" weekend? In other words... last weekend and we just missed it! Or did we? Did any of you know about it?

Anthias, the dive club I've been going out with this summer sure did! They're combining that with Project Aware's Dive Against Debris programme, and they've organised a Mediterranean clean-up day for tomorrow! 

Project Aware's objectives:

"Dive Against Debris combines underwater cleanups with critical data collection that helps address marine debris problems at their source. The data we collect will present a compelling 360-degree view of debris issues and will help initiate policy change to prevent debris in the future."

"If we’re going to help change waste management policies, we need underwater data that paints a true picture of debris issues beneath the surface. We hope you - the dive leaders, volunteers and citizen scientists - will join a growing movement of scuba divers in 180 countries collecting and reporting the underwater trash you find to help protect the ocean against the onslaught of marine debris."

Marine debris is basically our everyday trash that ends up floating around or sinking in the oceans. Don't think it's just the responsibility of coastal dwellers! Trash travels over land (think of how far the wind can blow stuff!), down rivers and storm drains... you've heard of the water cycle, right? It all ends up back in the ocean! And once there it can drift anywhere around the world because it's really all just one big ocean thanks to the massive oceanic currents. This ends up being a problem for many animals (particularly sea birds, turtles...) who confuse the rubbish for food, for certain delicate environments (like coral reefs) and even humans who find their favourite once pristine beaches just covered in the trash the tide washed in! 

Who better than divers to appreciate this problem? We spend as many hours as we can lost in the beauty and wonders of the underwater world, and although we may on occasion make a joke out of it ('cause we usually have a great sense of humor!),

Don't Drink and Dive kids!

it saddens us to see things like this in the sea:

plastic bag floating beneath the sea's surface

This isn't  a problem that's going to be solved (or even cleaned up) with just one day's actions. It's going to take regular work and a daily effort from all of us to keep our oceans and planet clean! I'm going to be pitching in tomorrow, why don't you see if you can do something about it this weekend too? It's never too late to start, right? ;o)

And for the divers out there, here's a great Self-Study guide for collecting (and reporting) trash on your own while you're out diving. ;o)